Camus` Plague - Myth for Our World

A year into the global pandemic, Gene Fendt repositions the attention of the Western world on a literary classic that bears a vital perspective on the destiny of man. He asserts that modernity itself is a time of plague, and that most people admit of no symptoms. He also provides insight into elements of the work that give an autobiographical portrait of Albert Camus' artistic development and challenges the labeling of Camus an atheist.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 220 pages
Publication date: 15 April 2022
Publisher: St Augustine's Press

A year into the global pandemic,Gene Fendt redirects the attention of the Western world to a literary classic that offers a crucial perspective. At present, civilization cannot afford to contemplate improvement. First, it must survive. Fendt draws upon Thomas Merton's assertion that Camus's fictional account constitutes a "modern myth about the destiny of man" and a manifestation of the "blight of ambiguous and false explanations, interpretations, conventions, justifications, legalizations, evasions which infect our struggling civilization." Fendt argues that "modernity itself is a time of plague."

Fendt asserts that perhaps "the originality of the modern plague is that most people admit of no symptoms." This chilling resemblance to the asymptomatic Covid-19 victim is but one of the images of what the plague represents in both the novel and contemporary society. Fendt's fidelity to realism and Camus's motivations as an artist unravel the existentialist fiction of Camus. As Camus condemns nihilistic art and culture as "barbaric," Fendt labels the barbarian as a natural slave. If we are influenced by the forces of powers that be without sense or knowledge of a proper end, we too have been rendered worse than ignorant.

Beyond presenting "The Plague" as a myth, Fendt also offers insightful details about elements of this work that provide an autobiographical portrait of Albert Camus's artistic development. He presents an intelligent challenge to labeling Camus an atheist, if Camus is indeed the artist Fendt believes him to be. Additionally, it makes an unlikely but significant contribution to the political philosophical study of solidarity.

Weight: 320g
Dimension: 153 x 227 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781587311062