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As a philosophy teacher, mentor, and friend, Jean Grenier (1898–1971) had an enormous influence on the young Albert Camus (1913–1960), who, in fact, acknowledged that Grenier’s Les Iles had touched the very core of his sensibility and provided him with both a "terrain for reflection, and a format" that he would later use for his own essays. Their correspondence, beginning when the seventeen-year-old Camus was Grenier’s student at the Grand Lycée of Algiers, documents the younger man’s struggle to become a writer and find his own voice, a period in which he turned frequently to his mentor for advice, comfort, and direction. The letters cover a period of almost thirty years, from 1932 to Camus’s untimely death in 1960. Because Camus destroyed the earlier correspondence he received, the first twenty-six letters in the volume are his only; the full begins in 1940.

These enlightening letters offer invaluable glimpses into the development of Camus’s aesthetic ideas, literary production, and political stance. In contrast to the correspondence of Grenier, who throughout remains somewhat reticent about his life and doubtful about himself and his works, Camus’s letters are a window into his most profound thoughts and sensitivities, delving deeply into his psyche and, at times, revealing a side of the writer unfamiliar to us. Undoubtedly they allow us a better understanding of Albert Camus, the man and the artist.

Jan F. Rigaud is an associate professor at Villanova University. ... Read more

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Great Seller
The book came in very fast and at a very affordable price.The seller was very professional and I would recommend buying from this seller to everyone. ... Read more

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In 1952, Jean-Paul Sartre engaged Albert Camus in a celebrated and bitter public confrontation that had wide-ranging cultural significance. This book contains the first English translation of the five texts constituting this famous philosophical quarrel. Personally animated, passionately argued, polemically focused, this confrontation was as much a personal encounter as it was a theoretical debate. Alternating between stylistic brilliance and stinging sarcasm, each draws upon their years of past involvement as former friends both to make their criticisms more pointed and their theoretical critique more challenging. At the same time, their views serve as lightning rods for the wider cultural forces of which they are partial expressions. ... Read more

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Is there a third way?
Not only does this book contain the original articles that comprise one of the great intellectual debates of the last century, it also has very helpful contextual commentary by the editors.

One can substitute terrorism for Stalinism and the debate is, if you will forgive the cliche, as current as the headlines. But it most certainly is not at all like the sound bite debates of Cross Fire. Great breath and depth in the arguments of the participants - anguished arguments about the relationships betweenmeans and ends, justice and freedom; and finally personal responsibility.

Camus corectly sees Stalinism, read terrorism, an an unmitigated evil. Yet, he sought to live as neither victim nor executioner. That caused him no end of grief, especially as he confronted the Algerian situation. Nevertheless his arguments call to mind the views of the Polish and Czech dissidents in the 80s. An anti-politics, a living "as if" one were free. No crusade to eliminate evil from the earth, no war; rather a third way.

Sartre on the other hand saw Stalinism as an understandable, even necessary, response to the injustice inflicted on the wretched of the earth. His understanding of human nature, dare one use that term in discussing Sartre, was such that chioce was required in all circumstances. By this time, in Sartre's thinking, no third way was possible. If the choice is between victim or executioner, he would choose executioner.

Sartre is correct, one must choose. Camus is correct, there is a third way. Enter the debate if you dare. There is no easy exit.

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A double value
The notebooks are valuable as the record of a life, and also as a kind of preliminary sketchbook to the works. Here one can see Camus groping toward the chrystallization of his most significant works. The aphoristic and descriptive beauty of some of the passages also add to the value of the work.

An existentialist in the process
After reading all of Camus' works I read his notebooks, and all of it sudden his track of mind made sense. You can clearly see the train of thoughts before The Stranger and The Fall. This book is essential for anyone who is into existentialism, absurdism and their derivatives.

I would like to say this is more of a philosophical book, but Albert's desire was always to be recognized as a writer more than a thinker. His entries are of an artist expressing his lassitude towards meaning and some paragraphs are harsh while criticizing war, love and human nature. If you are overly religious, this book may not be for you.

Great collection of entries fromwriter who should've won more Nobel Prizes and who is the father of modern existentialism.. still.

Albert Camus, writer.
For too many decades and by too many college instructors, Albert Camus has been clumped together with Jean-Paul Sartre and others under the heading of "Existentialist". This collection of Camus' notebooks indicates that there were many other things going on in his thinking, and Existentialism was hardly one of them. In fact, several revealing excerpts show us a man who disagreed with it fundamentally.

