Perhaps the easiest way of making a town’s acquaintance is to ascertain how the people in it work, how they love, and how they die.
That’s how Albert Camus, the French philosopher and author, introduces the port town of Oran early on in his novel
The Plague. I found myself reading the novel and discussing it with students this fall at Wheaton College. In fact, it’s the college’s Core Book for the year, which means that the whole campus is reading, reflecting upon, and discussing it as an act of communal learning during this season of Advent and throughout the year.