The Fall (Penguin Modern Classics)

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The product of a troubled time in Camus’s life, The Fall is a troubling work, full of brilliant invention, dazzling wordplay, and devastating satire, but so profoundly ironic and marked by so many abrupt shifts in tone as to leave the reader constantly off balance and uncertain of the author’s viewpoint or purpose. This difficulty in discerning the book’s meaning is inherent in its basic premise, for the work records a stream of talk— actually one side of a dialogue—by a Frenchman who haunts a sleazy bar in the harbor district of Amsterdam and who does not trouble to hide the fact that most of what he says, including his name, is invented. Because he is worldly and cultivated, his talk is fascinating and seizes the attention of his implied interlocutor (who is also, of course, the reader) with riveting force. The name he gives himself is Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a name that evokes the biblical figure of the prophet John the Baptist as the voice crying in the wilderness (vox clamantis in deserto) and that coincides neatly with the occupation he claims to follow, also of his own invention: judgepenitent. While Camus might not have been a systematic thinker like Heidegger, he did make considerable contributions to the field of philosophy. Camus showed little interest in metaphysics and ontology, one of the few reasons he denied identifying as an existentialist. Legacy of Albert Camus But also, in case I overdid it - this is still not intimidating. It's funny and short and it's clear. You could read it in an hour if you wanted to.

Origin and his experiences of this representative of non-metropolitan literature in the 1930s dominated influences in his thought and work. This necessary and continuous fall is the theme of the novel. It is one unforgiving, vertiginous descent. It is not a story of gradual discovery and ascent as in Sartre’s Nausea. In Nausea you see the picture that you should be painting of yourself. In The Fall you see the anti-thesis that you should use as your anti-model, as the one point which gives meaning to your picture by not being painted. Camus employs symbolism and allegory throughout the novel to enhance its philosophical depth. The city of Amsterdam, with its network of canals and labyrinthine streets, mirrors Clamence's psychological journey into the depths of guilt and self-deception. The bell tower in the center of the city serves as a constant reminder of judgment and the consequences of one's choices. I hope I’ve piqued your interest! Keep reading for the 10 best Albert Camus books you should read and why. You are the hero of the story, or at least the would-be hero — the one who is going to have the transformation that will change your world. The polarization is external to the novel.Remember the laughter we spoke of earlier, the one that unsettled him so much? It was laughter that made him think of judgment and those who pass it with sadistic glee. Admitting himself a sinner, he realizes laughter is his own way ‘ of silencing the laughter, of avoiding judgment personally.’ Laughter is his escape, and if we must imagine Sisyphus happy then perhaps we should also imagine him laughing. Maybe making lewd jokes about rolling his balls. No, don’t cheers me for that. ‘ Don’t wait for the Last Judgment,’ he says, ‘ it takes place every day’ and this is a true tragedy. Camus was against judgment as he often saw it as absurd, such as the way he wrote about it in Reflections on the Guillotine: The Fall can be seen as a reflection on Camus' existentialist philosophy. Much like his earlier works, such as The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, this novel explores the themes of the absurdity of life and the search for meaning in an inherently meaningless universe. L’Homme révolté, or, The Rebel, is an essay from the “cycle of revolt” series I’ve already mentioned. Published in 1951, the essay focuses on the revolution of rebellion in modern society. Camus also aims to summarize and analyze the various theories he has written on up until this point.

The first level of religious allusion is to the Christian history of New England, a region settled by the Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution, followed by various ethnic and religious groups over the succeeding centuries. “The Fall” is set in New England towns with biblical and Christian names—Canaan, Salem, Bethel, Concord, Fairhaven, and Christmas Cove. Images of the religious heritage of New England are sprinkled throughout the poem: cities such as Boston and Plymouth that were founded by Pilgrims and Puritans, sermons preached by stern eighteenth century Anglican ministers, and the Irish chambermaids of nineteenth century Massachusetts and their devotion to weekly Mass. who, me? oh i'm just reading a twentieth century classic work of philosophy that won the nobel prize for literature. no big deal. In the final section, November, New England is beset by the approach of icy winter. Images of sea and snow prevail, both forceful elements that sweep all before them. Despite the charm and rapture of fall, November is a last respite “until at last the winter breaks” and New England is enveloped in the clean, silent beauty of an all-embracing snow. However, even the arrival of winter itself forebodes a new season: “What resurrection waits on spring?”I loved the line where he said we should forgive the pope. It was a refreshing take on a topic that is usually too feel good for literary circles and that we expect to be broadcast on the “O” network, which kind of blunts it’s existential value, because it makes a market for it and blunts it’s truly existential scope. In a world where we’re always judging, being judged, the one solid defense is for one to humbly, awkwardly, soberly, forgive oneself, the more private and quiet, the better. It’s interesting to think about. This book was such a rewarding read. After I discovered Goodreads, I began to feel that software projects were insufficiently challenging. Instead of giving bland opinions on code, I could use my own words to judge the accumulated output of the world's writers, from Homer to the present day. The response was also more interesting. A curt and eloquent dismissal of Joyce or Dostoyevsky would produce satisfying howls of protest from the soi-disant intellectuals, and a comment Camus died at the age of 46 years in a car accident near Sens in le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the newspapers.” So pronounces Jean-Baptiste Clamence, narrator of Albert Camus’s short novel during the first evening of a monologue he delivers to a stranger over drinks at a shabby Amsterdam watering hole. Then, during the course of several evenings, the narrator continues his musings uninterrupted; yes, that’s right, completely uninterrupted, since his interlocutor says not a word. At one point Clamence states, “Alcohol and women provided me, I admit, the only solace of which I was worthy.” Clamence, judge-penitent as he calls himself, speaks thusly because he has passed judgment upon himself and his life. His verdict: guilty on all counts.

If you enjoyed The Fall, you might like Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. Camus's family was Catholic, and he grew up baptized and educated in the religion. While Camus did not take to the belief, there is no denying that his religious upbringing impacted his thinking. In high school, Camus studied the bible and read about Spanish saints as well as the ideas of St. Augustine. Later, in college, Camus read Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer, with the latter two philosophers being the ones that set him down the path of atheism and defiant pessimism. Later Life

The second choice, in Camus's view, is religion. The religious solution offers a source of meaning beyond the Absurd. However, Camus refers to this option as philosophical suicide since it does not involve reason. Camus claims this solution needs to be more convincing and even fraudulent. The hint of optimism in this paradoxical theme— happiness is, after all, possible for some if the circumstances are dire enough—is, however, insufficient to offset the fundamental pessimism of The Plague. Aglance at the fates of the main characters will make the basic bleakness of this work manifest. At the center of the action is Bernard Rieux, a doctor who risks his life every day to lead the fight against the plague and who, more than anyone else in the novel, experiences the satisfaction and the joy of finding himself equal to a heroic task and feeling with others a fraternal bond engendered by their common struggle. His satisfaction is brief and his joys few, however. He knows that he cannot cure victims of the plague and must suppress his sympathy for them if he is to be effective in palliating their suffering and in keeping them from infecting others. The result of this bind is that Rieux strikes his patients and their families as cold and indifferent; he ends up being hated by those he is trying to help. The fraternal bond with others who are trying to help develops in only a few instances, since most of his fellow citizens are too frightened or egocentric to join him in the effort. Moreover, where the bond does develop, it proves too tenuous to penetrate his natural isolation.