Dear colleagues, welcome to my working space
in the comfort of my home.
Despite all the circumstances we are in, I
hope you are alright. I hope your spirits
are high, and of course, I would be glad to
keep having our classes regularly. Naturally,
I do miss your eyes, your faces too, but still,
I believe we should discover all those forms
of beneficial communication so that we can
exchange ideas and hold a reasonable and pedagogical
dialogue. What I mean when I say “pedagogical”
is that we are going through a period of trial,
a period of revaluation. It is in the current
situation that each one of us shall reflect
on the aspects of their own life: the mode
of existence, the pace, etc.
Hopefully, this compulsory social isolation,
as it is referred to by those who govern this
peculiar situation, we all are in, will give
you the opportunity to read more books and
to hear high quality music from a wider range
of genres. And what I mean is not only pop
and rock music – the genres which are, undeniably,
deserving – but also some classical music,
such as symphonies, etc. This year we are
celebrating anniversary of Beethoven’s birth,
so it is a pivotal year. It is the year when
we are all listening to Beethoven’s music.
During the second semester we are to put a
stronger emphasis on novels, as we have discussed.
This is due to the fact that your final task
for our course is to write a paper on the
novel, that is to say, on the art of the novel,
based on “my novel” – the one you are
supposed to choose. And this paper should
be your lengthy, reflective paper, the one
which will allow me to grade your work adequately.
It goes without saying that we will be preparing
for this intellectual effort, for the novel
as such, by discussing a novel in every class.
This will enable us to summarize what we know
about the novel in the last classes, after
we have, very briefly of course, in very general
terms, reviewed the history of the genre.
Because it is the novel that is, ultimately,
the genre of modern times. The domineering
genre of the modern times.
Today we will discuss a novel, which turned
out to be surprisingly relevant to our time.
This is a novel that provides the opportunity
to make an analogy with the current situation
we live in, with the spread of this dreadful
virus. This is the novel The Plague by Albert
Camus. Albert Camus is a renowned French writer
from the mid-20th century. Unfortunately,
Camus dies rather early in a preposterous
crash in 1960. He was born in 1913. Camus
is a representative of the so-called existentialism.
Camus is a writer, but he is also a philosopher.
Besides, he is a prominent journalist too.
But what we will focus on is mainly The Plague.
Before that, however, I want to share several
other biographical facts about this writer.
Albert Camus was born in Algeria and his family
moved to France rather late. As we know, the
relationships between Algeria and France are
complex. Algeria used to be a French colony.
For years on end these relations were sustained
and there still are many French people in
Algeria nowadays. That is to say, Camus’s
parents were among the petty French bourgeoisie,
among those governing, in a way, the functioning
of this French colony. Therefore, Camus remains
forever connected with the fate of Algeria,
and this exquisite book of his is an example
of this connection. The essay collection Summer,
is related namely to the landscapes of Algeria,
the Mediterranean, the sun of the Mediterranean,
etc.
He publishes his first novel, The Stranger
in 1942 and rockets to literary fame overnight,
becoming one of the most significant French
writers. Yet his seminal work, his most famous
work, is The Plague.
Here is the first edition of The Plague in
Bulgarian, published by Narodna Kultura. I
would like to point out that back then the
appearance of The Plague was no less than
a miracle: we were queuing to lay our hands
on a tome. This was because some of us had
already read it in French or in Serbian, and
I had got both editions, but it was of course
of paramount importance to have this work
printed in Bulgarian.
Albert Camus, as I have already mentioned,
belonged to the philosophical school of the
existentialists. The existentialism is related
to the idea of the absurdity of our society
and our existence in general; it is a philosophical
school, but it also has contributed a great
deal to culture as a whole. Apart from these
two famous novels - The Plague and The Stranger,
Camus is also the author of several plays,
among which are Caligula and The Misunderstanding,
another novel, The Fall as well as his philosophical
essays, most of which can be found in his
exquisite collection The Myth of Sisyphus.
What The Myth of Sisyphus poses as a problem
is suicide – what is the nature of this
act, whether we, as human beings are entitled
to committing a suicide, etc. Camus ultimate
position is firmly against that, against this
act, as a means of escaping from the absurdity
of human existence. On the other hand, the
central figure in this philosophical essay
collection is namely Sisyphus, whose fate
is to always push the boulder uphill, to push
this huge stone, that keeps rolling down and
he has to set off again, up the same way.
But Camus existentialism is, so to say, heroic
existentialism. This is not the absurdity
of despair, mainly because Camus is a rebelling
man. Just like L'Homme r?volt?, his eponymous
book of his, names this human condition; he
is a rebelling man. He rebels against this
human fate. And it is, actually, the figure
of Sisyphus that embodies this peculiar stoic
heroism, that must be demonstrated by the
human being, the enlightened person whose
existence encompasses wider horizons.
