Product Description
Guia moral e intelectual de la generacion llegada a la madurez entre las ruinas, la frustacion y la desesperanza de la Europa de la postguerra, Albert Camus 1913-1960 salto a la fama con la publicacion, en 1942. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Classic existentialism
The Stranger is a classic of literature, that can be read in one sitting (it's very short). Its power lies on the amoral voice of the narrator, his detached emotional state, and the tension that comes from the protagonist's trial, where he is accused of killing an arab, but in reality convicted for his lack of emotion at the death of his mother.
The language of the book is direct and simple, but it brilliantly conveys the psychological numbness of the character. This conveyance is preserved in the Spanish translation of the book (originally written in French) and to a lesser degree (but still substantial) the English translation.

el absurdo
A veces alcaminar por la calle yotambién hesentido esa desazón, esa falta de raíces en el mundo y pese a tener padre y madre,hermanosy esposa, siento que no pertenezco a este mundo, que yo también como el personaje de Camus,soy un extranjero en este mundo, que solo estoy de paso y que no importa lo que haga para cambiarlo siempre será así y jamás será de otra forma. En esos momentos en los que tengo un ataque fuerte de abusurdismo, veo lo banal, y a veces es aún mas fuerte que la depresión, pues en las depresiones te preocupas por que la gente no te quiere, en estos momentos eso no te importa ya, nada te importa. Mucha gente lo achaca a la falta de Dios, a la falta de raices, a la falta de amor, sin saber que a veces los excesos de la vida pueden producir ese mismo efecto y quizás hasta mucho peor. Camus nos muestra en su novela a un hombreque no tiene afectos ni pasiones, un hombre que sin querer mata, y sin querer muere y todo alrededor, vida y muerte, esta imbuido del sentido del absurdo.

Luis Méndez ... Read more

Product Description
In this enormously engaging, vibrant, and richly researched biography of Albert Camus, the French writer and journalist Olivier Todd has drawn on personal correspondence, notebooks, and public records never before tapped, as well as interviews with Camus's family, friends, fellow workers, writers, mentors, and lovers.

Todd shows us a Camus who struggled all his life with irreconcilable conflicts--between his loyalty to family and his passionate nature, between the call to political action and the integrity to his art, between his support of the native Algerians and his identification with the forgotten people, the poor whites. A very private man, Camus could be charming and prickly, sincere and theatrical, genuinely humble, yet full of great ambition.

Todd paints a vivid picture of the time and place that shaped Camus--his impoverished childhood in the Algerian city of Belcourt, the sea and the sun and the hot sands that he so loved (he would always feel an exile elsewhere), and the educational system that nurtured him. We see the forces that lured him into communism, and his attraction to the theater and to journalism as outlets for his creativity.

The Paris that Camus was inevitably drawn to is one that Todd knows intimately, and he brings alive the war years, the underground activities that Camus was caught up in during the Occupation and the bitter postwar period, as well as the intrigues of the French literati who embraced Camus after his first novel, L'Etranger, was published. Todd is also keenly attuned to the French intellectual climate, and as he takes Camus's measure as a successful novelist, journalist, playwright and director, literary editor, philosopher, he also reveals the temperament in the writer that increasingly isolated him and crippled his reputation in the years before his death and for a long time after. He shows us the solitary man behind the mask--debilitated by continuing bouts of tuberculosis, constantly drawn to irresistible women, and deeply troubled by his political conflicts with the reigning French intellectuals, particularly by the vitriol of his former friend Sartre over the Algerian conflict.

Filled with sharp observations and sparkling with telling details, here is a wonderfully human portrait of the Nobel Prize-winning writer, who died at the age of forty-six and who remains one of the most influential literary figures of our time.Amazon.com Review
Olivier Todd's biography of Albert Camus matches its subject'sdepth by portraying the man as well as the moralist. Born in Algeriaand raised in poverty by an illiterate mother, Camus never forgotwhere he came from.He made his name in Nazi-occupied Paris--publiclyas the author of The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus,covertly as a member of the Resistance and editor of its newspaper,Combat--but he longed for the North African sun of hisyouth. During the years of crisis when Algeria struggled to break freefrom France, Camus alienated both colonialists and revolutionaries bysupporting full equality for Arabs but denouncing terrorism. "Ibelieve in justice," he told an Algerian heckler at a 1957meeting he addressed in Stockholm after winning the NobelPrize. "But I will defend my mother before justice." It isthis preference for the concrete over the abstract that makes Camussuch an appealing thinker.Todd's biography, which offers the mostfully human depiction yet, is equally engaging. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Objective, reasonably comprehensive, workmanlike, and abridged
When published in French in 1996, "Albert Camus: une vie" was, by consensus view, the most comprehensive and objective biography of Albert Camus to date.This English translation was published the next year.Unfortunately, when translated into English, Todd's original French biography also was abridged - "unfortunately" because I sense that the abridgement was clumsy.I suspect that much of the cropping occurred in the first part of the book, dealing with Camus's life from his birth in Algeria in 1913 until his move to Paris in 1941, since the first third of this biography (through 1941) is annoyingly choppy and poorly organized.Around page 130 the quality of this English version of ALBERT CAMUS: A LIFE improves.

Even so, the biography is on the dry side.The writing is only so-so -- but then, that too might be due at least in part to the translation.As a biography, it is more a collection than a synthesis; Todd inclines more to presenting facts and quoting others' assessments of Camus than he does to offering his own analysis and commentary.A real strength of this biography is that Todd does not succumb to hero-worship.Compared to two other works about Camus biographical in nature that I have read or skimmed, Todd is not blind to, nor does he gloss over, Camus's personal weaknesses and defects of character.Another strength of this biography is how it highlights people and events in Camus's life that he worked into various of his novels and plays.In the end, I applaud this biography for its objectivity, though I also fault how the workmanlike tone and approach virtually strips all sense of warmth for the book's subject.

