Hi, I’m Reetu and I’m Sarah. And together, we are
Everyday Intellectuals.
Today, we will be discussing Albert Camus' “The Plague.”
Now, we picked this book for obvious reasons, and we will give a summary of
all five parts of the novel. But first, let's meet some of our main characters.
First off, we have Dr. Bernard Rieux. He's a physician during the plague, as well as the narrator.
We have Raymond Rambert, who's a French reporter stuck in Oran, trying to get back to his wife in Paris.
Jean Tarrou is a rich vacationer who spends his time taking notes and assisting Dr. Rieux.
Father Paneloux is a popular Jesuit priest in Oran.
Joseph Grand is a city employee who keeps tally of the deaths, as well as works on a secret novel at night.
Lastly, Cottard is a fugitive from the law who profits during the epidemic as a smuggler.
The Plague is a fictional novel that takes place
in the non-fictional city of Oran in Algeria.
The story begins with a dead rat in the street.
And then more dead rats. And then so many dead rats
that the government can’t ignore the 
 problem anymore.
So what do they do?
They decide to just sweep it under the rug.
Well, technically the crematorium, but same basic concept.
When there are finally no more dead rats,
guess what…
dead humans.
First a couple, then some more,
then so many that
You guessed it.
The government can’t ignore the problem
anymore.
Who’s surprised?
Nobody.
The whole city is placed under quarantine.
Wonder what that feels like.
You'd think the residents would be scared about dying,
and they are. But honestly,
they're more busy simpin' over their loved ones
who are trapped outside the city walls.
Yeaaahhhhh.
They fill their loneliness by packing theaters and cafes.
Which, of course, is the most logical thing to do
when there’s a deadly disease going around.
Yeah, so clearly everyone handles the situation differently.
On the one hand are people like police magistrate Othon, who carries on with his
habits as if nothing is happening.
On the other hand, are people like our
French journalist Rambert. Who actually tries to
break out of quarantine
because he can’t wait to run back into the arms of his beloved.
I don’t get it, what does Rambert think he’s gonna do when he gets back to Paris?
Canoodle with his wife.
Oh yeah, because sex with a side of bubonic plague sounds so romantic.
Maybe it's their kink?
On the other hand, Dr. Rieux completely dedicates himself to his patients.
Even though he also has a wife that's stuck outside the city.
Yeah, isn't she in a hospital a hundred miles away, deathly ill?
I really don't know why Rambert is so pressed, his wife is totally fine.
Yeah, get some perspective man.
Seriously!
The social event of the season is a sermon
delivered by Father Paneloux.
Who basically victim blames the entire population,
saying that the plague is God’s punishment for their sins.
Meanwhile, the government can’t be trusted to do anything.
So, rich vacationer, Jean Tarrou
sets up a sanitation squad to help the doctors during this time.
Most of the characters join in on the sanitary squad,
except for Cottard, who is living his best life now that the cops are too busy to arrest his criminal ass.
He sets up a profitable smuggling business
and, just basically enjoys the fact that the whole town
is feeling as scared and lonely as he usually does.
What a weirdo.
I mean, misery does love company.
Basically, everything is shit now.
As thousands of people are dying, the cemeteries start getting filled up.
So, they start digging mass graves.
And then that gets filled up as well,
so they have no choice but to start cremating the bodies.
By now all the main characters are properly friends,
which makes no sense because how does Dr. Rieux
have all this time and energy to socialize
when he's one of the few doctors in the middle of a damn plague?
Yeah, that's actually really unrealistic.
Well, the good news is that they're pretty
sure they found the cure
and they test it out on a young boy.
The bad news is that the cure doesn't work
and he ends up dying a slow, painful death.
This leaves a lasting impression on everyone,
but especially Father Paneloux, who is moved to give another sermon.
This time, it's about the all or nothing nature of faith.
Basically, he says that you must accept everything of God,
including the suffering of the innocent,
or you must denounce everything of God.
Now, this leads him to his most mind-blowing conclusion
that a God-fearing priest can't call upon a doctor.
Then he gets sick,
and he dies.
Wonder who could have saved him then.
Around the same time, Joseph Grand gets sick with the plague.
