Albert Camus

[blltmssgy]

So in my literature class about a month ago we read The Stranger (L'Etranger) by Albert Camus and I absolutely loved it. It was a story about a man who commits a murder and then his trial, but the part that made the book so amazing was how Camus portrayed his character. The world around him was so monotonous and he just went along with everything. That there is a really bad explanation for it, but it is something along those lines. I just loved the character he made. I loved it so much I decided to read another book by him, The Plague (La Peste). This book was even better than The Stranger in my opinion. It was about a town in Northern Algeria that is struck by the Plague, and the people's reaction to it. Again the part I loved the most about it was the characters, Camus was a genius when it came to making characters. And to top it all off, the way he ended the book was brilliant, it was perfect for the story, it could not have ended any other way.

So has anyone else here had an experience with Camus?

[MissRAWR]

I had to read The Stranger for my AP Lit class. I absolutely loved it. That book essentially taught me all about existentialism, and it was what really got me into Philosophy.

Camus is one of the better writers, in my opinion :)

[TangerineOrange]

I, too, read The Stranger for my AP English class, and I thought it was simply fantastic. We read it in conjunction with The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

[Jiggz]

If you enjoyed Camus, I would definitely suggest F. Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

[Cristo]

I read it as The Outsider, same shit different name.

I loved it. That and Perfume were the only books we had to read for school that I didn't completely loathe. I thought the character of Mersault was brilliant and the way that he literally just invented Absurdism with this book.

What's the point of life, why do we do what we do and why do we try to hold on so much to it? I also liked the fact that it was quite short and didn't carry on.

Thanks for the the tip Jiggz, I'll take a look.

[xkittenxsocksx]

Gotta love those existentialists, I haven't read much by him but thanks to this I shall dig further.

[Zelos]

I'm french,almost everyone in France high school reads this book at one time or another.I loved it,one of the few mandatory books of French class I actually enjoyed/finished.He also made quite a few plays and some essays.

[BKS]

I, too, read The Stranger for my AP English class, and I thought it was simply fantastic. We read it in conjunction with The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

I believe I have to read Metamorphosis for next years AP class. I hope its good.


What other books does this Camus guy write? I don't want to like his style and then get screwed out of not being able to read more.

[John Travolta]

I really liked The Stranger. Meursault was just so Goddamned indifferent to everything that was happening around him. His girlfriend, he didn't give a shit about and during his trial he just seemed so bored and uninterested. The weather got more of reaction out of Meursault than his sentencing did. At many parts in the novel at points where Meursault should have been downright enraged, he was simply annoyed. Never showed any outward emotions until questioned by the chaplain.

Camus is a great author and I just bought The Plague, and I'm looking forward to reading it.

[blltmssgy]

I believe I have to read Metamorphosis for next years AP class. I hope its good.


What other books does this Camus guy write? I don't want to like his style and then get screwed out of not being able to read more.

His other novels besides The Stranger are The Plague (La Peste), The Fall (La Chute), A Happy Death (Un Mortelle Heureuse) (might have spelt that wrong), and Exile and the Kingdom (L'Exil et le Royaume) which is a collection of short stories.

I have read the Plague and as I said before, I think it is the best novel I have ever read (I no connosieur of sorts, but still the best I've read), and the ending is absolutely perfect for the book, I cannot see it ending any other way. I will not give away any plot lines, but this book was just phenomenal.

I am currently reading The Fall which is written in an odd manner. The book is a Parisian lawyer telling his life story to a man in the Netherlands, except all it is the man's confession, the other man will sometimes respond, but you are never shown what, you just get the lawyer's response to the response. It is written as a novel, but the more I read it the less of a story I see and the more I see him commenting on society and humanity, and I am tempted to call it a pseudo-essay.

