Plague, the Fall, Exile and the Kingdom and Selected Essays (Everyman's Library Contemporar) [Import] [Hardcover]

Albert Camus (Author)

Book Description

Series: Everyman's Library Contemporar | Publication Date: August 5, 2004

Once overshadowed by Sartre, Camus has proved the more durable of the two most celebrated French writer-philosophers of the last century. This collection of his work makes the reasons for his survival self-evident. In prose of bleak but piercing clarity, Camus cuts to the heart of each story he tells. After The Outsider (also published in Everyman) The Plague is his most powerful novel, at once an account of heroic attempts to contain an epidemic in Algeria and a parable of the human condition. In The Fall a once-successful Parisian lawyer tells his own tale of decline and self-discovery, Exile and the Kingdom collect together a number of short stories which explore the existentialist predicament from various viewpoints. This volume also contains two important essays - The Myth of Sisyphus and Reflections on the Guillotine - which reflect on the themes developed in the fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Today The Plague takes on fresh significance…Looking back on the grim record of the twentieth century, we can see more clearly now that Albert Camus had identified the central moral dilemmas of the age.” –The Guardian

“[The Plague is] of such importance to our time that to dismiss it would be to blaspheme against the human spirit.” –New York Times Book Review

“Extraordinary . . . There are things in [The Plague] which no reader will ever forget.” –The Spectator

“[The Fall is] an irresistibly brilliant examination of modern conscience.” –New York Times

“[The Fall is] uniquely Camus. Beneath its wit, elegance, and irony there is no lack of intelligence, troubled earnestness, and perhaps even the moral anguish of the true religieux.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“[The Fall], so spare and lucid (like the best of Gide), burning with wit (like pages from Voltaire), is a…monologue on the human condition.” –The Nation

With a new Introduction by David Bellos --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From the Inside Flap

A haunting tale of human resilience in the face of unrelieved horror, Camus' novel about a bubonic plague ravaging the people of a North African coastal town is a classic of twentieth-century literature.


From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 704 pages
• Publisher: Everyman's Library; New edition edition (August 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857152786
• ISBN-13: 978-1857152784
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.5 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,860,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ultimate Albert Camus Anthology, February 26, 2005

By 

Christopher J. Sugar "1L Law Student" (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays (Everyman's Library) (Hardcover)

If you're a fan of existentialism or just great literature then this is the book for you. Just by buying this set you're already saving money and the hardcover makes it great for book shelf eye candy. If you want to read what each section is about then just read the next review but if you're reading this, take into consideration that Camus wasn't awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for nothing. He was deeply involved in the struggles for Algerian freedom and you can tell from his novels that he is consciensly involved with the questions of the absurd and the freedom of man in a messed up world. These books and essays will make you think and start to ask yourself questions.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving, Thought-Provoking, and Genius, February 8, 2006

By 

Mike "ahollowvoice" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays (Everyman's Library) (Hardcover)

I had read Camus's "The Stranger" and was taken aback by the wonderful understanding he had of the human mind. I needed to read more, and in this handsome book was a great feast for the mind. It is not meant to be read all at once, I found it helpful to read another book inbetween the full-length novels within the collection.
There has been no singular work that has moved me as much as the "The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays", it goes beyond existentialism and his philosophy. It delves into the very mind, that which makes us human. The stories are not lost through their translation from French, the characters are the people you see in the streets, but they are put under the eye of a profound intellectual. It is more than worth the price, and the time spent reading the words is time well spent. His contribution to modern philosophy and existentialism is unchallenged, but he is also an amazing author and voice. The Plague may be the highlight of the book, but one will not lose enthusiasm reading that which follows.

39 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love, Exile, and Suffering Illuminated by Life around Death, September 10, 2004

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays (Everyman's Library) (Hardcover)

What is the meaning of life? For many, that question is an abstraction except in the context of being aware of losing some of the joys of life, or life itself. In The Plague, Camus creates a timeless tale of humans caught in the jaws of implacable death, in this case a huge outbreak of bubonic plague in Oran, Algeria on the north African coast. With the possibility of dying so close, each character comes to see his or her life differently. In a sense, we each get a glimpse of what we, too, may think about life in the last hours and days before our own deaths. The Plague will leave you with a sense of death as real rather than as an abstraction. Then by reflecting in the mirror of that death, you can see life more clearly.

