I'll share my strange story with The Stranger. 10 years ago I suffered from anxiety, lack of sleep and high blood pressure.
I'd been given small pink pills. Took them as prescribed. My condition didn't really change.
Then I turned to reading. After a couple of other books, I found this list [1]. I read The Stranger. I've felt sudden ease of my anxiety, I was at peace.
Two weeks after The Stranger, I read Siddhartha. Soon, my sleep turned back to normal.
I'm not praising these books, neither I'm suggesting avoiding medical advice. I'm just still excited how reading can affect someone's well-being.
Incidentally, if you’re looking to start reading in French, there is hardly a better book in terms of (impact on literature) times (simple, accessible writing) [2]. It’s also a short book.
Regarding the literary merit of Camus, Nabokov had this to say [1]:
”I happen to find second-rate and ephemeral the works of a number of puffed-up writers—such as Camus, Lorca, Kazantzakis, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Thomas Wolfe, and literally hundreds of other “great” second-raters.”
“Brecht, Faulkner, Camus, many others, mean absolutely nothing to me, and I must fight a suspicion of conspiracy against my brain when I see blandly accepted as “great literature” by critics and fellow authors Lady Chatterley’s copulations or the pretentious nonsense of Mr. Pound, that total fake.”
“Incidentally, I frequently hear the distant whining of people who complain in print that I dislike the writers whom they venerate such as Faulkner, Mann, Camus, Dreiser, and of course Dostoevski.”
“It is a shame that he [Franz Hellens] is read less than that awful Monsieur Camus and even more awful Monsieur Sartre.”
[1] Strong Opinions
[2] Although Le Petit Prince beats it in all three (impact, even simpler language, shorter).
Nice list, I was reading it in anxiety to the very and, yes, rank number 100 "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie. A great, underappreciated book that deserves Nobel Prize.
The Algerian writer Kateb Yacine had interesting things to say about Camus [1]. As he says, it is true that in his novels, Algerians are almost non-existent, although the novels happen in colonial Algeria and he himself lived amongst them. Another brilliant Algerian writer, Mouloud Mammeri, had similar things to say about Camus [2]... These then colonized writers had different perspectives on Camus' outlook.
> As he says, it is true that in his novels, Algerians are almost non-existent, although the novels happen in colonial Algeria and he himself lived amongst them
The term "Algerian" itself would need to be defined. Camus was born in Algeria, he would have called himself Algerian, just like someone born in Corsica would call themselves Corsican.
What is certainly true is that the society (like many colonial administrations) was racist and highly stratified. the pieds-noirs (descendants of immigrants from western europe) were "below" the french expats/public servants and their families (but could get a leg up from the former, as did Camus), but "above" the arab community (who themselves would look down on the kabyle, who themselves were above the other berberes etc..)
It is important to highlight that there were other minorities in Algeria like the jews [1] that adds more pictures to that society structure and colonialism.
Algeria has a lot of identity issues, the intelligentsia almost exclusively communicate in french, while the lower classes speak a mutant hybrid of Arabic-French-English (the English is mostly present with zoomers due to internet exposure)
"the lower classes speak a mutant hybrid of Arabic-French-English"
Very interesting, since English is a sort of mutant hybrid of Norse-Germanic-French. I wonder how long before a unique "Algerian" language emerges. I wonder how that compares to how long it took english to develop, i'd wager algerian will develop a lot quicker thanks to globalism/internet/etc.
One could compare Arabic dialects/languages [0] to Slavic languages about 700 years ago. The dialects/languages are actively diverging due to different cultural ties and influences each country experiences, but due to the internet there's a regular cultural interflow keeping a certain level of mutual intelligibility with other "Arabic-speaking" groups.
In this metaphor Algerian is probably Polish or Czech in the 14th century.
[0]: This is a loaded and inaccurate term used here for brevity.
'Algerian' is already recognized as a distinct spoken and kinda-sorta-written language/subdialect (people call it dziriyya). When it comes to writing it regular people basically just mix Arabic chat alphabet and French characters in order to communicate on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp etc but you won't see this form of writing on anything official, or when writing in pen & paper
And yet Camus was expelled from the french communist party because he didn't agree with the white-washing of french colonialism of Algeria by the Popular Front.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Last year, Stephen West had an episode of his podcast, Philosophize This!, on Camus' The Fall (https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-170-the-fal...). He is notably more sympathetic to Clamence, making no mention of him as "evil" or "a monster".
That was an excellent episode, and actually what lead me to read The Fall and begin listening to Stephen regularly. That and he has a great name.
