The Fall (Penguin Modern Classics)

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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. A third and final incident initiates Clamence's downward spiral. One day while waiting at a stoplight, Clamence finds that he is trapped behind a motorcycle which has stalled ahead of him and is unable to proceed once the light changes to green as a result. Other cars behind him start honking their horns, and Clamence politely asks the man several times if he would please move his motorcycle off the road so that others can drive around him; however, with each repetition of the request, the motorcyclist becomes increasingly agitated and threatens Clamence with physical violence. The heart of the novel is the depiction of the various ways in which individuals react to the fear and isolation imposed by this sudden state of siege, in which the invading army is invisible. To convey the variety of responses to such an extreme and concentrated crisis in human affairs, Camus deliberately eschews the convenient device of the omniscient narrator, making the depiction of every event and scene an eyewitness account in some form: the spoken words of reports or dialogues, the written words of letters or private diaries, and, as the main device, the written record of the daily observations of the novel’s main character, Dr. Rieux. Whereas in The Stranger first-person narration is primarily a device of characterization, used to portray an alien figure’s disconcertingly remote and hollow personality, in The Plague it is a device of narrative realism, used to reduce devastatingly incomprehensible events to a human, hence believable, scale by portraying the way these events are seen by a representative group of ordinary citizens.

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. Now some critics have derived this to be, in part, a criticism of Jean-Paul Sartre and the Paris leftists. Oliver Gloag writes in his Albert Camus: A Short Introduction—an excellent and succinct work of criticism I shall lend you if you like after our drinks—that Camus saw that they ‘ spoke of helping others but did not concretely help them.’ Many others have seen this book on the whole as Camus’ own self-criticism as well. Have you seen a photo of Camus, mon cher? Surely Clamence’s athletic description of himself could produce a striking portrait of the author in the mind's eye. Rumor has it the bridge scene mimics the suicide of his own wife, Francine, which he alluded to in a letter to his lover, the actress María Casares. Yes, my friend, Camus had many lovers under Francine’s nose, in fact the car accident that took his life was on a trip to where his three mistresses had all received letters from him announcing three different dates of arrival to ensure he had time with them all. Camus’s less than flattering thoughts on women as expressed in his diaries, Gloag tells us, are shared by Clamence himself who finds women a bore aside from intercourse and admits he lies to them to get them into bed. Camus' novel The Stranger, sometimes known as The Outsider, follows the life of a man, Meursault, who lives in Algiers. He receives a telegram of his mother's death, and the story is about him dealing with the events that unfold. A theme throughout the book is the idea that there is no inherent purpose to human life. In the book, Camus points out that the only certainty in life is death since all human beings die. Throughout the novel, Meursault moves towards this realization, and by the end of the book, he finally grasps this. For much of the book, Meursault is indifferent to the world around him. Ultimately, he realizes the world has also been indifferent to him. The PlagueClamence then relates the story of how a famous fifteenth-century painting, a panel from the Ghent Altarpiece known as The Just Judges, came into his possession. One evening a regular patron of Mexico City entered the bar with the priceless painting and sold it for a bottle of jenever to the bartender who, for a time, displayed the piece prominently on the wall of his bar. (Both the man who sold the painting and the now-vacant place on the wall where it hung are cryptically pointed out at the beginning of the novel.) However, Clamence eventually informs the bartender that the painting is in fact stolen, that police from several countries are searching for it, and offers to keep it for him; the bartender immediately agrees to the proposal. Clamence attempts to justify his possession of the stolen painting in a number of ways, primarily "because those judges are on their way to meet the Lamb, because there is no lamb or innocence any longer, and because the clever rascal who stole the panel was an instrument of the unknown justice that one ought not to thwart" (Camus 346). Jean-Baptiste, who fears being judged, is a judge himself both verbally and professionally. He deeply understands the hypocrisy of the situation, and commented cynically on this modern society around him: Here you are made to continuously disagree with a person who goes more and more towards that abyss. You are made to define yourself in your disagreement, to define yourself as a negation. And by doing that you are the one who discovers the nausea of such an existence, even as the narrator finds ingenious and pathetic ways to avoid it. And you are the one who moves away from the abyss. Linker, Damon. The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege. New York: Doubleday, 2006. Controversial description of the rising influence of religion in American culture and politics, which focuses on the journal First Things and features a lengthy quote from Bottum on public religiosity.

