The New Mexico Department of Health said this week that two women were found to have plague, bringing the total number of people this year in the state known to have the disease to three.
All three patients, a 63-year-old man and two women, ages 52 and 62, were treated at hospitals in the Santa Fe area and released after a few days, said Paul Rhien, a health department spokesman.
Health officials in New Mexico have more experience with plague than many might expect: Every year for the last few years, a handful of people in New Mexico have come down with plague. One person has died.
While the word “plague” may conjure images of medieval cities laid to waste by the Black Death, the disease is still a part of the modern world. It is much less common than it once was, but it is no less serious.
When Breath Becomes Air: Not my kind of book but it was very insightful but also utterly tragic. A Gentleman in Moscow: Yes, very readable. The Plague: Has one of my all time favs and now one of four books I read for a second time.
Above is an image of the Yersinia pestis bacterium. This little bacterium, which coincidentally looks like a green cheese puff is what causes Bubonic Plague. Also known as the “Black Death” the plague killed an estimated 25 million million people in Europe, Asia & the Middle East in the 14th Century.
It was commonly believe that TODAY in 1345 was the beginning of the catastrophic plague. Allegedly, according to 14th Century scholars this was due to a “triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter & Mars in the 40th degree of Aquarius.” We now know the actual cause for the disease is the bacteria mentioned above being carried by fleas, traveling on rats and then jumping off onto other mammals. So, in a round about way - today is plague day!
From the dark harbor soared the first rocket of the firework display organized by the municipality, and the town acclaimed it with a long-drawn sigh of delight. Cottard, Tarrou, the men and the woman Rieux had loved and lost— all alike, dead or guilty, were forgotten. Yes, the old fellow had been right; these people were “just the same as ever.” But this was at once their strength and their innocence, and it was on this level, beyond grief, that Rieux could feel himself at one with them. And it was in the midst of shouts rolling against the terrace wall in massive waves that waxed in volume and duration, while cataracts of colored fire fell thicker through the darkness, that Dr. Rieux resolved to compile this chronicle, so that he should not be one of those who hold their peace but should bear witness in favor of those plague-stricken people; so that some memorial of the injustice and outrage done them might endure; and to state quite simply what we learn in a time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.
Nonetheless, he knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of a final victory. It could be only the record of what had had to be done, and what assuredly would have to be done again in the never ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts, despite their personal afflictions, by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.
And, indeed, as he hastened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperiled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.
Who needs friends when you have a profound exploration in to man’s existential dilemma written by a French man as an allegory for WW2, AND Michael Cera?
This took way longer to edit than I would have hoped for, but I think it was worth it. Even wearing that dress was worth it for a good photo. *whispers* guys can wear dresses too it’s ok
A two-for-one special going on my “want to read” list from one of my all time favorite authors.
“The Plague”
and
“The Myth of Sisyphus”
by Albert Camus
When I read “The Stranger” in high school (I covered some of this in an earlier post about that particular book) I fell in love with Camus and his writing style. There’s something familiar and comforting about it. Maybe that’s weird but that’s what I love about literature, there’s something for everyone and not everyone does it the same.
I’m excited to get into these at some point but for now they collect dust and sit on my bookshelf.
I first read Camus’s 1947 novel The Plague the summer after I graduated from high school, and hadn’t really re-visited the novel since that time. I had also read Camus’s The StrangerandThe Fall, and The Plague struck me as the best of the three, in terms of plot. story-line, and philosophical implications. While I have occasionally thought about the work over the years, and recommended it to people (especially during the height of the AIDS crisis in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s), I had not actually re-read the book until this month, as I shelter at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. I am struck by how precisely Camus seems to be describing our present condition, as well as a large-scale metaphoric content I had missed the first time around. [Please note: I plan to discuss the content of this novel pretty specifically here, so if you haven’t read it but plan to, maybe you want to stop reading this.]
Camus’s fictional plague takes place in what would have been for him the present: the novel was published in 1947, two years after the end of WWII, and he says that the events took place in “194-” in the town of Oran, a French settlement on the coast of Algeria. It’s useful to know that Camus was born in a French settlement in Algeria, in a city now called Dréan, so in essence he was setting the novel in his home. Camus had developed tuberculosis as a teenager, and had to be isolated until he recovered. He was in Paris when the Germans invaded, and found himself unable to leave the country, so he became part of the French underground, working as a journalist. There are actually a number of autobiographical details that seem to play out in this novel, but I’m going to leave those alone for a moment. Suffice to say, The Plague contains numerous details that parallel the life of the author.