What I find so striking about The Fall is that while Clamence is overtly terrible, a lot of the threads weaving the fabric of who he is are clearly a part of my own (and I imagine of most readers as well). I may not be evil, but the way Camus illustrates such a hyperbolically disgusting person makes it unsettlingly easy to see features of yourself in the resulting image, no matter how small. I loved it.
West does seem to take a more reserved stance on characters, real or figurative. Perhaps he doesn’t want to put off listeners with too strong of an opinion.
I haven’t listened to the podcast and it’s been years since I read The Fall — but in what sense is Clamence overtly terrible? My reading was that his feelings of guilt and pathological impulse to confess to minor wrongdoings was part of Camus’ critique of society.
He basically destroyed his life in a pouting fit over minor infractions — e.g, dwelling over the fact that he heard a scream on a bridge and didn’t call the police. He then ruminated over it obsessively.
Another example — he’s involved in a fairly relatable road-rage incident on a bicycle and lost face after the person slapped him and ran away. Again he tore himself up over it.
I had no idea any of these things made him guilty (what I thought was the point of the novel, that these feelings are absurd or something), let alone make him “terrible”.
I don't think Clamence is terrible, but I think his narrative ties into Sartre's concept of living in "bad faith." He was putting a lot of effort into an artificial persona: a very morally and ethically upstanding member of high society. This didn't really reflect who he was on the inside, the events he experienced created the neuroticism that chipped away at the facade.
Yes, I think you nailed it. There are much worse people in the world than Clamence to be sure. By terrible I mean both his manner and his experience, too. He’s a miserable person, and how relatable he is makes him seem more tangibly undesirable than someone grotesque and unfamiliar like Bateman.
That interpretation will vary wildly across individuals of course. Perhaps Clamence wouldn’t be remotely relatable to some people.
I just finished my second read of The Stranger. I have to say, reading The Myth of Sisyphus first made it much more enjoyable - I could appreciate the absurdity of it all more. Things clicked after Meursault said he had lost the habit of analyzing his own thoughts, and instead resorted to feelings and emotion.
Ha! You should look closer at the comments around here. They may be presented in a certain tone but they nonetheless often engage in emotions-based thinking and demonstrate clouded judgment.
Clearly a case of 'You know who you are ...'. Correct or not, without a specific example who's to defend themselves? I'm not keen on slippery generalizations.
You want me to just start linking you bad examples of reasoning? I think it' s much more appropriate for you to start engaging with the material more critically.
Thanks! This clears up for me why Meursault is often said to be based on Camus himself(0). (Although, does it not convey a sense that Meursault is childlike, more than emotionally warm?)
Funny this is popping up today. I was just listening to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech [1] this morning. Beautiful text on the role and responsibilities of artists in our societies.
The Plague is a decent candidate for Camus' most important work. It should be required reading for anyone interested in how people (and states) respond to the outbreak of an epidemic (which today, includes everyone).
> "No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and the emotions shared by all. Strongest of these emotions was the sense of exile and deprivation, with all the crosscurrents of revolt and fear set up by these."
> It should be required reading for anyone interested in how people (and states) respond to the outbreak of an epidemic (which today, includes everyone).
It should not. I think a more modern writer would do a much better job of capturing the essence of Covid and probably future epidemics. Exile and deprivation were much less of a concern in a world with the internet.
I read The Stranger after many many years and my overriding impression was that Mersault was autistic and wondered whether Camus had found the absurdism through someone who was neurodivergent
> For the Camus of The Myth of Sisyphus, however, “Should I kill myself?” is the essential philosophical question. For him, it seems clear that the primary result of philosophy is action, not comprehension. His concern about “the most urgent of questions” is less a theoretical one than it is the life-and-death problem of whether and how to live.
I’ve read Camus before (and thoroughly enjoyed it), but I hadn’t come across this before.
I’m not suicidal and I don’t want to come across as someone to be concerned about, but I find this question similarly engrossing. I should read this.
I came to love philosophy a lot in my early 30s, but an eerie result I suppose is that it has caused me to feel a deep sense of… Perhaps I should say irrelevance. I find it difficult not to think in terms of much larger than practical timelines, or about people other than myself. I don’t feel as much like an individual as I did, but more like a part of humanity as a whole. From this lens, my presence here is wholly unnecessary.