The Plague differs from its predecessor not only technically but also thematically. Camus’s inspiration for The Plague was no philosophical abstraction but a specific event of his own life: the frustration and despair he experienced during the war, when the aftermath of the Allied invasion of North Africa trapped his wife in Oran (while he was in the Resistance organization in the Massif Central) and cut off all communication between them. That experience started the fictional idea germinating in his mind, and a literary model—Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)—gave the idea more concrete form. Born in Algeria in 1913, Albert Camus published The Stranger-- now one of the most widely read novels of this century-- in 1942. Celebrated in intellectual circles, Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. On January 4, 1960, he was killed in a car accident. Bottum’s images of fall raise the central questions of human and Christian life. The title evokes both a New England autumn and humankind’s first descent into sin. Evocations of violence, judgment, forgiveness, and mercy are sprinkled through each section. The dominant metaphor of fire in September describes the blaze of colors of a New England autumn but also makes explicit violent references to the “welcome slaughter,” “blood and spew and mongerings of war,” and “flames like the blood of martyrs.” Biblical hints resonate in the allusions of “children pass[ing] through fire” (Isaiah 43:1-2; Daniel 3:26) and to “fire falls” and “the world [a]s kindling for the Lord.” (Luke 12:49: “I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled!”) Aronson, Ronald (2004). Camus & Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended It. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-02796-1. In what amounts to a confession, Clamence tells of his success as a wealthy Parisian defense lawyer who was highly respected by his colleagues; his crisis, and his ultimate "fall" from grace, was meant to invoke, in secular terms, The Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden.The essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe ( The Myth of Sisyphus), 1942, expounds notion of acceptance of the absurd of Camus with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction." The Fall” is divided into three sections, each named for an autumn month. The first section, September, begins with a powerful evocation of fall in New England, “New England comes to flower dying.” It is ironic that New England’s most colorful, attractive season is made not by the budding but the dying of leaves. From the first line, Bottum suggests an analogy to the life of Christian believers who by dying are born to immortal life. The first section continues with images of autumnal New England expressed most vividly in metaphors of fire, as “kindling trees” are set ablaze, each falling leaf “a spit of flame” to make “New England burning.” Albert Camus was born in Mondovi, Algeria, on November 7 1913. He grew up impoverished in an already poor country. Despite these circumstances, Camus still made school his priority. He worked odd jobs to pay for his education and attended the University of Algiers. Bronner, Stephen Eric. Camus: Portrait of a Moralist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. We are all exceptional cases. We all want to appeal against something! Each of us insists on being innocent at all cost, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself.’

you know this person, we all know this person, this particular kind of person. a real do-gooder, a person of the people, doling out the goodwill and the spare change and the spare arm to help that blind person across the street. you know the satisfaction they get from looking humble, acting humble, being anything but humble at the heart of them. reveling in their goodness; reveling in their superiority. selflessness disguising selfishness. this person loves 'em and leaves 'em too, except "love" is too strong, too emotional a word to describe the shallow physical connection that leaves out any potential for a genuine connection. this person looks at other people like they would look at a collection of amusing bugs. this person sees a person needing help but if it costs them something, anything, even just a bit of delay on their way to something super important, then they are going to pass that person by. this person doesn't actually like people all that much; this person despises them, more than a little. Of course you might let someone else take The Fall for you, but from then on you would have to worship him. You would have to worship the guilty. You would have to worship the Judge-Penitent. But in this modern religion, to worship is to laugh at The Fallen. 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. Finally, Clamence employs the imagery of the Ghent Altarpiece and The Just Judges to explain his self-identification as a "judge-penitent". This essentially espouses a doctrine of relinquished freedom as a method of enduring the suffering imposed on us by virtue of living in a world without objective truth and one that is therefore, ultimately meaningless. With the death of God, one must also accept by extension the idea of universal guilt and the impossibility of innocence. Clamence's argument posits, somewhat paradoxically, that freedom from suffering is attained only through submission to something greater than oneself. Clamence, through his confession, sits in permanent judgment of himself and others, spending his time persuading those around him of their own unconditional guilt. The novel ends on a sinister note: "Pronounce to yourself the words that years later haven't ceased to resound through my nights, and which I will speak at last through your mouth: "O young girl, throw yourself again into the water so that I might have a second time the chance to save the two of us!" A second time, eh, what imprudence! Suppose, dear sir, someone actually took our word for it? It would have to be fulfilled. Brr...! the water is so cold! But let's reassure ourselves. It's too late now, it will always be too late. Fortunately!"Jean-Baptiste Clamence - refined, handsome, forty, a former successful lawyer - is in turmoil. Over several drunken nights he regales a chance acquaintance with his story. He talks of parties and his debauchery, of Parisian nights and the Aegean sea, and, ultimately, of his self-loathing. One of Albert Camus' most famous works, The Fall is a brilliant, complex portrayal of lost innocence and the true face of man. Read more Details Jean-Baptiste Clamence is a soul in turmoil. Over several drunken nights in an Amsterdam bar, he regales a chance acquaintance with his story. From this successful former lawyer and seemingly model citizen a compelling, self-loathing catalogue of guilt, hypocrisy and alienation pours forth. The Fall (1956) is a brilliant portrayal of a man who has glimpsed the hollowness of his existence. But beyond depicting one man's disillusionment, Camus's novel exposes the universal human condition and its absurdities - for our innocence that, once lost, can never be recaptured ... According to Camus, the only valid choice in response to the Absurd is the third choice, to accept and embrace absurdity while continuing to live. According to Camus, life is better with no meaning because it is freeing. You are not obligated to live in a particular way. Major Works Close-up of the novel The Stranger by Albert Camus. At the end of every freedom, there is a sentence, which is why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you have a temperature, or you are grieving, or you love nobody.”