That aside, what it really presents to the reader is that Camus is first and foremost a writer. Whether it's creative writing, critical writing, reflective writing, etc., he was accomplished at all of them. His description of a sunset, quaint as it might sound, is so beautiful it's almost heartbreaking. Meanwhile, his political observations are keen, with a strong sense of urgency.

Equally fascinating is to observe his literary works taking shape: to see the mind of a writer putting a major opus together. To me, this is the major contribution of the book. I highly recommend this book to aspiring writers, diarists, or to anyone interested in the mid-20th century thought. That goes for Existentialists too.

Great insight to his work
This novel , more like a autobiography is great because in it he tells of certain unforgetable conversations and ideas that his mind has come up with.It just makes me want to read more of his work because now i know how he gets some of his ideas and the process he goes through in creating a grea novel.Although the notes are written in a form that is different then usual , they are great to read.I recomend it. ... Read more

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"All Men Believe In God, Even Those Who Reject Him"
Camus could sweep through a volume of philosophy with one razor edged sentence.
I may not agree with all his perspectves, but I do give him the credit of genius.

This september (not january) 1954 'Vintage Books' edition has gained a collectors cult following (If only for the haunting cover).But the reason escapes me.certainly the disaffected void hangs heavily throughout this story.It's unrelenting grip of dread holds the reader tightly.But personally I feel this translation lacks the true Camus ambience. ... Read more

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"Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken."

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Collected for the first time in English, 41 of Albert Camus's Combat essays trace the evolution of moral and political themes central to his literary works ... Read more

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Good essays, but collected better elsewhere
I liked the essays, but I liked them better in the more fleshed out "Camus at Combat," which in my opinion has better translations for the English reader.

See where Camus got his ideas for his later work.
I am sad to see no other reviews of this book on Amazon. This is a well written book full of essays written by Albert Camus for the frenchresistance paper Combat. Like the title suggests Albert Camus is faced'Between Hell And Reason' with what he and the world was faced against.Much like Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia" we see the writer in hisearly age before his written his major works and going off into the abyssof war. We see them mold ideas which mostly are more radical and lesscomplicated which they would use later to write "masterpieces".

The essays start with the liberation of Paris. The topics throughout thebook go from self critique of the paper to responses of major figures inthe war.My favorite essays were the ones that pointed out how false andfake the press were during the war. Camus however doesn't just criticizeother figures and press, he self-critques his own paper Combat. Camus isvery honest and isn't just filled with meaningless words. He really meanswhat he says and doesn't say it if it's not true. Mostly when I readpolitical essays and other works of the same nature, I mostly feelalienated and disagree but with "Between Hell And Reason" I couldunderstand and really believe what Camus said. Very few political pieces dothat to me.

This edition of "Between Hell And Reason" has a bigintroduction with translator's notes and footnotes for the essays. Anyonewho wants to really study Albert Camus could use a lot from this edition of"Between Hell And Reason." ... Read more

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In the early 1950's, Albert Camus, the renowned existentialist and Nobel prize-winner, visited the American Church in Paris to hear the music of the famous organist Marcel Dupre. What he found was an unexpected friend--Howard Mumma, a Methodist minister from Ohio who was serving as a guest preacher. Intrigued by Mumma's philosophy and theology based on a living faith in a higher power, Camus invited Mumma to lunch and thus a surprising friendship was formed.

Over the next several years, through a series of profound conversations with Howard Mumma, Camus explored the Christian faith. These discussions, as recalled by Mumma in the first part of this book, offer a deeply personal side of Camus not seen by the public eye. In the second part, Mumma shares personal glimpses of the people and experiences that had a profound influence on his own life enabling him to understand what Camus was facing in his personal life. ... Read more

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This should have been two books
On the portion of this book related to Camus:

I have read everything translated into English of Camus I could find, except for Christianity and Neoplatonism, which is on my list.

I picked up the Mumma book because I saw Camus' face on the cover, and was intrigued by the idea - I had the desire to read dialogues between these two minds.

Mumma's goal here is not dialogue, it is at the farthest stretch a confession of his failure, and a presentation of what were his arguments to an intelligent, thinking non-Christian man about Christianity and the Bible.

He says very early on that he failed Camus, but points most directly to his stance on not baptizing him and Camus 'suicide', as he explains it.

Where he fails Camus is much more devious - Camus was not ignorant of religion, Christianity, the saints, etc. - the title of aforementioned Christianity and Neoplatonism should illustrate that pretty fully.The Mumma book is a record, not of dialogues between him and Camus, but of the things Mumma said in an attempt at a celebrity conversion.It there had been real dialogue, I wouldn't use 'celebrity conversion' as the derogatory phrase I intend it to be.Camus certainly asked 'simplistic' questions, because he wanted to know where the man stood.Camus' own words, thoughts, and ideas regarding the matter were however truncated - either by a very polite and non-confrontational Camus, or by a minister who kept no record of it.Camus' words were recorded only in as much as he agreed with Mumma.