A Happy Death is Camus's first novel (which I own, but have not read yet) and it is some what of a prototype for The Stranger. Here is what the back of the book says (notice the slight difference in how the name is spelt):

In his first novel, A Happy Death, written when he was in his early twenties and retrieved from his private papers following his death in 1960, ALbert Camus laid the foundation for The Stranger, focusing in both works on an ALgerian clerk who kills a man in cold blood. But he also revealed himself to an extent that he never would in his later fiction. For if A Happy Death is the study of a rule-bound being shattering the fetters of his existence, it is also a remarkably candid portrait of its author as a young man. As the novel follows the protagonist, Patrice Mersault, to his victim's house - and then, fleeing, in a journey that takes him through stages of exile, hedonism, privation, and death - it gives us a glimpse into the imagination of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. For here is the young Camus himself, in love with the sea and sun, enraptured by a women yet disdainful of romantic love, and already formulation the philosophy of action and moral responsibility that would make him central to the thought of our time.

Basically it follows Mersault as he kills a man and then flees to Europe and then back to Algeria.

I don't know much about the short story collection or his essays or plays, but I'm sure they are good as well.

EDIT To John: And the only reason he showed emotions to the chaplain was because he just finally got fed up and did not understand how the chaplain did not realize that nothing mattered.

EDIT 2 (On Kafka): I have never read The Metamorphosis, but I have read the castle (and I'll go into it if anyone wants) and Kafka died before he finished it, so the novel itself does not actually have an ending, but once I finished reading it and thought about it the way it "ends" made it a great existential novel, because the main character had just lost everything that he had (what little), and it "ends" with him struggling to keep going, but not succeeding. It ended up fitting the existential model perfectly.

[INTUNEevolution]

I can't believe you guys started a Camus thread while I was banned :(

I would say regarding Kafka, his best existential work outside of the Metamorphosis is called An Imperial Letter. It's two pages long and is all about futility and unsurpassable tasks.

Existentialism is totally cool.

[timbot]

I know this is an old thread, but I just finished reading The Stranger and really enjoyed it, though I really don't agree with the philosophy of it at all. I sometimes I agreed with Mersault, but generally disagreed with his whole feeling that nothing matters, that there can be no certainty, and things happen without real reason.
That's a very brief view of it. I know there are lots of Camus fans out there. Anyone else have any feelings?

[blltmssgy]

The idea isn't that nothing matters, in fact, existentialism holds that there is "meaning" to be found in life, but rather than being from some supernatural essence, that "meaning" is found through the actions of the person searching for it. In more simple terms, each person's meaning is individual and it is the person's actions that is the meaning of their life. Existentialism also holds true that people must try to create meaning in their life. Depending on the type of existentialism (atheistic, theistic, or absurdism) trying to find meaning in the universe is either futile, necessary and with meaning, or futile but still with meaning, respectively.

L'Etranger is written through the idea of Absurdism and you can read more about it here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism).

Of note: In L'Etranger the protagonists name is Meursault, which if broken up contains Meur and Sault. Sault is pre-17th century French for waterfall or rapids, and Meur is the stem of the French verb mourir or to die.

[timbot]

The idea isn't that nothing matters, in fact, existentialism holds that there is "meaning" to be found in life, but rather than being from some supernatural essence, that "meaning" is found through the actions of the person searching for it. In more simple terms, each person's meaning is individual and it is the person's actions that is the meaning of their life. Existentialism also holds true that people must try to create meaning in their life. Depending on the type of existentialism (atheistic, theistic, or absurdism) trying to find meaning in the universe is either futile, necessary and with meaning, or futile but still with meaning, respectively.


Perhaps saying nothing matters was a bit simplistic. He does say a couple times, however, that it doesn't matter if he loves Marie. Perhaps that is the only thing that is suppose to not matter, but I got the feeling that the attitude wasn't reserved for his possible love of Marie. Either way, though, nothing has any meaning beyond one person. And that I don't agree with. There's almost a strange determinism in the way he thinks. Everything seems to happen without a reason. Actions are taken without any regard to their consequences. He kills a man without any thought, almost unaware of what he's doing. And he seems to have something against the judges because they claim to know anything. There are some odd points about the trial where I agree with Meursault and his questioning of what's happening. But, he seems to be against not just how the trial is carried out, but the idea that a man can be tried.
And when does he feel the best? Only at the end just before he dies and gives up hoping for anything. Though, that final part seemed quite odd. He says he has no hope, but then has a final wish. Those seem to be almost contradictory.
Interesting little fact about his name. But if there's supposed to be some significance to it, I'm missing it.

