This book is of the the type that keeps your reading hunger alive and greedy. Brilliant.

And so my forays into the world of philosophy continue and while I probably missed so much in this book that others with a better grounding in such things would've seen (easily I would imagine) I really enjoyed this. Well maybe enjoyed is not quite the right term given the subject matter (although as a non-humanist(!?) I did enjoy it on some level), I was more intrigued/fascinated by the story, its narrator and its characters. The narrator opens setting the scene with a few caveats on source material and the approach they are going to take in the telling of Oran, the plague that struck and the response of its people and authorities. The narrator tells this from an objective and unemotional position, keeping the story to the facts and the opinions, thoughts and feelings of others. In doing so they allow the reader to develop their own views and feelings throughout and allows them to change them at will as and when events led them so. The discussions and debates of the townspeople and their varied and differing views poses many an interesting question, not least on God and religion, mob mentality and the interlinking and differentiation of religion and humanism (I take this to mean simply giving a damn about fellow Homo sapiens). This was a rather wordy and long winded read in places but it is worth getting past that as Camus has a way of introducing philosophical quandaries without spelling them out and largely without you even realising that you are considering such things (and without the need to remember what school of thought you are covering...I always get confused by that).

One of my favourite books I’ve ever read. I wish I had read it earlier. Camus always has such a way of connecting to the reader.

Written not long after the end of the Second World War this is Albert Camus's attempt to describe what happened to the French under the German Nazi regime in Vichy, France, by using the analogy of a disease harbouring plague of rats. So it's both an engaging story in its own right as well as an analogy. I would certainly recommend this book and I understand that it is considered to be Camus's masterpiece.

Frankly wish I had read this years ago. Dive in and wallow around as one of the truly great writers of the 20th Century demonstrates how many layers can be applied to a simple sentence. Go on.