What is in fact the nature of this novel,
of The Plague? And why does it enable us to
relate it to the means of spreading of the
horrific virus, the virus which does defeat
more and more communities like a real plague?
The plague is in fact, as Camus himself declares,
is the “brown plague” – the plague of
fascism and nationalism, spreading throughout
Europe back then. Camus wrote The Plague in
the last years of the WWII. The novel was
published in 1947. And it is mainly The Plague,
but also some other of Camus’s texts, such
as The Stranger, which serve as a reason for
the Nobel Committee to award Camus with a
Nobel Prize. So, he is a rather influential
writer in France, but also globally, as both
The Plague and his other texts are rather
quickly translated to all languages throughout
the world. But let us really focus on The
Plague.
The Plague does in fact tell a story of a
plague. A plague epidemic, brought about,
or rather brought by horrific plagued rats,
that crawl out and pile up corpses of other
plagued rats, who are therefore the ones to
conceive the plague epidemic. This is 
set in the town of Oran, Algeria. This is
not a town that is notable with anything in
particular, as it is laid out in the novel;
it is in fact a rather unpleasant town, a
rather unattractive town, although it is on
the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. However,
it is a town with a certain level of intellectual
life. It is also a town bustling with colorful
everyday life. Initially people fail to realize
the magnitude of the imminent danger, as in
194…, the dots matter here, it is considered
that there is no plague anymore, that it is
an impossible epidemic and the plague is confined
to the long gone past. We know that in the
14th, the 15th, the 16th and the 17th centuries
there had been plague epidemics in Europe.
We know about the enormous, horrific, monstrous
plague in Constantinople, which literally
annihilates most of its citizens. Therefore,
the plague epidemic is here to stay. The plague
is engraved in the collective memory of humankind.
Let’s remember that, after all, the story
told in Boccaccio’s The Decameron, is actually
the story of one such epidemic that forces
young people to look for shelter in a palazzo.
They escape to a mansion out of town and,
as they are in a sort of forced recluse, they
start telling each other various stories,
some of which quite erotic. This means that
the humankind has some experience, be it only
historical, with the plague. Yet, it has never
managed to come to terms with it and to learn
to recognize it, to confront it. The same
thing happens in this town: the only person
to recognize the plague from the very beginning
is Dr. Bernard Rieux, and he is the one who
insistently persuades the authorities that
this is plague. He is the one who lays the
facts out in front of the Prefect and other
rulers of the town, but they are 
not at all in a hurry to take any measures.
In the beginning they keep deceiving themselves
that these are but independent cases, until
they find out that this really is a monstrous
threat. The novel itself is written in a rather
cool tone. It is composed as a methodical
revelation of the spread of the epidemic,
as a story about the initial failure of the
citizens to pay attention. There are some
separate cases of people contaminated with
an odd disease, some unknown disease, but
it gradually becomes clear that this is actually
a dire threat, a terrible threat, and it is
actually the phases, through which the citizens
of the town of Oran pass, that 
the novel depicts. Initially they ignore it,
then comes the panic, and then somehow they
are overwhelmed by a sort of apathy, or rather
an odd joviality, an odd instinct to condemn
the danger, to challenge it, to face it with
cynicism. The following phases are, naturally,
the great distress, the great depression,
and only after those comes the enlightenment.
In other words, there are five phases that
the citizens pass through. In fact, a vast
majority of the people compromise and try
to save themselves in isolation. Various crimes,
committed by certain citizens, are revealed
of course, but all those people do is to repent
of their deeds. There are very few people
who share Dr. Bernard Rieux’s ideas. Very
few people co-operate with him, but there
are people who show a certain solidarity with
him, the journalist, is one example. And it
is exactly that stoic, existential heroism
that stands out so confidently. Or, in other
words, even though the novel presents a certain
realization about the absurdity of human existence,
it is not altogether pessimistic. It is after
all a novel about, if not optimism, then at
least enlightenment, which reveals a sort
of satisfaction of those people who have,
if partially, overcome this dreadful disaster.
Albert Camus himself was at first quite close
to Jean-Paul Sartre. It must also be pointed
out that albert Camus has been part of the
French Resistance, as an active participant
at that. He was also the editor-in-chief of
the outlawed newspaper Combat, and a very
active journalist with a distinctive social
stance, despite his philosophical existentialist
views. And 
it could also be claimed that Camus has confronted
Jean-Paul Sartre for his rather leftist inclinations,
for his bending towards the communist party.
We also know that Jean-Paul Sartre goes as
far as travelling to Mao’s China to declare
his admiration for the regime, and generally
has rather extremist hesitations. An awesomely
intriguing depiction of the relationships
between Sartre and Camus can be found in a
documentary novel by Simone De Beauvoir, Jean-Paul
Sartre’s wife, The Mandarins. This novel
is also translated to Bulgarian.
I really hope that you will approach this
book with diligence as it does have to 
be read. This is 
one 
of the compulsory reads of the 20th century.
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