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Published in:
2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
1. Prelude to Disaster
Author : Ruwantissa Abeyratne
Published in: Air Transport and Pandemic Law
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
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Abstract
Albert Camus starts his novel The Plague, which he started in 1941 and published in 1947, with a description of an “ugly” French Algerian town called Oran where “…certainly nothing is commoner nowadays than to see people working from morn till night and then proceeding to fritter away at card-tables, in cafes and in small-talk what time is left for living at Oran” amidst “the violent extremes of temperature, the exigencies of business, the uninspiring surroundings, the sudden nightfall, and the very nature of its pleasures call for good health. An invalid feel out of it there. Think what it must be for a dying man, trapped behind hundreds of walls all sizzling with heat, while the whole population, sitting in cafes or hanging on the telephone, is discussing shipments, bills of lading, discounts! It will then be obvious what discomfort attends death, even modern death, when it waylays you under such conditions in a dry place…”