Of course, the metaphor I had missed when I first read this book is that the plague Camus was writing about was not really bubonic plague, but the rise of Fascism in Europe, and the Nazi invasion of France in the spring of 1940. The mood of denial and disbelief at the start of the novel, when it begins to become clear to the doctor Bernard Rieux that the cases he is seeing can only be diagnosed as bubonic plague, seem to parallel what it must have been like in Paris at that time. Surely, Germany would not be able to simply sweep in and take over the country. Surely Hitler was a joke, and not to be taken seriously! It can’t happen here! Until, of course, Hitler was standing in front of the Eiffel Tower.
If I’m correct about this, then the 10 months that bubonic plague ravages the town of Oran in the novel parallel the five years of the German occupation in France. It also, I think, helps to explain the character of Raymond Rambert, a journalist who happened to be visiting Oran just as the city is placed under a quarantine. Rambert might well be a stand-in for Camus himself, who found himself stranded in Paris after the occupation, and who was working as a journalist. Rambert is an interesting character in the novel, because he spends most of the book trying to get himself out of the city. He tries applying for permission to leave, he goes to anyone and everyone he can think of to help him get out of the town, only to be told, “Sorry.” It is only when, after much frustration and travail, he finally makes the right underworld connections, bribing and befriending a couple of the young guards at the city gate, to allow him to sneak out of the city, that he experiences a kind of conversion. He has been assisting Dr. Rieux and his various volunteer teams working in the city, and has seen first hand the impact of the plague on the citizens of Oran. The night he is scheduled to finally leave, he turns to Rieux and tells him he has decided to stay, to set aside his personal well-being for the sake of the work that needs to be done in combating the plague. I can’t help but see Rambert’s change of heart as reflecting Camus’s decision to join the underground in Paris.
Another fascinating character is Cottard, a small-time crook who attempts suicide early in the story, and eventually becomes a leader in the city’s underground as the plague progresses. Cottard is at times helpful to people - he has a soft spot for Dr. Rieux, for example. But by the end of the novel, he is unable to handle the re-establishment of “normalcy” in the town when the plague ends, and ends up barricaded in his home, shooting at people in the street.
There is also Jean Tarrou, who initially seems a fairly callow fellow, an habitué of local nightclubs, without a job, and who seems to spend his time keeping a journal of events in the town during the plague. He becomes one of the doctor’s best friends, going from disengaged and ironic at the start of the book to one of the most committed helpers. Indeed, there is a moment, late in the novel, where Tarrou and Rieux sneak out to the city’s harbor and go for a late-night swim together. It’s as close to a homoerotic moment as you’ll find in Camus: “Neither had said a word, but they were conscious of being perfectly at one, and the memory of this night would be cherished by them both.” The plague is rapidly dissipating, and the city preparing to re-open, when Tarrou, who had been inoculated against the plague, suddenly succumbs. In a novel where death is everywhere, it is the unexpected death of the doctor’s friend, so late in the epidemic, that seems most heart-breaking.
There is a priest in the novel, Father Paneloux, who early on gives a sermon where he basically says, “God punishes those who have sinned.“ In other words, Oran is being struck by plague because it deserves it, and it is the sinful that will die. The priest holds to that until he must stand at the bedside of a child who is dying from the plague, the son of the mayor. After watching this innocent child suffer a horrible death (described in vivid, shocking detail) the priest can no longer hold to his notions of God punishing only sinners. This realization seems to sap him of his energy, and he dies soon after, whether from the plague or from loss of faith is unclear.
As I said, so many small details speak to us now in the current pandemic: the need to communicate our feelings to our friends and loved ones. The need to place the concerns of the many above the concerns of the individual. The way that traditional information and opinions are simply no longer adequate to the present situation. And just as the plague came unexpectedly, it could come again. If I am right in thinking that Camus created a physical plague as a metaphor for what France went through under the Nazis, then there’s another frightening metaphor for the present. Not only does he provide powerful examples of human behavior in a difficult situation, but I am forced to consider how the current pandemic in the U.S. corresponds to the political situation under the current Republican administration. There are plenty of rats, it seems, in Washington, D.C….
![ONE PIECE ワンピース [ WANO ] Queen “THE PLAGUE” vs Vinsmoke “BLACK LEG” Sanji ☠️ Demon Slayer x M](https://64.media.tumblr.com/6b7246d9f2e99924de52eaf84801cf2a/c59c5fe15ccf8b27-bc/s1280x1920/27f40ef4e55caacb0c234dd4cf7e74cc2083778a.gif "ONE PIECE ワンピース [ WANO ] Queen “THE PLAGUE” vs Vinsmoke “BLACK LEG” Sanji ☠️ Demon Slayer x M")