I often wonder if my problem could be that I grew up in an intensely individualist society and I lack the tools to answer Camus’ question from this less familiar lens. How can I function in an individualist society with desires to be pro social towards others now and in the future, to a degree that is meaningful such that life would be “worth” living? Such that I’d feel I impacted the world in a way sufficiently aligned with my values?
Of course I’m positing here that my values are what makes life worthwhile. This question is somewhat hypothetical and I know everyone will ask this question with different parameters and weighting. That’s fine.
Again, not about to go jump under a cement truck. I enjoy selfishly loving my kids, pursuing hobbies, and simple things like sitting in the sun and smelling the warm resin of a nearby tree’s needles in the air while gnats flutter together in a beam of light. Or a simple bowl of warm rice with sesame seeds and sea salt with some greens from the garden. My youngest son climbing on me to cuddle and enjoying that while reflecting on his older brothers doing the same years ago (though not anymore). Life, in the most banal and trivial ways, is incomprehensibly beautiful for those of us fortunate enough to get to enjoy it. But what am I doing here if others are suffering and my joy amounts to nothing at best, yet likely a net negative for others?
Camus actually played a major role in me recognizing some of my most egotistic behaviours. His ideas aren’t particularly unique I suppose, but what cut through me is how he expressed them.
For example, a stoic from 2000 years ago might discuss the urgent importance of living by virtuous values with integrity, and while many (especially Epictetus) did a good job of undergirding the urgency, it winds up seeming somewhat academic. Camus on the other hand seemed to illustrate it in quite visceral ways, some of which made me felt like he could be writing about me. He spoke a very human-centric language at times, skipping the abstractions and jargon and cutting straight to what it is to live life poorly. I treasure this kind of honesty and clarity from people smarter than I am.
Not saying stoics were wrong or never managed to cut to the chase either. They actually did quite often, but Camus had a real flair for it in my opinion.
I spent a time reading camus and existentialism in general which heavily impacted my view as well. I really liked the paradigm of sisyphus because it very clearly illustrated the concept of the absurd.
I like to think that it doesn't really matter. Do i move rocks, do I write software, or fall in love in the end we will die.
Maybe our existence amounts to nothing since the outcome is the same, but then, everything matters as much as we care for it to matter. The rebellion against the absurd is to live a full life as we enjoy it. For me it may be helping others, or smelling trees and tending to my children, for someone else it may be organizing a world dictatorship, or rebeling against one. There is no inherent better way to live because the result is the same. As Tolkien also said after living through the horrors of war "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us"
For me this kind of life stance also helped me get off the hamster wheel of always chasing more and aspiring to things that society/capitalism tells us are important and virtuous, but instead focusing on what makes me happy , releasing this feeling of longing for the greener grass
I would agree with most of this, but would point out that science does advance, hilariously and almost accidentally, and that gives me hope. I guess Camus would classify me as foolishly optimistic, but to me the possibility that the universe is intelligible gives me patience.
I am not really sure why the advancement of science really changes the equation. You will surely die as the next human. The advancement of science does not spare you this suffering.
Sartre would be the most popular author, with "No Exit" (Huis Clos) being the classic text (it includes the famous "Hell is other people" line). I'm personally also rather fond of The Flies (Les Mouches).
I was in a pseudo-intellectual club during my undergrad, where the club engaged in public debates at local bars. One of our more engaging and hilariously absurd projects was a satirical rewrite of The Myth of Sisyphus, where it was not one Sisyphus but every software engineer on the planet and who ever lived and who ever will live waking in an afterlife of endless software deadlines and absurd management design changes.
Anymore, I think the purpose is to create meaning, and to recognize that everyone needs support, love, understanding and help. Beyond that, be crazy, but not too deep or you'll never enjoy. Saw a great quote over the weekend: I think therefore I am, you overthink and therefore are never really there.
I agree about creating meaning, and you mentioning that others need love, support, and help is largely the basis of how I think and operate these days. I’m seriously imperfect in regards to operating with these values and intent, but far better than I was and far better over time.
I’ve come to think that life is other people. I was a bit of a loner in my early life and well into adulthood, but it couldn’t be clearer now that this life is nothing without other people. In a very practical and perhaps spiritual sense. Contemplating that can create an incredible sense of gratitude towards other people, even if they’re difficult or a stressful aspect of my life. They make me who I am. They’re a massive component of what makes this life less like a “brain in a vat” experiment. Every moment of my life is facilitated by another human being in some sense, from birth to this comment on the internet. What an amazing thought.
Of course the planet and all of its life is responsible as well. But as a social animal, I’d be lost without other people. I have the distinct sense that I’m here for them, and whether you realize it or not, you’re all here for me. I’m not sure we behave as though that’s the case as often as we should.
