Hello all! 

I woke up this morning just wanting to reach out to all of you to say thank you again for joining me on this book club adventure. Our meeting yesterday was such a pleasure, and I came away from it feeling so lifted up by the act of sharing conversation about this book with such smart people and good readers from all over the world, and mostly total strangers at that! It’s really an amazing thing, and I don’t take it for granted right now. So thank you. 

I know there are some on this note who actually weren’t in the meeting, either because it was locked by the time you tried to get on or for other reasons, but regardless I’m speaking to all of you because each of you is on this journey with us. For those who missed the meeting, we spoke about a range of things: Camus’ use of the word “abstraction,” and what he might or might not be saying about humanity’s search for meaning in an often meaningless world; the priest’s sermon, and the conversation between Rieux and Tarrou about belief in God and “the order of the world” being “governed by death”; the various relationships in the book so far, and also the way the characters do or do not communicate, the theme of silencing around trauma and the reduction of human speech and connection to the text of telegrams (and, in our moment, text messages and other forms); and of course the way Camus continues to track our plight while also maintaining a hold on an allegory that fundamentally wrestles with the phenomenon of evil and how to fight against it. It really was a wonderful conversation.

Also I wanted to share with you all the television series that I referenced at the end of the meeting because a couple of you have asked me about it — it’s called “A French Village” and it’s on Amazon Prime. I just watched the second episode last night and it continues to be very compelling and also to really speak to me of this book and of our moment in an interesting way. If any of you watch it, do let me know what you think! 

That’s all for now – really just wanted to send a word of thanks as we near the halfway point of the book.

Onward! 
Nellie