[blltmssgy]

Ah, I doubt there is significance, but it is interesting.

And to the fact that nothing matters, yes that is partially true. To Meursault nothing matters, and in actuality him killing the Arab doesn't matter (which leads to the absurdism aspect, which I'll bring in later). In Part 2 though, We see that the only things that do matter are his actions (existentialism), such as him being an atheist and not crying at his mothers funeral. Those two things are essentially what he is convicted for, not the murder of the Arab (the absurdity of human nature). And yet at the end when he is condemned to death, and has come to terms with it, he wishes that people come out to see his beheading and I have a thought (and this is completely mine) as to why.
One being that Meursault wants to live on a bit still, and absurdism is against suicide, because if life is absurd, then choosing to leave this absurd world is even more absurd.

[timbot]

But, which actions matter, and which don't? We say that killing the Arab doesn't matter. But then you say his actions do matter, specifically his atheism and not crying at the funeral. A big problem with saying that is atheism isn't an action. Atheism isn't something you do, it's a belief. And as far as his reaction to his mother's death, it's not really the actions that matter. Yes, they talk about his actions--going to the movie and the beach with the girl, and others--however, it's not the actions the jury really cares about, it's what those actions say about him. I will admit that the trial does seem pretty absurd, but I view that more as a conviction of the legal system he's in. Meursault, though, seems to see something wrong with the idea that we can know anything about a man based on his actions.
I hope that made sense.
Also, I didn't understand your bit about suicide. Why would wanting to leave an absurd world be even more absurd? The only real argument against suicide is that there is something to live for. So, wouldn't absurdism being against suicide because it still holds that there is some meaning in life?

[blltmssgy]

Him killing the Arab doesn't matter to the people trying him, but if he had not killed the Arab, he would not have gone to court and wouldn't have been executed.
And existentialism isn't necessarily Meursault's philosophy, the novel just goes to show the philosophy (if that makes sense).
And absurdism holds that there is no way to know if G-d does or does not exist, so there "might" be a world after ours, so choosing to leave this absurd world to get to the next is in and of itself an absurd action, because there may not be a next life (so choosing to leave one=absurd) and if this life is so absurd, why would the next one be any different (if not even more absurd).

[timbot]

I would say existentialism is his philosophy. Though he doesn't seem to be the type to actually choose a philosophy.
Is leaving the known absurd world for an unknown but possibly not absurd world, or perhaps even no world at all, really absurd? I certainly wouldn't say so. Further, if there is an equally or more absurd afterlife, you're going to get there eventually. So, if you kill yourself now, that's just a little less time you have to spend in this one and all with the chance that the next, which may not even exist, won't be absurd at all.

[blltmssgy]

I would say existentialism is his philosophy. Though he doesn't seem to be the type to actually choose a philosophy.
Is leaving the known absurd world for an unknown but possibly not absurd world, or perhaps even no world at all, really absurd? I certainly wouldn't say so. Further, if there is an equally or more absurd afterlife, you're going to get there eventually. So, if you kill yourself now, that's just a little less time you have to spend in this one and all with the chance that the next, which may not even exist, won't be absurd at all.

Right, but the underlying idea in Existentialism and Absurdism is existance and if there is no existence in the next life, how would either philosophy agree with quickening the rate of going there. (In actuality, only Absurdism disagrees with suicide, Existentialism is open to it. See Jean-Paul Sartre, one of it's leading philosophers)

Oh, and Camus hated being described as an existentialist or and absurdist, but his work falls into those categories, depending on the time period/piece of writing.

But it seems like someone doesn't agree with this philosophy.