Yet another notable aspect of this biography is its occasional gossipy tidbits, though they always are presented in a dead-pan manner.One example:For a few years Camus was a close associate of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.As Todd puts it, Beauvoir "felt amorous" towards Camus, but he, despite being a notorious womanizer (though his dalliances tended to be with young, slim, quite attractive women), steadfastly resisted her advances.(This fact should not be overlooked when considering Beauvoir's later castigation of Camus's politics and intellectual abilities.)On the other hand, Simone was able to coax Arthur Koestler into the sack.Ironically, Camus later said to Koestler (perhaps not knowing that for Koestler sex with Simone was not just a hypothetical), "Imagine what [Simone] might say on the pillow afterwards.It's horrible--with such a chatterbox, a total bluestocking, unbearable!"

This biography covers in reasonable detail all of the better-known episodes or aspects of Camus's life: his tuberculosis (which certainly gave him a deeper appreciation for the mystery and wonder of life, which in turn informed his opposition to terrorism and to capital punishment); his involvement with the Resistance; his friendship and then quarrel with Sartre; his controversial public silence in the late-1950s as regards his native Algeria; the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature; and his relations with numerous women.

Camus was an inveterate Don Juan, who could be very jealous and get quite upset upon learning that one of his lovers had been unfaithful to him but, as for himself, could come up with any number of reasons why fidelity or monogamy was not natural for him.It is nigh impossible to pardon him his conduct towards his second wife Francine, and it appears likely that his rampant philandering contributed to Francine's mental illness. From Todd's biography, it also appears that Camus had difficulty understanding that reasonable people could, in good faith, see political or moral matters differently than he.He comes across -- at least to those other than his closest friends - as having been rather smug, maybe even arrogant, which (especially when coupled with his enviable good looks, fame, and success with women) no doubt increased the number of enemies or critics he had among the French intelligentsia.

But by no means is Todd's biography a hatchet job.Todd, in his rather dry and somber manner, honors Camus for his distinctive achievements and defends him from the more shrill and knee-jerk attacks from the Left (which, for the most part, the course of history over the past thirty years has also exposed as misguided).Of Camus's literary works, Todd regards "The Stranger" and "The Fall" to be "masterpieces".Again and again Todd shows how Camus simply refused to be caught up in the ideologies that helped fuel the Cold War.When "The Rebel" was criticized by Sartre and his toadies on the grounds that some of its views were those of the right wing, Camus wrote, "One doesn't decide the truth of an idea according to whether it is left- or right-wing, and even less by what the left or right wing decides to make of it."(A maxim that many of our contemporary political pundits would do well to remember.)To the perturbation of the French Left of the late 1940s and the 1950s, Camus saw and pronounced the USSR to be a "land of slaves" and a lie.To those like Sartre who defended Communism and the USSR as the hope of the future, Camus responded, "We don't need hope, we only need truth."Finally, with regard to Algeria, Todd is not altogether clear or successful in explaining Camus's conflicted and complex position(s), but he certainly is on the mark when he concludes: "Camus wanted Algeria to remain somehow in the French Republic, but he did not have what is seen today as typical colonialist mentality, condoning the OAS counterterrorist groups' torturing Algerian nationalists.Those who claim that he did [such as Conor Cruise O'Brien and Edward Said] falsify his life and works."

Though not ideal, Todd's biography probably is essential to an English-speaking student of Camus who (like me) does not read French.For those who, understandably, have the time or inclination to read only one biography of Camus, I would instead recommend Elizabeth Hawes's "Camus, A Romance" (despite its idiosyncrasies, which I mention in my Amazon review of that work).Three-and-a-half stars, rounded up.

Excellent Book
Camus is not the easiest of writers to categorize.Both philosopher and literary figure, his world is fraught with too many pitfalls for the casual glance.On top of everything else, his early personal life was very hard, his father a fatality in the First World War when Camus was one, his mother illiterate, and he tubercular from high school.How then did this frightened child emerge to become the second youngest person ever to win the Nobel Prize?
To chronicle this achievement requires manifold skills, which Olivier Todd has in abundance, and with which he succeeds.The only reason for not giving this book five stars is a personal predilection for giving five stars only to the most excellent.This is a good book, an exceptional work.Todd delves into existentialism with gusto, presenting that philosophy and Camus' version of it quite concisely.I think the only place where this book falters is in the psychological, the motive for Camus' writing.One can connect the dots, but sometimes I would have liked just a little bit assurance.Still, not to be missed for anyone who has any proclivity for this person, thought, or era.

Terrible abridgement
As other reviewers have noted, this is an abridgement of the French version. And it is a bad one. Contrary to one of the other reviewers, though, I don't think the fault is with the French original.

For one thing, the abridgement makes Camus so boring and unsymapthetic for the first 1/3 of the book, that it's tempting to put the book down. This section is where the translator and his editors threw away the most material: the 1/3 mark in the translation is more like the 1/2-way point in the French original. The result is a forced march of events and girlfriends, without much description of local character or humanizing incident.

Unfortunately even the part of the book dealing with the adult Camus is stripped of a lot of meaningful material. For example, some amusing anecdotes about the local residents were edited out of Chapter 25, which describes Camus's wartime stay in a rural area of France.

Moreover, the translation itself has some weird quirks. One is the persistent reference to C.'s notebooks as "Carnets", presented as if this were a book title. Notebooks of French writers should become capital-C and italicized "Carnets" only when they're edited and published. If you're talking about what an unknown (in fact, unpublished) writer wrote in his notebooks, then you should say "notebooks" or, as Todd does in the French original, "carnets" without italics. Yet translator Ivry uses italicized "Carnets" throughout.

Another irritation is that sometimes it would have been better to leave some stuff in French and hang a footnote. E.g., in Chapter 25, the biographer talks about Camus's friendship with another French writer, Francis Ponge. Around the same time Camus's first literary works were being published, Ponge published his famous collection of prose poems, "Le parti pris des choses". Within the chapter, Ivry mentions this title in French, without translation. The chapter title is the puzzling "Men's Prejudices." Yet in Todd's original, the chapter title is "Le parti pris des hommes" -- a clear reference to Ponge's book. Ivry should have provided a translation of the book title, or else left the chapter title in French. To do as he did entirely obscures Olivier Todd's light and witty touch. (Another mystifying and humorless choice is that the original title of Ch. 25, "Rutabagas et résistances," is translated simply as "Resistances.")