It seems that all hope is lost,
but somehow he miraculously survives.
This signals that the plague is finally starting to slow down.
Just before the quarantine ends, both
Othon and Tarrou die of Plague. Which is important,
because the book wasn’t bleak enough already.
Now that the plague is no longer a main concern,
Cottard starts getting paranoid about getting arrested.
So he loses his shit, and gets arrested.
Once the quarantine is finally lifted,
all the survivors are reunited with their loved ones,
including Rambert and his wife.
But, not including Rieux, whose  wife sadly dies shortly beforehand.
Everyone celebrates their return back to
normalcy.
Except for Dr. Rieux, who's "plagued" with the knowledge
that the disease could return from hiding
at any given moment.
Okay, Reetu. Final thoughts about "The Plague." What do you think?
Meh. Whatever.
I mean, I was really indifferent about this book.
Um, I get why we chose it. We're in the middle of a global pandemic, this is "The Plague."
Right. I liked it. Um, but also I was just really excited to read Camus.
And I wanna talk a little bit about his writing style.
Because even though we were reading the translated version, it was still so well written.
Yeah, it was very concise and he's very  impactful with his words.
I mean, when we were taking notes,
I remember highlighting the entire book.
Yeah, there's absolutely no fluff.
Mm-mmm.
Um, one thing I do want to talk about is the content.
Right.
So--important--yeah, it's very important.
Um, one thing I really like is we read this book during the time of lock down.
Right.
I mean, we were just quarantined. And in the first couple parts,
you see the citizens of Oran also in quarantine.
So you see this idea of human behaviour,
especially when there's like a loss of freedom.
Now your entire day to day habits is completely turned upside down.
You have to, like, deal with this new normal.
Right.
And I found that to be very relatable.
And it's relatable in any type of crisis,
not necessarily just a pandemic or an epidemic.
And one of my favorite things about Camus' observations
is how people deal with the idea of... abstract ideas, basically.
When there's something that's so big in scope you can't
totally understand it
Like the doctor in the beginning of the book
is trying to picture how many people might die. And he, like,
actually can't wrap his mind around it.
I mean, that's kind of like Coronavirus.
I feel like people...
I mean the numbers are increasing,
the number of deaths are increasing, and people are still not wearing masks.
I mean, you see college students still hosting parties
and people not taking this seriously.
And I feel like the people who don't really believe in Coronavirus
only take it seriously when someone passes away that they know of.
I mean it’s the idea that unless it’s personal you don’t
really like react.
It has to become tangible and no longer abstract.
Yeah, I mean
okay so we talked about things we kinda found relatable.
One thing I got really irritated by
is the main character Dr. Rieux. I-
like, first of all he's a doctor.
His wife is a hundred miles away,
who is not in quarantine. She is sick, she is dying.
He never has an emotional breakdown.
I mean this man is seeing thousands of people die.
He comes close.
There is a child who is literally tortured by this new medication
and he literally has no emotional breakdown.
No, but he does get really upset and he snaps at someone.
Lies. Lies.
He snaps?
He gets angry and then apologizes two minutes later.
This is not an emotional breakdown.
*EXPERTS*
I do not think this is realistic. And on top of that
besides not having an *emotional* breakdown,
he still like is totally fine with one of his friends trying to escape quarantine?
Like this would never happen in the real world.
Granted, a doctor probably wouldn’t be okay
with exposing the whole world to bubonic plague.
But the really important thing when reading this book
is to realize that Camus is a philosopher, and at its core
this is a philosophy book.
So you can’t really separate the philosophy from the story.
I struggled with that. Yeah.
If you are trying to look at this
She noticed.
in a really practical way, that is going to be a bit of a conflict.
So I personally really recommend
this book to anyone who’s interested in philosophy to any degree.
If you're interested in, like,
human behavior and morality.
Anything like that, I think it's great.
I mean if you're not really interested in that
and you like drama, plot twists, and you know
things like that, probably wouldn’t recommend it.
So let us know what you think.
Have you read the book? Have you not read the book?
Do you like it? Do you hate it?
And what do you think about our video?
Yes, comment your thoughts below.
Absolutely.
See ya later. Bye.
