The Plague

I’ve just finished rereading Albert Camus’ The Plague. This time through, as I read the latter part of the book I seemed to hear it echoed in Joni Mitchell’s newish song “If I Had a Heart”. I continue to be so moved by Tarrou’s lautobiographical speech in Part 4 and by the later reflection of Dr. Rieux – a quote that I’ve carried with me over all the years since my first reading as a teenager and has resonated each time I've reread the book-- that “…a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one’s work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.”