If you just want a quick resume of the facts of Camus's life, should you make a commitment to this 400-page biography that may not warm you up to its subject? If you want to really dig into his life, should you read this book that skips everything that the translator (or his publisher) believed is "not of sufficient interest to the American general reader," as Ivry says in his preface? Personally, I'm interested in Camus only just enough to read one biography of him, once. Discovering the huge gap in quality between this translation and the gigantic original after I was already halfway through the English version was frustrating.

It's also sad to reflect that Ivry and his editors probably belong to that segment of US society who are most sincerely interested in literature. That they believed the average reader who's already interested enough to read 400 pages about Camus wouldn't have read 600+ pages about him, or appreciated some footnotes at the end of the book (all of the original's footnotes are omitted), represents either condescension, bad market sense or tremendously bad taste. To say nothing of the fact that by often throwing out more humanizing and light-hearted material, they're reinforcing many English speakers' false caricature of Camus, often formed after reading "The Stranger" in college, as an alienated and depressed "existentialist" guy who couldn't enjoy life.

Not all publishers make such bad choices. Oxford U Press recently published the 4th volume of a biography of Gustav Mahler, which also happens to be a translation from the French; just that volume alone comes to almost 1,800 pages in English. It would have been a much more modest project for Knopf to have published an unabridged translation of Todd's bestseller -- and much more respectful to both author and readers.

Terrible
One hopes that the French edition, which is 400 hundred, not 100, pages longer, is considerably better, but I find that hard to believe. The writing is unacceptably choppy and awkward, with paragraphs springing from nowhere and sentences shifting from one grand topic to another without stopping. It's almost laughable. Chock full of details and totally lacking in style or spirit, this book will only be useful to those seeking a blow by blow chronology of Camus' life - and the chronology is uneven at best (many times Todd goes back several months without clear indication).

Poor writing wouldn't be a problem if there was at least a point of view, but Todd offers us none, preferring instead to recounting facts and quoting at length from Camus' letters. The fact that Camus was such a crystalline writer only makes this book seem like more of an insult.

I was hugely disappointed by this book. (...)

Read the French Edition of this book.
The only real problem I have with this book was that the American edition has been abridged. Over 150 pages have been cut. As a result much of the portrait of Camus as a philosopher has been deleted. So I would recomend reading the French edition if at all possible ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An interesting literary work
This book is divided into three sections: Lyrical Essays, Critical Essays, and Camus's Self-Commentary.

The lyrical essays are stories and musings. What I found makes these lyrical essays beautiful is not the language itself (for this, I think no one beats Thoreau) but the ideas and descriptions expressed in the unfolding of the stories or central themes.

The critical essays are essentially Camus's thoughts on culture, philospohy, and other literature (e.g. Faulkner and Melville).Camus's commentary on himself is also very interesting, for I think that these essays are the most telling of Camus's views not just of himself and his writing, but of his views on society at the time.

A lyric poet in disguise
"There is no love of life without despair of life."-These words haunted me when I first read this book nearly ten years ago.I then lent it out, never to be returned.(Ahem, I've become very cautious about lending books out since then.)Anyway, I just recently repurchased this book and reread it, and I still (unlike Camus' himself) regard the LYRICAL essays herein as much more beautiful, powerful and significant than the much touted The Stranger (which I, however, like as well, only on another level.)
It's quotes like the one above and "Knowing that certain nights whose sweetness lingers will keep returning to the earth and sea after we are gone, yes, this helps us die." that make this collection of essays Camus' best work.
The Stranger is, indeed, a unique contribution to post-WWII literature.But these essays are unique as well as powerful and beautiful.My bet is that, a century from now, these essays will be remembered long after the "existentialist" vogue has long faded, as Camus' best work.
My apologies to those who worship terse, arid prose.It has its place.But it's not the stuff of truly great literature.The lyrical essays contained herein are.

An Essential Ground Of Info.
Here is a compilation of the essays that Camus wrote during the entire span of his career.It is branched into 2 categories,& a final chapter dealing more personally with outlooks on life & his works.The lyrical section describes in vivid detail the places that have moved & altered his life profoundly,eloquently relating how & why.It is one of the great literary what-if's if Camus would have done poetry in verse form;judging from the fine,thin & nimble prose that impressively illustrates the simultaneous cause & effect union bet. the man & his nature,he could have been a very good lyric poet,if not a great one.The Critical essays are honest & insightful measurements on the correlation bet. the work that he deals with & it's relevance to life & art.The final section,"Camus On Himself",offer some verifiable insights into the man & his personality.This book could serve as a very impt. introduction or supplement to Camus's entire canon;one could feel very refreshed & informed after reading it.

Beautiful and insightfull
The language of the book are so well written that you can feel the emotions and spirits permeates from the pages. This book contains a lot of thoughts that are suprisingly simple, yet manage to escape us in the course of everyday life. It is about memories, places, faces and emotions of an ordinary human being with an extraordinary talent for life. " ... there is more love in these awkward pages than in all those that have followed." (Albert Camus, Preface 1958) ... Read more

Product Description
A guide to reading "The Stranger" with a critical and appreciative mind encouraging analysis of plot, style, form, and structure. Also includes background on the author's life and times, sample tests, term paper suggestions, and a reading list. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

A worthy contribution to the excellent Bloom's Guides series
A worthy contribution to the excellent Bloom's Guides series, Bloom's Guides: The Stranger is a comprehensive reading and study guide for students and lay readers alike of Albert Camus' classic existential novel "The Stranger", about a man who almost involuntarily commits an unprovoked murder, yet is unable to explain why he did it, let alone fake remorse. He is ultimately condemned not for the crime itself, but for his failure to express hypocrisy over it; he is unable to immerse himself in the physical and emotional absurdities of daily existence that demand thousands of little lies and great lies from every member of human society. Bloom's Guide: The Stranger features a strong emphasis on summary and analysis, walking the reader step by step through the nuances of this complex yet insightful work of Western literature. Additional enhancements include "The Story Behind the Story", which describes the conditions under which The Stranger was written, a biographical sketch of the author, a descriptive list of characters, and an annotated bibliography. Enthusiastically recommended especially for anyone studying "The Stranger" as part of a literary course or thesis.

