This novel grew on me more and more as I read it. But still seemed to fall short. It tells the story of the arrival and departure of the plague from a French-Algerian town in the 1940s, largely told through the eyes of a local doctor. It is nicely structured, beginning with the ominous signs of dead rats and ending with the return of first rats, then cats, and then dogs marking the departure of the plague. It is all observed in great, with a somewhat less than fully omniscient narrator, who focuses on the impact the plague has on social relations and social order.

The observation is often very detached, the engagement with the characters distant and fleeting, which at times makes it more difficult to connect with the book.

The Plague is commonly described as an allegory for the Nazi occupation in World War II, but I don't see much beyond some obvious superficial analogies.