THE VIRUS NEVER DIES
La Peste, (The Plague) is a novel by Algerian writer Albert
Camus, published in 1947, which describes the effect of a virus on a town,
Oran, in his country. The town is real but the plague is not though its
description draws on accounts of real plagues in other places in other times.
The book was immediately hailed as a ground breaker for two reasons. It was
seen as an allegory of the German occupation of France (1940-44) and how the
people suffered and reacted. But it was also seen as a reflection on human
beings in general and how they respond to the pestilence embedded in life that
keeps breaking out all over the world. The most recent example is a report of the
Chinese trying to eliminate the culture, language, dignity and even life of the
Uighurs in their western province.
The first sign of something unusual in Oran was rats
bleeding and dying in the streets. People notice it but aren’t worried and
continue their normal life, leaving the authorities to clean the streets. Then
there are some deaths among the population. Again it is shrugged off and causes
no alarm. Finally, the death toll rises to around 500 or more a week. And then
the dreaded word ‘plague’ is used for the first time. Camus describes the
gradual change that come over the people. Health workers devise a response
which is scientific, meticulous and generous. The doctor works twenty hours a
day.
But many try to leave the town though the gates are locked
and guarded to prevent the contagion spreading. The priest preaches a sermon
saying the people have brought it on themselves and they must accept the
suffering as a cleansing process. The bar owners are happy that people come to
drink to drown their worries and frustrations.
Those who have money spend it in a luxurious life style without thought
for the future. Ordinary people just wander aimlessly round the town overwhelmed
by the sense of ‘illness, exile and separation’ that grips the town. Meanwhile
the number of deaths rise and the authorities are more and more stretched.
Camus has no heroes and no villains. Everyone is just trying
to survive. But Camus makes a quiet but earnest plea for people to face the
truth.
'All I say is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are
victims - and as far as possible one must refuse to be on the side of the
pestilence. This may seem rather simple to you, and I don't know if it is
simple, but I do know that it is true. I have heard so many arguments that
nearly turn my head, and which turn enough other heads for them to consent to
murder, that I understand that all the misfortunes of mankind came from
not stating things in clear terms. So, I decided to speak and to act
clearly ...' p 195
There is one great benefit we have in our time with our own
plague, Covid 19. We know the truth and can do something about it. Facts are
available even though some politicians cannot resist bending the truth and
presenting it in a way that suits them. This is a plague that our ancestors did
not have the science to detect or treat. We do. And all the ‘stop/go’ about
vaccines is only a temporary hitch.
The people of Oran lived a life of drudgery, reflected in
the words of Job in this Sunday’s readings, as they waited for the pest to
recede. Many today are locked up and frustrated and there are even cases of
young people unable to bear the wait and taking their own lives. But Camus
tells us that a pestilence is like an earthquake or a cyclone that hits us from
time to time and reminds us of the underlying fragility of life. He ends his
novel saying,
‘The plague bacillus never dies
or vanishes completely … it waits in bedrooms, cellars, trunks and old papers,
and perhaps the day will come when, for the instruction or the misfortune of
mankind, the plague will rouse its rats and send them to die in some
well-contented city.’
7 February 2021 Sunday
5B Job 1:1-7 1 Cor 9:16-23 Mark
1:29-39