Problems with Camus
I was really disappointed by this book. It was really hyped by many of the people I know, as a must read. I can't see why. The main character was worse then shallow. The book was written as something critical but the line that Camus and his mentor Sartre seem to take, time and time again, is to side with tyranny. This character was a straight and clear clinical psychopath. Why was it that Sartre was completely "ok" with silencing concetration camp survivors from Russia? Well... If this character was Sartre and Camus' ideal person then there really is no confusion about that, now is there. It appears that in order for Camus to justify his positions on his politics he had to create bad people and then try to make them ideal. Sociopaths are not heros rather they are murdering arabs, run giant corporations, or countries or trying to ridicule or silence people.

Served its purpose
This gives a good albeit brief synopsis of the book. I needed a good outline that I could use as a companion to teach from the book and this worked.

A book that speaks to your secret self....
"The Stranger" is a wonderful little book, filled with deceptively simple language and actions.It's understated, very subtle, and except for the outright atheist vs. church stuff at the end, you've really got to work for it.You can pick it up, read it in a night, put it down, and refuse to be affected...but if you listen, the meaning is in there, deep and dark, not didactic, more like a whisper.

The apparent indifference Mersault carries strikes one as inhuman: shrugging off his mother's death, swearing off the church, agreeing to marry in a heartbeat, and, most poignantly, accepting his fate - a death sentence.But the things Mersault is trying to say through the gaps between what's actually on the page is simple:it's all arbitrary, we're fools on a ball spinning around a star, and contentment is the simplest thing to feel amidst chaos.

Although the murder and the trial, and definitely the funeral, are fantastic moral-bending existentialist scenes, what sticks with you in the dark of night, is as simple as the prose and also as endlessly complex:we're here, we'll never understand each other, we see what's most convenient to see, and we all die in the end anyway, whether or not our tenure here can be marked as "good" or "bad" or "moral".Not the most uplifting read in the world, but literature is a cruel mistress sometimes.

Condemned for being honest
The darkness and simplicity of this wonderful book are frequently misunderstood. Many readers find Merseault cold and emotionless, but this is not the case. Merseault displays emotion in his argument with the prisonpriest, and (big surprise) his feelings toward his mother.

Although he isput on trial for killing an Arab, Mersault is actually condemned forfailing to grieve for his mother in public. Have any of you been to thefuneral of an elderly realative? Sometimes, despite the emotions you feelfor that person, the experience of the funeral is flat, meaningless andlogical. All of the love came before the event and will come again manytimes later. But somehow a funeral leaves one dry and plain. Mersaultexperienced his mother's death for what it was: a dry and uncomfortableevent. He did not put on a show for the people involved with the funeral orthose who knew the deceased. His actions were plain and honest.

ButMerseault does have feelings for his mother. When he learns much later thatshe had a lover in the elderly home she occupied he feels glad for her.That moment of empathy if an extrordinary act of comppassion. It is also aprivate one.

"The Stranger" reveals many simple truths aboutthe kind of people we are and it raises questions about the inegrity behindour thoughts and actions. It is a wonderful book whose value is easilyoverlooked by people who only put stock in a verbose work. ... Read more

Product Description
The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr. Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, "The Plague" is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, and a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

eh
so so. alot of things to over-analyze if your into in-depth reading. no fun for just the heck of it though. ... Read more

Product Description
In these original readings of Albert Camus' novels, short stories, and political essays, David Carroll concentrates on Camus' conflicted relationship with his Algerian background and finds important critical insights into questions of justice, the effects of colonial oppression, and the deadly cycle of terrorism and counterterrorism that characterized the Algerian War and continues to surface in the devastation of postcolonial wars today. During France's "dirty war" in Algeria, Camus called for an end to the violence perpetrated against civilians by both France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) and supported the creation of a postcolonial, multicultural, and democratic Algeria. His position was rejected by most of his contemporaries on the Left and has, ironically, earned him the title of colonialist sympathizer as well as the scorn of important postcolonial critics. Carroll rescues Camus' work from such criticism by emphasizing the Algerian dimensions of his literary and philosophical texts and by highlighting in his novels and short stories his understanding of both the injustice of colonialism and the tragic nature of Algeria's struggle for independence.By refusing to accept that the sacrifice of innocent human lives can ever be justified, even in the pursuit of noble political goals, and by rejecting simple, ideological binaries (West vs. East, Christian vs. Muslim, "us" vs. "them," good vs. evil), Camus' work offers an alternative to the stark choices that characterized his troubled times and continue to define our own. "What they didn't like, was the Algerian, in him," Camus wrote of his fictional double inThe First Man. Not only should "the Algerian" in Camus be "liked," Carroll argues, but the Algerian dimensions of his literary and political texts constitute a crucial part of their continuing interest. Carroll's reading also shows why Camus' critical perspective has much to contribute to contemporary debates stemming from the global "war on terror." ... Read more

Product Description
On October 16, 1957, Albert Camus was dining in a small restaurant on Paris's Left Bank when a waiter approached him with news: the radio had just announced that Camus had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Camus insisted that a mistake had been made and that others were far more deserving of the honor than he. Yet Camus was already recognized around the world as the voice of a generation--a status he had achieved with dizzying speed. He published his first novel, The Stranger, in 1942 and emerged from the war as the spokesperson for the Resistance and, although he consistently rejected the label, for existentialism. Subsequent works of fiction (including the novels The Plague and The Fall), philosophy (notably, The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel), drama, and social criticism secured his literary and intellectual reputation. And then on January 4, 1960, three years after accepting the Nobel Prize, he was killed in a car accident.

In a book distinguished by clarity and passion, Robert Zaretsky considers why Albert Camus mattered in his own lifetime and continues to matter today, focusing on key moments that shaped Camus's development as a writer, a public intellectual, and a man. Each chapter is devoted to a specific event: Camus's visit to Kabylia in 1939 to report on the conditions of the local Berber tribes; his decision in 1945 to sign a petition to commute the death sentence of collaborationist writer Robert Brasillach; his famous quarrel with Jean-Paul Sartre in 1952 over the nature of communism; and his silence about the war in Algeria in 1956.

