Camus' Outsider
When I first read Camus over 10 years back, I was still in High School. I still remember the book my uncle gave me, "The Outsider" (also called "The Stranger"). After reading it, I could not sleep for a couple of nights. This classic starts with the haunting words, "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know."
Camus presents to us what a human being without any ego or emotions would look like. Such a person would be an ideal mirror for the surrounding society. Indeed, the protagonist provides us a reflection of the hippocrisy of the people around him. While Camus' brilliance lies in pulling it off and sparking a revolution around existentialism, the character's dispassion strikes one as being born of indolence rather than enlightenment. That is the one thought that has trailed in my mind all these years, long before I had come across other frameworks of dispassion.
Camus had to face a lot of struggles in his life, having come from a humble background. He tried to project the hippocrisy of his time in a tale of intense negativity, whose impact is heightened through understatement. As he is such a wonderful writer, be prepared to be deeply saddened by this book.
I've read some of his other books - Caligula and Cross-Wire. Caligula is a powerful tale of a crazy emperor whose zest for power and cruelty is justified on the account of the hippocrisy of his subjects. The last lines of Caligula are haunting - as the emperor is killed, he dies with the words, "I am alive! I am alive!" Again, a disturbing novel, for its so well-written.
I'd be curious to see a comparison of Camus' Existentialism with Ayn Rand's Objectivism. For Rand's Howard Roark (Fountainhead) might almost be a carbon copy of Camus' protagonist, Mersault. Almost. Roark did have a passion for architecture and the female protagonist.
Camus presents to us what a human being without any ego or emotions would look like. Such a person would be an ideal mirror for the surrounding society. Indeed, the protagonist provides us a reflection of the hippocrisy of the people around him. While Camus' brilliance lies in pulling it off and sparking a revolution around existentialism, the character's dispassion strikes one as being born of indolence rather than enlightenment. That is the one thought that has trailed in my mind all these years, long before I had come across other frameworks of dispassion.
Camus had to face a lot of struggles in his life, having come from a humble background. He tried to project the hippocrisy of his time in a tale of intense negativity, whose impact is heightened through understatement. As he is such a wonderful writer, be prepared to be deeply saddened by this book.
I've read some of his other books - Caligula and Cross-Wire. Caligula is a powerful tale of a crazy emperor whose zest for power and cruelty is justified on the account of the hippocrisy of his subjects. The last lines of Caligula are haunting - as the emperor is killed, he dies with the words, "I am alive! I am alive!" Again, a disturbing novel, for its so well-written.
I'd be curious to see a comparison of Camus' Existentialism with Ayn Rand's Objectivism. For Rand's Howard Roark (Fountainhead) might almost be a carbon copy of Camus' protagonist, Mersault. Almost. Roark did have a passion for architecture and the female protagonist.
posted by somik at 1:45 PM
5 Comments:
Hi Somik, Camus is the King of existentiatism (if I may borrow Elvis's title for a while). I'm not sure how the Objectivism V/S Existentiatism comparison will work out. Aren't they different philosophies? What I would think as interesting is the way Existentiatism has been seen by different authors. Camus is a good example. Satre is another. But their treatment is different. And I find that an increasing amount of contemporary writing also try to touch on it. But of course not so blatantly.
Well, I find that both Existentialism and Objectivism seem to have a loner, solitary aspect to it. While both dramas tend to portray the world as a dark place to live in, the objectivist is slightly more positive - there is the notion of the individual standing tall over the group. The existentialist is more interested in showing the triumph of a cruel society over the individual.
Camus and Sartre - The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that ended it
Interview with Camus' daughter (catherine camus)
Camus' Nobel Speech
http://del.icio.us/search/?all=camus
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Which post? Which spelling? Thank you for the help in advance.
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