“As time goes by, I have only found that today, comparatively speaking, even good people are inevitably killed or killed because they live in this logic. In this world, every move we make can potentially lead to death.”——“The Pistes”,Albert Camus
 
It wasn't until this sentence that I began to realize what this book is really about - about attitudes towards life and justice.
People from various industries with different backgrounds and values in these small towns, when diseases break out, make choices that lead to different outcomes and reflect their attitudes towards life and death. Justice or injustice is difficult to simply define a person or behavior because they all had different positions.
 
"People may only reach the realm of almost saints. If that's the case, then it should be moderate and be a humble and kind Satan."
"This is the last failure, and this failure ended the war, turning peace itself into an incurable pain."
"In the game with pestis and life, what people can win is nothing but knowledge and memory."
“The arrival of death has not truly achieved equality, but the joy of liberation from disaster has been achieved, at least in these few hours, becoming a reality.”
“Now they know that if there is one thing in this world that people always crave and sometimes can obtain, it is the warmth between people.”
“All those who cannot become sages and are unwilling to suffer disasters should certainly set aside their personal pain, strive to be good doctors, and fight against the terror created by the plague god and his weapons tirelessly.”
 
“Returning heroism to its rightful secondary status and endowing truth with its original form.”
 
According to the background of the times, The Pistes was originally intended to reflect the resistance of other European countries to fascist forces during World War II. But Camus wrote in reply to Roland Barthes that "the original meaning of The Pestis is to read a variety of meanings". The biggest difference between this realistic novel and many other captivating works is that it does not specifically depict a specific hero image during a disaster period, nor does it have ups and downs, climaxes, or a "grand finale" plot. Instead, it objectively records the epidemic that occurred in the small town of Oran from a third person perspective of a frontline doctor. What we see is a "group image", where no one stands out in this struggle and people with different positions and values come together in different paths. If we say ,Rhee, the doctor in the text, has the most recognized warrior in his heart, it should be Taru - this character's unusual life experience and dramatic ending make him stand out in the dark atmosphere of the entire story. "So I realized that in these long years, at least I have always been a pestis patient, and I just thought that I was fighting with the pestis wholeheartedly. I learned that I indirectly agreed to the death of thousands of people, and even incited them to kill them, that is, the actions and principles that must lead to their death are correct."
 After he admitted that he had sentenced many cases fairly as a prosecutor, he began to doubt himself after witnessing the scene of shooting on the death penalty field again and again.
Is justice and truth proved by the death of people?
His inner guilt for the dead prompted Taru to actively fight against pestis In the process of actively saving pestis patients, this is also his way to save himself and alleviate his inner guilt and pain.
Heroism and truth are the thoughts of the author that run through the entire work. When it comes to Taru leading the establishment of the health and epidemic prevention team, Camus implied, "Appropriately valuing heroism is enough."
When I fell into the thought of opinions on realism and heroism in The Pisetis,another work about the heroism suddenly occurred to me—— Ken Follett's Trilogy of the Century. Although this work is actually largely based on real history, it is more idealistic. We can find several protagonists in each chapter, with distinct personalities and aspirations that align with the trend of the times. They are superheroes in their own lives. I cannot evaluate which of these two types of heroism is better, but I firmly believe that a philosophy of life pursued by people is to accept the real world while not rejecting the existence of idealism - sobriety and optimism.
"Il n'y a qu'un seul h é ro ï sme au monde: c'est de voir le monde tel qu'il est et de l'aimer."