Both engaged and engaging, Albert Camus: Elements of a Life is a searching companion to a profoundly moral and lucid writer whose works provide a guide for those perplexed by the absurdity of the human condition and the world's resistance to meaning. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Art's nobility is rooted in "the refusal to lie about what one knows, and the resistance to oppression."
That is from Albert Camus's speech in Stockholm upon being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.To me, it exemplifies the man.

For anyone interested in Albert Camus and his thinking, this is a very worthwhile book.It is NOT, however, a biography, as is alluded to by the word "elements" in its subtitle and as is expressly stated by author Zaretsky on the second page.(Just two indicia of how the book is not a biography:there is no mention whatsoever of Camus's first wife Simone Hié, nor is there any mention of his closest friend Michel Gallimard, who was driving the car that ran off the road into a tree taking the lives of both him and Camus).Instead, Zaretsky sets out to explore three different popular "ideas" or conceptions of Albert Camus: (a) the thinker who probed the notions of freedom and justice and how they might be reconcilable; (b) the "outsider" who wrote about exile, both from one's homeland and from a world overseen by a god; and (c) a 20th-Century guru of silence.Zaretsky traces the ways these ideas weave through four distinct episodes of Camus's life, which correspond to the four chapters of the book:(1) Camus's tenure as a journalist in Algeria in the late 1930s writing about the oppressed and impoverished conditions of the local Arabs; (2) his decision in 1945 to reverse his position on capital punishment as appropriate "justice" for the worst of the Nazi collaborators; (3) his famous quarrel with Jean-Paul Sartre over communism and whether, in politics, the (theoretical) ends justify the means; and (4) his self-imposed silence, beginning in 1956, over the war in Algeria.

Although the book is not a work of literary criticism, Zaretsky nonetheless discusses several of Camus's more famous literary works - especially "The Stranger", "The Plague", "The Myth of Sisyphus", and "The Rebel" (his take on "The Stranger" is both distinctive and provocative).He also draws upon some of Camus's more obscure writings, including some that have not been translated into English.As a result, the student of Camus finds many statements of his that are not widely available.Example:"All I can hope to do is show that generous forms of behavior can be engendered even in a world without God and that man alone in the universe can still create his own values."

I personally am intrigued by Camus, by his anomalous idealism (as reflected in the preceding quote), by his fundamental decency and honesty, and by his courage and willingness to go it alone as an intellectual, to refuse to kowtow to the liberal intellectual elite of Paris led by the likes of Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty.This book corroborates or reinforces that rather heroic image of Camus.I sense, however, that it is not the ideal book for a newcomer to Camus.I really don't have a book to recommend to a newcomer, though I am in the midst of reading a number of books by and about Camus and his thought, and when I have finished that project I hope to post a comment to this review with any such recommendations.

In the meantime, I found ALBERT CAMUS: ELEMENTS OF A LIFE a valuable contribution to the literature on Camus, although I don't agree with (or comprehend) Zaretsky on several of his more philosophical digressions.The book reflects considerable scholarship but it is not unduly "scholarly" or "academic" in tone and style.It is relatively brief (160 pages of text) and relatively easy to read.Four-and-a-half stars, rounded up.

A scholarly and insightful tome
"Every author in some degree portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will." - Goethe

One of Algeria's greatest sons, the late Albert Camus, is back where he rightfully belongs--center stage! Thanks to Elizabeth Hawes' delightful and vibrant book, "Camus, A Romance,"Camus, a Romance and Robert Zaretsky's scholarly and insightful tome, "Albert Camus: Elements of a Life."Camus, a talented writer and philosopher, has again risen from the literary ashes. His clarion call for "limits" in the pursuit of otherwise laudable causes; and for truth-telling in the realm of political injustice and social inequities, is as relevant today, as it was during his turbulent lifetime.

Camus was a French-Algerian. He was born in 1913, and raised in the city of Algiers, in a run-down neighborhood. His father, whose ancestral roots were French, was killed fighting in WWI for France against the Germans; while his mother, of Spanish stock, was half-deaf, uneducated and rarely spoke. Is the latter, the origin of the importance of "silence" in Camus' persona? Zaretsky thinks it played a relevant part and I agree with him.

Algeria, in Camus' days, was a French colony, although its Arab population, was in the majority. Life was hard for the budding writer and for his family, but for many of his Arab contemporaries,discrimination, starvation and illiteracy were often their lot.

When I was in high school, at Calvert Hall, a Christian Brother institution, in downtown Baltimore, I remember mostly counting the bricks on a wall located across the street, I was so terribly bored! One of the exceptions was in my "literature" class with Brother Gregory at the the helm. He truly loved what he was doing and it showed. When he read something aloud from the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens or Washington Irving, the room lit up for me. Brother Gregory, bless his memory, was an inspiring teacher.

Enter into Camus' life, one Louis Germain. He was an elementary school teacher. Hawes labeled him as Camus' "first surrogate father." Both authors detailed Germain's importance to Camus' eventual career and to his intellectual development as a philosopher. Not only his mentor, Germain became Camus' life long friend and trusted advisor. He helped get him into the "lychee," and later accepted at the University of Algiers.

After graduating from the university, in 1937, Camus became a reporter. In 1939, he documented a famine in the mountainous area of Kabylia, Algeria, not too far from its capital city. His damning report for the "Alger-Republicain" newspaper, was entitled, "Misery in Kabylia." Camus' editor was Pascal Pia, another mentor and significant figure in his success as a literary icon.

Both biographies highlighted incidents such as the above in Camus' experiences. Why? They seemed to have shaped, and, in some cases, reaffirmed, his political and philosophical views. Seeing first hand the evil effects of French colonialism, and the world's indifference to it, left an indelible mark on the psyche of Camus. Later, that influence would be revealed in his books, like: "The Rebel," "The Fall," "The Plague," and "The Myth of Sisyphus."

Camus championed the notion of the "absurd" in his writings. The novel, "The Stranger," his first acclaimed work of art, which catapulted him to fame, is probably the most cogent example of what exactly that concept meant to him. This made Camus' death in an automobile accident, in 1960, even more poignant.

