The Plague by Albert Camus (Knopf)
Plague has a grip on popular culture. Swine flu stories pepper the media, and only last week comes news that authorities quarantined thousands of people in the town of Ziketan, in northwestern Qinghai province, because of an outbreak of pneumonic plague.
Read The Plague by Algerian-born, French author and philosopher Albert Camus and you may feel moved to join the legion of mask-clad worriers attuned to every sneeze and Twitter-fanned ripple of respiratory angst. In Camus' low-key epic, the Algerian city of Oran falls victim to an epidemic. Droves of rats begin keeling over.
'From basements, cellars, and sewers they emerged in long wavering files into the light of day, swayed helplessly, then did a sort of pirouette and fell dead at the feet of the horrified onlookers,' Camus writes in his characteristically detached prose.
Hysteria erupts. In response, the authorities collect and burn stacks of rats, unaware that rodent round-ups promoted the original bubonic 'black death' plague's proliferation. As the epidemic spreads, the authorities dither over the extent of the disease for which there is an insufficient supply of serum, before sealing off the town.
The constraint exposes the characters of those marooned in the city. The main character, the noble Dr Rieux, works tirelessly to save as many lives as possible, despite recognising the futility of his position. In contrast, diabolical priest Father Paneloux uses the plague as a podium for advancing his faith and stature. The plague was an act of God triggered by civic sin, Paneloux preaches.