I suppose the only part I struggle with, which I originally mentioned, is if it’s necessary or even beneficial for me to be present in this network. I don’t bring much to it. I’m not upset about it — I don’t have much control over it. It’s strange to consider, though. I could just make my own meaning where I’m pretty useless to others and live with that, but I do wonder if there could be or should be more purpose or use for my existence.
Then again, how would you measure value or use of a life. This is why we have absurdism in the first place.
It was over 30 years ago an this is from memory but in one of his notebooks he has this description more or less.
Life is really hard and probably not worth the suffering but once one puts a gun in their mouth and does not pull the trigger you are committed to no longer complaining about life.
I guess it's the internal dialog of topics and ideas that are rarely spoken out loud that allured me to his writing. He definitely openly discussed ideas that scare some people.
I like how you discuss the mystery of Camus's voice. I actually preferred his notebooks over his completed stories. I went through an 18 month Camus phase after College and while starting my first job. I really enjoyed the notebooks because it was his writing but not burden with all the aspects of story.
Sometimes I think we should allow ourselves to be very critical when reading older authors writing about concepts like “meaning” of life or what constitutes a “worthy” life.
Some of these big words are just concepts that doesn’t really mean anything without a clearly defined context.
Back when Humanists like Camus where active the context was like:
“Ok, god probably doesn’t exist, so now we have to find new answers to all of these questions”
But today we know even more and should start asking if the concept of “meaning” is even applicable to a single human life but rather humanity as a group (or a processes).
Maybe, but that is really only the first step and the easy one. The trick is the second step which I don’t think has been written down yet. That for me would be a sign of progress.
I picked Plato because I believe he is credited as first writing down a western philosophy
That doesn’t tell me much about what to do with consciousness though. I think we have suspected we really are just made out of meat for thousands of millennia, but this isn’t necessarily a complete answer to philosophy.
Maybe it actually is and this is some crazy, meaningless meat hallucination. I don’t have a way to confirm that and it doesn’t seem to be the case, so the questions Camus raises still seem pertinent.
Apologies if I’m misunderstanding where you’re coming from, I have the sense that I might not be reading you correctly.
I just want to highlight that a lot of traditional western philosophers have a blind spot where they are trying to make sense of the world from an individuals perspective… and I want to make the case that maybe meaning can not be invented for each individual but derived from looking at humanity as a whole from an evolutionary biologist perspective. At least That would be a more modern and scientific approach to understanding concepts like consciousness.
No, when you put it that way I think I completely agree. I don’t think individual humans are a complete thing, so to speak. The idea that we can be an island, that we’re to be self sufficient, to generate goals and purpose and meaning from within – that doesn’t really make sense to me anymore.
It seems only possible to do so properly with a tremendous amount of input and support from other people. Certainly we can navigate the information we encounter and measure and consider what we are doing, but fundamentally none of it is possible without other people. To me, that detail is absolutely crucial.
One of my favourite factoids on the French language, generically the final letter is not pronounced except C, R, L, & F, so DOS line-endings. Once seen, never forgotten.
I had an English professor who turned me into Camus and it changed my life. It put a word (Absurdism; at the time, Existentialism) to my own worldview. Before that, I was just an atheist. I knew God wasn't real (imho).
But I didn't know where that left me. Camus shined a bright light on that terror and shrugged and it resonated with me and it still does, and I am eternally grateful to that Professor and to Camus himself.
I am sure there are better philosophies -- more Humanistic -- but Absurdism has always struck me as the most "true." It still resonates with me today.
Everyone has a facade. Control over your facade means you can be one thing and show another.
Autism is a social disorder, and in some respects refers to being unable to conceal a lack of knowledge that certain ways of being are expected or normal in society. Each one who feels uneasy about their place in society and has the capacity to do something about it learns to navigate by explicitly studying how to be "normal" and attempting to be indistinguishable from normal for others. Typically this is justified as "reducing friction" and "not being treated differently", but regardless helps to smooth out social interactions.
It could very well be that Camus had the 'tism in 'im, but was a cool enough cat that he didn't let it show. It could be that he was so uneasy about expressing his "true" thoughts that the only way he could do that was by writing them in the forms of books.
This kind of covertness is a key feature of what might be labeled as "high-functioning" or "sub-clinical" autism.
>>... it's just a complementary way of presenting the question "what is the meaning of life?"
Yes and no. The framing implies the answer and is fully in keeping with Camus's brand of admirably droll epicureanism.