Judge for yourself by this singular passage - it speaks of things the minister wanted to be true about Camus but could not know, based on the assumption that joy isn't possible without an attempt to know Christ:

"Here he sat before me, head lowered.The depressed look in his eyes was accented by the little pouches of skin under each one.Despite all of his brilliant success and the fame as a writer, sadness remained his dominant emotion.I wondered what he thought as he sat there.How did he think that I, a guest minister from America, could possibly help him?How could I help him find the answers for which he was ardently searching? As I watched him, I realized that his was more than intellectual curiosity.He wanted more than just a comprehension of faith.He wanted to experience this faith and have it act in his own life."

I find it quite possible that the 'depressed look' and 'little pouches' might have reflected, instead of a desire for an experience of living faith, a desire for a cure for tuberculosis.

This is the tone of the book - at least the portion on Camus.It is a minister's projection of his own definitions and explanations onto a mind I'm not convinced he understood.Judging from the conversations, it certainly doesn't seem like the minister was insterested in asking any questions of his own - he already had his own answers.

I will qualify this in one way, however - in reading Mumma's views on the Bible and Christianity, I think he offers a much more ecumenically conciliatory point of departure than what passes for 'True Christianity' in this country.Special pleading and self-righteousness, it is my hope, will be the death of religions one day.However, had religion in the past 50 years followed the ideas and types of ideas of people like Mumma, our world would be devoid of its everpresent fundamentalism.

On the rest of this book:

I find it a shame, after completing the other section of the book, that these were not separate volumes.I, like others reviewers here, find Mumma's presentation of a nearly converted Camus very suspect.I think a lot of revelation can be gleaned from Camus' desire for a personal, private baptism - this was a friend, and he wanted to strengthen that friendship.I feel the same way towards my Christian friends. On the other hand, the rest of the book is much more interesting, and in fact I could have read a much longer version of what was offered there.Again, it seems as if the first section was his confession.

Too Many Unanswered Questions
It's a matter of record that Albert Camus wrote his Master's thesis on "Christian Metaphysics and Neo-Platonism: Plotinus and Saint Augustine" under the supervision of a professor, Jean Grenier, who was something of an expert on Eastern religions. Considering all his study, considering The Plague, The Fall, The Myth of Sisyphus, all else that he wrote, is it possible that Albert Camus could have been as naive as Howard Mumma portrays him? The thrust of the entire narrative seems to have been that Camus came to an American Protestant minister looking for something he had never found before in religion, and found it in, of all places, a Protestant translation of the Bible--as if he had been completely unfamiliar beforehand with its stories and lessons. We may never know the entire truth, but the rehashing of the precepts of the Protestant myth of "sola Scriptura" is so pronounced herein that somehow this book seems to have the taste of the same sort of pious fiction that gave us Voltaire's supposed deathbed horrors.

very, very suspect
i am not quite an encyclopedia entry on Camus, but I am very VERY suspicious of this account by Howard Mumma.this man basically claims that Camus had most decidedly chosen to become a Christian just prior to his death.he also asserts that Camus committed suicide.as an interested reader, does this not strike you as odd?if this is one man's attempt to disgrace the reputation of Camus - a "man and a thinker" - for the sake of political gain...shame shame SHAME ON YOU!if not, well, i apologize for calling you a filthy liar.

Flawed and Beautiful
Mumma in the foreword acknowledges his bias and inaccuracy (he wrote the book almost 40 years after Camus' death, and was around 90 at its publishing).One cannot take the book in a 100% literal fashion - there are clear victims of inaccuracy in the text.However, the story as a whole is an excellent narrative of the existential struggle between the two extremes of Jean-Paul Sartre's thoughts and Mumma's Christianity, with Albert Camus' frustration with the universe straddling the chasm.

On another note, it is impossible to verify the book, Mumma notes that Camus did not want to be identified with a Methodist "priest".In the text, when speaking over dinner, Camus shuns any and all publicity.It is clear that these conversations were never intended to be public - and Camus and his biographers did not mention it.

biased
While interesting for anecdotal pieces on Camus himself, Mr. Mumma is, however, biased & blinded by his religious beliefs and misunderstands Camus (not to mention that one wonders if some of the memories themselves are not... biased...). Certainly not a major addition to the body of intellectual studies related to Camus... ... Read more