What a novel . One of the best I have ever read.

I’ve read The Stranger a few times, but I had never read this. It’s relevant to today, but it’s also a genuinely well-written story.

In Albert Camus' novel, “The Plague,” an Algerian city is hit with a plague. Dr. Bernard Rieux tends to the sick and one evening a stranded tourist, Jean Tarrou, comes to see him. The men discuss a government plan to force convicts handle the dead – a death sentence, Tarrou decides. Rieux agrees, and the two form a volunteer brigade to handle the plague's corpses – in which both will naturally participate themselves. Tarrou asks Dr. Rieux if tending to the city's sick is because of faith – if he believes in god. Rieux answers no, that if such a deity actually existed it would be doing the doctor's work, that humanity is more good than evil, but overwhelmingly ignorant. It is only in overcoming ignorance and recognizing the suffering of others that our morality is found. A little preachy, perhaps, but not bad advice, even today. Especially today.