Well thanks Camus for your slow paced, death abundant, depressing, and unenticing read. But what do I expect from a book about the Black Death, peace and flowers? Nah, I knew what I was getting into, but I didn't understand why the read was so boring this time around. I enjoyed the stranger, I enjoy philosophy, but I dread the Plague for some reason. To fully absorb the context of each page I'd have to reread it. It felt like half-ass reading to me because everything between the lines was full of boredom and depression. Text that was irrelevant and characters though you tried to make them interesting, had nothing to them because they were all effected by the Plague nearly the same. Besides Cottard who enjoyed his freedom of not being imprisoned.
I didn't hate the story, I didn't hate the book, I just plainly hated the read and the non-relating text within the read. Maybe I have bad taste, sorry Camus. But unlike the Stranger my attention span for absorbing the text was 5 pages every time I picked up the book.
What I did like was the realistic view of how people would react at first to such an epidemic. Shock > Denial > Panic > Abandon Hope > Blow all their expenses > Live the final days of their life to the best it can be.
I think that is as realistic as it can get, and when something like the Plague occurs, it's only instinct to run and isolate rather than stand and fight, which I think from the beginning would have saved all those people. Also in every plague book there's gotta be someone like Paneloux who blames it on God and his smiting on the sinners in the world. Yes, I know it happened in real life and people believed it, but it really was an ignorant claim that God is punishing all for the sins of some. I also think that the fact that Camus had to state that there was a Christian boy who died made Paneloux's views invalid was unnecessary because the people should see the absurdity in his claims from the start.
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