Hawes described Camus' fate of dying in a car crash, "the ultimate absurdity for the man who named the absurd. [He] had in his pocket a round-trip ticket travel by train with his family, but he had been persuaded at the last moment to drive to Paris." The driver was speeding, the car went off the road, striking one tree and then another. The impact broke "Camus' neck," and killed him.

One of Zaretsky's book best strength is how he takes "The Stranger," and the other major literary efforts of Camus, and brilliantly dissects them for the reader. While doing so, he lets you know exactly what was going on in Camus' life at the time each of them were written. For example, when "The Stranger" was published, in 1942, WWII was raging in Europe, and huge parts of France were occupied by the German Army. Camus joined the "French Resistance" and was also the editor of its legendary news organ, "Combat." He was then only 29 years old.

Nevertheless, Camus remained an "outsider" in France, as both Hawes and Zaretsky showed. He was an "outsider" to humanity itself, also. Why? He'd contracted a killer disease--tuberculosis!

Camus' experience of French Algeria, where the Arab is the "other," also impacts his views. The themes: "outsider," "the other," and "separate," runs through Camus' thoughts and are reflected in many of his novels, essays and plays.

Zaretsky sees this, particularly, in Camus' short story, "The Guest." It was published, in 1957, only months after he won the "Nobel Prize" for literature, and around the same time that he hadbriefly addressed the horrific events then raging in Algeria. Nationalists were violently responding to the French heel on their neck. That conflict, where some of the male victims had their "genitals cut off" and stuffed in their mouths, and "women's breasts were sliced off," by the enflamed nationalists, lasted from 1954 to 1962. Tens of thousands of "Arabs and Berbers were killed" in retaliation by the French military. Zaretsky said the slaughters, on both sides, were perpetrated, "in a grisly fashion."

With respect to "The Guest," Zaretsky wrote: "Yet Daru [the protagonist of the story and a French Algerian] discovers he is also a `stranger' in what he always believed to be is own land. He had spent his life feeling like an `outsider' anywhere but in Algeria but is now also `exiled' from his native land. And awful truth dawns on Daru: the historical, cultural, and linguistic division between the `pied noirs' [the settler class of which Camus belonged] and the Arabs [the indigenous people]--both of whom are simultaneously hosts and guests to each other--is too great to bridge."

Getting back to Hawes. What I loved about her chronicle of Camus is how she gets so very personal, indeed, intimate, about his life. Her book is, in a real sense, about her love affair, her "crush" on a man, that she only knows from a distance--from his writings.

Hawes' book is passionate, enlightening and terrific fun to read. She even tracked down Camus' surviving children, Catherine and Jean, and interviewed them about their father. Hawes ended her ode to Camus--visiting his grave, at Lourmarin cemetery--not far from his last home, in France. I say: Take Hawes' book with you to the beach for a read this summer. You won't regret it.

There is much more in both of these fine books: Such as the many writers that influenced Camus' craft, namely: Saint Augustine, Melville, Dostoyevsky, Stendhal, Balzac, Synge, Mann, along with the Greek Tragedies; the fact that Camus' first wife was a drug addict; his love of soccer and his womanizing; Camus' visit to New York City; his love of acting, directing and the theatre; his brief membership in the Communist Party; Camus' views on the Hungarian Revolution; his take on the bloody dictator Josef Stalin, the Soviet Labor Camps and the Purges; and of course, Camus' earthshaking break with another literary titan--Jean-Paul Sartre.

It is on this controversial subject, where Zaretsky shines again. I think it's the professor in him. During the frantic days of the "half-liberated, half-occupied Paris," Sartre was assigned the "task of protecting the vacated "Comedie Francaise." When Camus went there, he found Sartre, "napping," and jokingly cracked to him: "You've placed your seat in the direction of history."

In 1952, the two clashed openly over a scathing review of Camus' book, "The Rebel," which appeared in, "Les Temps Modernes," a magazine controlled by Sartre. This was also after Sartre had made it clear that he was "siding with" the Stalinists. (2) Camus' response to the review went directly to Sartre himself.

Zaretsky quoted from Camus' famous letter: "I am growing tired of seeing myself, and especially of seeing veteran militants who `never ran from struggles' in their own times, receive countless lessons in effectiveness from critics who have done nothing more than point their `seats in the direction of history.'"

Finally, I submit that both Hawes and Zaretsky deserve credit for adding to our knowledge of Camus' legacy, and to his importance to our perilous times. Let's face it, we live in an era where screwball ideologues are running amuck. Dissenting voices can find no better model for taking on these crazed warmongersthan looking to Camus--one of humanity's finest moralists. ... Read more

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More for the scholar than the general reader . . . and a postscript re FDR
Albert Camus was a multi-faceted writer: novelist, playwright, essayist, and (for a time) journalist -- the aspect of his literary talents least known in the United States.Before the publication of "The Stranger", Camus had made a name for himself as a left-wing journalist in his native Algeria.In 1943, re-located to occupied Paris, Camus began writing for the underground Resistance newspaper "Combat" and for some time served as its editor-in-chief.From 1944 to 1946, "Combat" and Camus were among the most influential voices on political affairs in France.

CAMUS AT COMBAT collects all of Camus's journalism (mostly editorials) published in "Combat" between March 1944 and June 1947 - about 170 pieces in all.It is the first such collection published in English translation.It is an admirable volume in many ways.It is handsomely put together, with instructive and useful but not overly copious footnotes.There is an excellent 20-page foreword by David Carroll.

Among the themes addressed by Camus in various pieces were the "just" treatment of Vichy officials and Nazi collaborators, freedom of the press and democracy in post-War France, and Algeria and colonialism.Not surprisingly, the work is uneven.Too often it is cliched, emotional, or grandiloquent.But virtually every piece contains further evidence of Camus as a morally concerned intellectual, an independent and original thinker.And virtually every piece contains something of interest or value, even at this remove.

Nevertheless, I am less than enthusiastic about CAMUS AT COMBAT because, at least for me, it was impossible to read from cover to cover.That surely is a problem with any comprehensive collection of editorials.Each is written to address immediate concerns of that very day in a few hundred words, with inevitable uncertainty about what might be the topic of the next editorial.And the next editorial often deals with an entirely different subject, giving any such collection a herky-jerky feel.Camus's journalism undoubtedly was very distinguished and influential for contemporary French readers of "Combat", but more than six decades later CAMUS AT COMBAT is of more interest to the scholar than to the general reader in the English-speaking world.

