{"id":39543,"date":"2021-09-20T11:06:50","date_gmt":"2021-09-19T23:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=39543"},"modified":"2021-09-20T11:06:50","modified_gmt":"2021-09-19T23:06:50","slug":"albert-camus-the-plague-amid-these-covid-times-a-deep-reading-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2021\/09\/20\/albert-camus-the-plague-amid-these-covid-times-a-deep-reading-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Albert Camus’ “The Plague” Amid These Covid Times: A Deep Reading Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A month ago, I posted a short list of pandemic-themed reads<\/a>, including The Plague<\/em><\/strong>, the classic novel by Albert Camus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then, I have been in correspondence with Matthew Lamb, who is currently publishing a series on the newsletter platform, Substack, dedicated to: Reading Albert Camus’ The Plague During COVID, Climate Change, and Various Political Crises.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The stimulus for Matthew’s newsletter is a forthcoming new translation of The Plague<\/em> from the US imprint, Knopf. The translation is by Laura Marris<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I asked Matthew to share a little about why he has embarked on this project and he replied as follows:<\/p>\n

“This newsletter is an attempt to do a deep background reading of Albert Camus\u2019 <\/em>The Plague<\/strong>, over a series of weekly instalments, the better to understand our present moment. It is an attempt to slow read the novel during COVID, climate change, and various political crises.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Like most people, I turned to the novel in 2020, but I didn\u2019t do so in order to understand the pandemic, but rather in an effort to try to understand why people were turning to this novel in those circumstances. As I write in the first instalment:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018But what does it mean to read a work of fiction whose central metaphor is already happening literally in the world of the reader? It would perhaps be like reading\u00a0Moby Dick\u00a0as a guide to whaling. Even with Melville\u2019s encyclopaedic chapters interspersed throughout the narrative, it would not only be a bad idea to take that novel to be some kind of a user\u2019s manual on how to raise a white whale, but it would also entirely miss the point of the novel itself,\u00a0as a work of fiction.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the public statements regarding\u00a0The Plague\u00a0that came out in 2020 were based on conventional readings of the novel that have been circulating for decades now, but which haven\u2019t been seriously reconsidered. Most of the critical research and notes which are incorporated into this newsletter come from that period. But more recently, I\u2019ve read a pre-publication version of a new translation of Camus\u2019 novel by Laura Marris, which Knopf US is publishing in November of this year. The publisher kindly gave me permission to use this fresh translation in my newsletter in order to attempt a fresh interpretation of\u00a0The Plague, and this forthcoming book has really helped in tying together all of my reflections.”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I think Matthew’s newsletter makes interesting reading, so if you would like to check it out, the ‘umbrella’ link is here:<\/p>\n

Public Things Newsletter<\/a><\/h3>\n

The first instalment is here:<\/p>\n

1. Interesting Times<\/a><\/h3>\n

To check out the forthcoming book, you can also click on the publisher’s website, here:<\/p>\n

Albert Camus’ The Plague<\/em>; translation by Laura Marris (Knopf, November 2021: forthcoming)<\/a><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A month ago, I posted a short list of pandemic-themed reads, including The Plague, the classic novel by Albert Camus. Since then, I have been in correspondence with Matthew Lamb, who is currently publishing a series on the newsletter platform, Substack, dedicated to: Reading Albert Camus’ The Plague During COVID, Climate Change, and Various Political […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39543"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39551,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39543\/revisions\/39551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}