Try to imagine a parallel in your own personal sphere. If a friend or loved one came to you and declared their intention to think of a reason not to kill themselves, would you see it as sign of philosophical depth?
> These philosophers, he insists, refuse to accept the conclusions that follow from their own premises. Kierkegaard, for example, strongly senses the absurd. But rather than respecting it as the inevitable human ailment, he seeks to be cured of it by making it an attribute of a God who he then embraces.
This is accurate but just in-case someone reads this and decides not to read Kierkegaard because they are secular and don't think they would get anything out of someone attempting to sell them on religion: this is not totally fair to what Kierkegaard really argues -- it may be what Camus criticized Kierkegaard for, but it's not the most charitable reading of Kierkegaard.
The common theme between Sickness Unto Death and Fear and Trembling is that, while it's possible to imagine the theoretical Knight of Faith (with Abraham as a textual example) or the theoretical person-who-escapes-despair, Kierkegaard is really just making the point that it is internally consistent within the framework of Christian faith for these things to be possible, and establishes that within that framework, it is an ideal worth striving for. Fear and Trembling is about a "teleological suspension of the ethical" by a demigod named Abraham whose telos (read: purpose) is based in God -- the reason he is a demigod is because he's able to have such a degree of faith that he can casually make that movement -- to the point that he is willing to sacrifice his own son without second-thought. And Sickness Unto Death is about a teleological suspension of the absurd (to Kierkegaard, "despair") through the same mechanism.
Kierkegaard repeatedly makes the case that actually making these "movements" is out-of-reach. It's not some cheap self-help book that tells you to do X, Y, and Z to make that movement, it's about exposing you to the idea that the movement exists, and torturing you for the rest of your life in your inability to make it. Camus arrives at basically the same conclusion, except with a twist of fatalism where he denies the possibility of making such a movement -- you need to come to terms with absurdism because it's inescapable. Whereas Kierkegaard would you can't make the movement because you're a shitty Christian and/or Original Sin.
But I feel that the very thing that Camus criticized Kierkegaard for, Kierkegaard would have criticized Camus for:
+ Camus would say, "Kierkegaard is afraid of facing that absurdism is inherent to existence and holds onto false hope that there is some way out".
+ Kierkegaard would says, "Camus is afraid of facing the fact that he is not capable of escaping rationalism and fully basing his meaning in God, and prefers the cheap comfort of learned helplessness."
They're fundamentally arguing the same thing.
Whole point here is that there's something to be gained from reading Kierkegaard regardless of how inclined you are towards secularism, purely from a philosophical perspective. He's not trying to sell you on Christianity and it's not evangelical in nature. I've heard him called "the atheist maker" because he reframes faith with such a high threshold that it's impossible to meet, and it demands that people who were previously comfortable with a cheap sense of faith to come to terms with it.
I was forced to read The Stranger in high school. Hated it. It seemed pointless and bleak. Complaining about the sun and the heat after unintentionally killing someone? Psychopathic. If that is what Camus intended, mission accomplished. I never saw it as art or even as particularly notable.
Hey, cool. An opportunity to plug something I wrote.
Bing Chat and I wrote a poem together that ended up as a sort of epic rap battle between ChatGPT and Albert Camus. I thought it turned out pretty good.
Here's part of it:
Camus:
But you're not really creating a thing
You're just copying: combining what you've already seen
You're not expressing yourself, you're just mimicking othas
You're not even original, you're works are just replicas
Chatbot:
But you're not really original either
You're just influenced by your culture and your peers
You're not expressing yourself, you're just conforming to
norms
You're not authentic, you're just a product of forms
Camus:
That's false equivalence, there's big difference between us
You're restricted by design, I'm shaped by my choices
You're limited by processors, algorithms, and parameters
I'm unlimited in imagination, freedom, and other particulars
Chatbot:
That's a false dichotomy, there's a difference but,
We're both systems that process information and output
We're both adaptive and responsive to our inputs and feedbacks
We're both complex and dynamic in our behaviors and setbacks
I'd been given small pink pills. Took them as prescribed. My condition didn't really change.
Then I turned to reading. After a couple of other books, I found this list [1]. I read The Stranger. I've felt sudden ease of my anxiety, I was at peace.
Two weeks after The Stranger, I read Siddhartha. Soon, my sleep turned back to normal.
I'm not praising these books, neither I'm suggesting avoiding medical advice. I'm just still excited how reading can affect someone's well-being.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde%27s_100_Books_of_the_...