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Title: The Fall by Albert Camus, Justin O'Brien, Erroll McDonald ISBN: 0-679-72022-7 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: May, 1991 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.15 (72 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Fall by Albert Camus
Comment: Possibly my favorite book ever. It still draws me in. The analogy of peeling onion layers is most obvious in reading it. The teller, Jean Baptiste Clemance, is so charming and skilled in convincing the reader, that each new sentence is like a gem and to be savored. It stimulates the mind and seduces the reader. It stuns you the first time you read it, and continues to provoke, amuse, and shock in subsequent readings. In the end it always leads us to contemplate our own values, our personnas and to wonder what is really true in life. A book everyone should read. And slowly.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Fallen World Devoid of Laughter
Comment: The Fall by Albert Camus is a short, disturbing work about the "fallen" life of Jean-Baptiste Clamence, the narrator of the story. The entire work is actually Clamence's own narrative, which makes reading it more like listening to a type of confession; at the very least it is like being on the recieving end of a conversation.
As the title indicates, this books plays off of Christian themes heavily. The very idea of "the fall" is a fundamentally Christian notion of lost innocence (which is very much at the heart of this work); "Jean-Baptiste" - "John [the] Baptist" in English - describes himself as a type of prophet crying in the wilderness but refusing to come forth; the bar he frequents is described as a church (and one could argue that, by extension, his life in the bar is something of a participation in an inverted communion); entire discussions about redemption, forgiveness, and repentance fill the pages of this work.
Despite all of its religious imagery and imagination, however, it is a work that is completely devoid of any notions of real redemption, forgiveness or love. Clamence's/Camus' view is basically that this world is, indeed, fallen but that there is nothing else.
It is interesting that an entire discussion about the death of God takes place within this book. As Camus - like Nietzsche before him - notes, without God all meaning and transcendence is lost. The picture Camus paints of such a world is indeed compelling if God is dead; as Clamence says - tragically - at the end of the book, he would permit himself everything all over again but without laughter the next time. A world devoid of laughter is a world devoid of love; a world devoid of love is a world devoid of transcendence; a world devoid of transcendence is a world devoid of God.
This book is a heavy work that attempts to carry the weight of the world upon its existential shoulders. It is one of the better places to start if one is interested in getting a feel for existentialist philosophy and literature, as well as a post-Nietzschean worldview.
Upon finishing this book, one should listen closely to the sounds of a haunting silence, born of a world without laughter, and ask one's self whether or not that silence is compelling. Is it what one wants to hear? Is it what one does in fact hear? Perhaps ironically, it is only in such absence that the whisper of faith, hope, and love can be heard; indeed, fallenness cannot be the totality of being.
A viewpoint that denies laughter is, in the end, a viewpoint worth looking past, over, and beyond: in short, transcending.
Rating: 4
Summary: Challenging
Comment: My favorite book for Camus, his style in writing is very provocative, and challenging. Forces you to think of his personality and how that relates to us. He is very detailed and makes you imagine exactly what he is going through.
One of those books that you have to stop once in a while and reflect on what message has been communicated. What is the hidden message behind all this, and how would that imply to me...
Even if you are not into these kind of books, I believe you should try reading it, quick reading, easy to follow through, and more than anything else enlightening.
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Title: The Plague (Vintage International) by Albert Camus, Stuart Gilbert ISBN: 0679720219 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: May, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Stranger by Albert Camus, Matthew Ward ISBN: 0679720200 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: March, 1989 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays (Vintage International) by Albert Camus, Justin O'Brien ISBN: 0679733736 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: May, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt by Albert Camus ISBN: 0679733841 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: January, 1992 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, H. Carruth, Lloyd Alexander ISBN: 0811201880 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: January, 1975 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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