Postscript:Sixty-five years ago today (on April 14, 1945), Camus wrote an editorial in response to the news of FDR's death.To give you one example of Camus's journalistic style and to honor one of the greatest U.S. presidents, here is an excerpt from that editorial:

"His face was the very image of happiness.For so many who knew him without ever coming near him, all that remains is the smile that for all those years he displayed on the front pages of newspapers, on movie screens, and amid cheering crowds of his countrymen.This is no doubt the reason for the emotion that was felt throughout the free world at the news of his death, even though it was but one of the many deaths that America has contributed to our common cause.

"History's powerful men are not generally men of such good humor. * * * To the idealism that America has shown * * * he brought grandeur and efficiency.The greatest praise one can offer him is to say that he knew the value of life. * * * His apparent happiness was not that of comfort, nor that of a mind too limited to perceive mankind's distress.He knew one thing: that there is no pain that cannot be overcome with energetic and conscientious effort.When we know this about a man, we know what he is worth, and we begin to like him."

Excellent insight into the author and the man.
Having been a big fan of Camus' novels and essays prior to discovering this collection, I was very excited to pick this up. This book is extremely well researched with lots of footnotes that add great insight into the social and political events Camus references in hist articles.

What I enjoyed most about this book was how Camus applies the themes so prevalent in his essays and novels to the dramatic events in the immediate days leading up to and following the end of WW II. I was struck by the absolute chaos and turmoil that existed but is often forgotten.

This book is excellent for so many reasons. The beauty of Camus' writing is equaled by the gravity of the events he describes.

Context
If you are unfamiliar with the global struggle against Nazism, and the French idealogical struggle against this same threat, this may not be the book for you.However, I highly doubt that this is the first title one comes across as one encountering Camus for the first time.So, if you are one of those, perhaps you may like to look at something that is more of one one the great "Nobel Prize-Wining" author's novels first.They are entirely engaging and easy to read, but an intellectual challenge.
Intellectual grandstanding aside, I found this book wonderful.It gives perspective into the mind of one of the greatest Journalists / Novelist of the twentieth century.I have enjoyed his essays and novels in the past, but as a former working journalists, the thing that amazed me the most was his ability to see into the future based off of world events.Camus's insights are as revelant today as 60 years ago when he was writing in Combat.In this book, the young man's insight's and intellectual development are laid out in a neatly ordered fashion.
A caveat, this is a hard book to "get into".While there is a grand historical narrative, there is little continuity between the passages, making this, at least for me, a lengthy read.However lengthy it was, it was worth it.Camus's insights and his highly quotable and pity quotes are massively enjoyable.My significant other would account the times I had to read her a line.As a teacher, I had to have much restraint to not plaster my room with his quotes.The entry reflecting the first explosion of the atomic bomb is worth the price of admission alone.

Truly powerful collection
For those who only know the novels of Camus, here is what I found to be an invaluable collection of his writings on key issues of the mid 1940's.It made me want to keep reading more about this major intellectual figure. ... Read more

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Amazing as always
Albert Camus is as good at writing plays as he is at everything else he does. Whether you are new to Camus or not, you will definately enjoy this.

Which is more dangerous, insane people or insane societies?
Camus does an excellent job of contrasting individual insanity and collective insanity in his play Caligula. Basically, Caligula is insane. He is a despot who holds the lives of his subjects in his hands. At times, for very arbitrary reasons, he kills or executes someone from his court. This seems arbitrary and frightenging. Yet, Caligula is contrasted against sane military officers who engage in terrible acts of war where thousands upon thousands of civilians and soldiers are killed. So who is insane?Is it the dictator who might execute someone in his court for very trivial reasons or is it the rational military general who kills thousands and thousands of persons in rational and supposedly justified warfare?Camus reveals to the careful reader that societal evil is far more dangerous than individual evil.This is a wonderful thoughtful classic play that demonstrates Camus' ability to bring complex concepts to dramatic life.

The Misunderstanding, another play in this volume, is another complex drama. An innkeeper and her old maid daughter kills guests of the inn when they are able to discern that the guest's death can not be tracked. They rob the guests which supplements their income.They long for the return of the beloved son of the innkeeper who has been gone for years and years without contact. As you might expect, the son returns to the inn and is murdered by his mother and sister.The deed is revealed when his wife arrives and finds him missing. Camus here deals with the concept of objectification of others so that violence may be done to them without remorse.When the innkeeper and her daughter find they have murdered the long lost son, they are beside themselves with grief. But yet they have murdered many innocent travelers without remorse because they have been able to divorce themselves from any thoughts that these travelers were fellow humans. A simple play with a simple point, yet it points to a terrible feature of human existence, that we can commit unspeakable horror on others once we have convinced ourselves that they are no longer human beings.Camus recognized that prejudice kills, it is not beneign.

I appreciate Camus' ability to make a point without preaching or overstating. I strongly suggest this book of 4 short plays.

What a play!
The cover of Caligula shows an abstract horse bucking, and that is just what Caligula does to us. It knocks us off our high-horse by bringing us face-to-face with death. Only (and I do not choose that word lightly) a true understanding of death can put lives in perspective. Sure Caligula is a despot who could have the life of any of his subjects, but the fact-of-the-matter is that our lives can end at any second. Caligula teaches us not to take life for granted, which is something that is all to easily done in this era. This theme also exists in State of Seige. The other two plays, The Misunderstanding, and The Just Assasins are more subtle, but they also deal with idea that we take petty concerns and ideas too seriously, and fail to look and the big picture. I should also add that the language and passion of the plays are exceptional.

Great stage work from a master
Encompassing the doctorine of the Ubermensch cast alongside the dictatorship of Hitler, Camus creates an absurd, absolute ruler whom thepeople are at his beck and call.Every whim, be it for food or a specificperson's death for the merge specticle of it, are just some of the scenesdepicted in this play.It forces the question of whether one would ratherpossess a ruler who is consistant in all actions, thought, etc. or one whois willing to contradict him or herself for the good of the people.Thisis a complex work whose depths it seems may never be compeletly explored. Often overlooked due to the potency of his prose, Camus has produced yetanother masterwork.