For example, what role would you take if bubonic plague were to be unleashed in your community? Would you flee? Would you help relieve the suffering? Would you become a profiteer? Would you help maintain order? Would you withdraw or seek out others? These are all important questions for helping you understand yourself that this powerful novel will raise for you.

The book is described as objectively as possible by a narrator, who is one of the key figures in the drama. That literary device allows each of us to insert ourselves into the situation.

Let me explain the main themes. Love is expressed in many ways. There is the love of men and women for each other. Dr. Rieux's wife is ill, and has just left for treatment at a sanitarium. Rambert, a journalist on temporary assignment, is separated from his live-in girl friend in Paris. Dr. Rieux's mother comes to stay with him during his mother's absence, so there is also love of parent and child. The magistrate also loses his son to the plague after a desperate battle. Separations occur because of the quarantine on Oran, which causes love to be tested. What is love without the other person being present? The characters find that their memories soon become abstractions. But they reach out to establish new love with each other. Tarrou, who is also caught in Oran, decides or organize a volunteer corps to help with the sick and dead. Rambert decides to stay in Oran to help after having arranged to escape the quarantine. The survivors find succor in increasing closeness with each other. Rieux and Tarrou become close, almost like brothers. Even Rieux's patients become people with whom he develops an emotional bond, even though the waves of death become an abstraction as he can do little to avert them. The priest figure also helps to explore the notion of love for God and God's love for us. The exile theme is reinforced by the quarantine. People cannot leave Oran. The disease itself causes that exile to become worse. If someone in your household becomes ill, each well person has to be quarantined. So you may be living in a tent in the soccer stadium wondering what is happening to the rest of your family. Cottard is a criminal who is on the run from the authorities. He is in despair as the plague begins, and tries to kill himself. The distractions of the plague keep the authorities from troubling him, so the period of the plague is an exile from his criminal past.

Suffering is easy to explain. Bubonic plague came in two forms in the book. Both brought painful and rapid death, with few reprieves. There is high fever, painful swelling or difficulty in breathing, and enormous pain. Those who tend the suffering also suffer, from the enormous workloads, the sense of futility, and the fear that they, too, will be next.

Camus does a nice job of pointing out that these themes also recur in everyday life. We just don't see them very clearly. The people in Oran live in an ugly city that deliberately built itself away from the beauty of the ocean on a sun-scorched plateau plagued by winds. They take little time to enjoy each other or the ocean, because they are caught up with making money. Commerce is their passion. So they cut themselves off from love, in an exile of spirit, which causes them to shrivel and suffer emotionally even before the plague comes. Tarrou also describes is own sense of the plague in everyday life when he discovers that his father is a prosecuting attorney who helps bring criminals to the justice of a firing squad. Even that faint connection of not trying to stop the legal killing causes Tarrou to feel like he carries the plague within him.

The book is masterful in its use of metaphor. In the beginning, dying rats and small animals presage the plague attacking humans. At the end, their return presages the return of normal life to Oran. The scenes alternate between illuminating the main themes in the context of the physical plague and the emotional plague. Religion is used as a bridge between the two, raising the fundamental question about what God's purpose is in unleashing the plague. The priest is fully tested in his love of God through this development, which is one of the most moving parts of the book.

I have read the book both in French and in English, and found this translation to be a perfectly appropriate one. There are few nuances that you will miss by reading this in English. Obviously, if you read French well, you should read the book in its original form.

This book is an excellent example of why Albert Camus was named a Nobel Laureate in Literature.

After you read this great novel, I encourage you to consider the subject of complacency. That's the author's ultimate target. Where are you complacent in ways that cost you love, closeness with others, and happiness? What else is complacency costing you? How can you help others learn to overcome complacency in loving, happy ways without the spectre of death to help you?