To tell the reader what he WILL find in this book!
Camus' raw talent.There isn't anything negative to say about Camus, other than he died too young.If he'd lived through the 60's, he'd at the most give Sartre a good run for his money.

I love Camus simply becausehe's the only writer/philosopher who 'beats you up' with the truth, andcomforts you with the notion, that he too has done this to himself.Hedoesn't try to replace your religion or your belief, or even question yourplace in the world.And he certainly didn't trade in one 'ism' for anotherlike his Toad-faced contemporary!

Read this!It's wonderful.Camus sumsup life's absurdities simplier than Kierkergaard and a tad bitkinder--maybe even sublte--than Nietzsche (who in my estimation is the oneand only TRUE existential----maybe Che Guevara is a close second) ... Read more

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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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"The Rebel" is Camus's attempt to understand the time 'I live in' and a brilliant essay on the nature of human revolt. Published in 1951, it makes a daring critique of communism, how it had gone wrong behind the Iron Curtain, and the resulting totalitarian regimes. It questions two events held sacred by the left wing, the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 that had resulted, he believed, in terrorism as a political instrument. In this towering intellectual document, Camus argues that hope for the future lies in revolt, which unlike revolution is a spontaneous response to injustice, and a chance to achieve change without giving up collective and intellectual freedom. ... Read more

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very good companion book
I found this little gem in a used book store in a college town after having read 'The Fall', 'The Stranger' and 'The Plague'. This is not so much a biography or literary criticism as it is a reading companion. A well written examination of Camus' work for the casual philosopher who wants to get the most out of their literary experiences with Camus. Philip Thody was Assistant Lecturer of French at Queen's University of Belfast at the time of publication (1959).

The chapters are 1) The Expression of The Absurd 2)Resistance and Revolt 3) The Plague 4) Two Plays 5)True Rebellion and False Rebels 6) The Creative Revival and 7)Achievement and Limitations.
It is paperback bound.

Philip Thody dicusses pertiant existensial topics and uses the philosophical allegroies found in most of Camu's works with excellent focus on 'The Plague'. The language is concise and clear. I found both disagreement and agreement with many points and observations made. The Reference section is robust and helful for further study. A solid find in any used book store. Recommended for any entry level, moderate or self studied student of the French Existensialists. It may also be a useful for anyone who simply doesn't 'get' what all the fuss is about for Camus. ... Read more

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Justice Without Violence
The Just is a play based upon real events.To convey his concept of moral revolutionaries, Camus fictionalized the 1905 Moscow assassination of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovitch, the uncle of Czar Nicholas II.

The assassin, in real life and in the play, is a man named Kaliayev.Camus' characterization is of a man dedicated to political change, but not through blind or senseless violence.Camus never endorsed or accepted the need for violence against "civilians" during a revolution, so he endows his characters with the same value.The small cell to which Kaliayev belongs in the play in dedicated to "justice* for the Russian people.They see their actions as self-sacrifice.

At the start of the play, Kaliayev is selected to throw the bomb that will assassinate the Grand Duke.His first attempt ends in what might be considered failure--Kaliayev does not throw the bomb.The Duke was with his niece and nephew.Kaliayev cannot harm innocent children, and the group agrees with his decision. Camus' account is, according to most, historically accurate; the real Kaliayev was not interested in harming those whom he considered to be innocent.

Breaking with history, Camus introduces a fictional character to illustrate the wrongs of the Communist Party.The character of Stepan Federov is a victim of the Czarist state.Due to his experiences under the Czar's legal system, he has become an extremist.Camus illustrates that some revolutionaries are acting upon emotion, not concern for their fellow citizens.Stepan tells the other terrorists that he would have killed children "if the organization commanded it."

Stepan is the archetype of a Stalinist--the type of supporter of the Soviet Union that prevented Camus from supporting the Communist Party.Camus was a socialist and supported the idea of change, but not the idea that any means can be justified by the anticipated ends.What happens when a revolution fails?The innocent die for nothing, according to Camus.

In the play, Kaliayev succeeds and assassinates the Grand Duke on the third try.The Grand Duchess Ella, sister of the Empress Alexandra, visits Kaliayev in prison; she is a kind and compassionate person.Again, Camus' account is based upon history.The Duchess even considers sparing the assassin's life.Kaliayev tells her that he wants to die--to avoid being a "murderer."At this moment in the play, Kaliayev adheres to basic existential ethics...he accepts the consequences of his actions.

Camus even ends the play with another insult to communists.Dora, a woman, is selected for the next bombing.Historically, women were not allowed to be active in most revolutionary movements, not even the French Resistance.Camus always wondered why "the people" never included women, although it is no wonder, considering how difficult were his own relationships with the women in his life.

The Just constitutes the third and final of Camus' works known as The Revolts; the first was the novel, Le Peste, or The Plague and the third, the essay, L'Homme Révolté, or The Rebel.

Dramatic Philosophy at it's very best!
I first read, The Just, during a student exchange program in Australia and was immediately captured by Camus' captivating style. The plot is so simple and yet raises some extremely serious questions. A small rebel groop inpre-revolutionary Russia plan to assasin a member of the aristocracy, yetmust face that the justification of their deed is by no means a simple one.In a world deprived of unambiguous moral standards, the rebels find that nojudgement about anything in the real world can be absolutely justified.Camus is sublime in his quest to rebel and install moral values in anotherwise absurd universe, and his literary skills give his brand ofexistencial philosophy the atmosphere, which not only conveys it toliterally everyone, but also gives it an atmosphere quite unique forphilosophical fiction. Camus truly belongs among such greats asDostoyevski, Kafka and Sartre.

you aren't right or wrong, you have an opinion
A leader implements policies that you believe to be deadly : is there a justification to kill him to prevent disaster? Can anyone justify imposing his views on others? Can society be built if no one does so ? A great story, suspense, love, tragedy to cover a fundamental moral and social issue. The best of Camus, Shakespearian in its multiple layers, from entertainment to fundamental reflection. ... Read more

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