The Fall (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Camus seems to have sensed, however, that the rhetoric was unconvincing and that the ideal of a happy death was an illusion. Perhaps he even recognized that his hero’s struggle to remain conscious of life until his last breath was, in reality, a protest against death and a contradiction of his desire to make the transition to death serene and imperceptible. It was doubtless some such sense of the book’s failure that convinced Camus not to publish this work, composed when he was not yet twenty-five. Its posthumous publication has given scholars the opportunity to see Camus’s first halting steps in trying to formulate the subtle and complex themes of the novels that were to make him great. The Stranger The book also touches on the theory of absurdism, which is the idea that the human existence is a result of the attempt to draw meaning from our lives, and the pointlessness of trying to find that meaning, as it doesn’t exist. It’s a mouthful (and honestly quite depressing), I know, but I mentioned that Camus was a philosopher! Of course you might let someone else take The Fall for you, but from then on you would have to worship him. You would have to worship the guilty. You would have to worship the Judge-Penitent. But in this modern religion, to worship is to laugh at The Fallen.

When Camus passed away in January 1960, he had not yet finished writing his book, “The First Man.” His daughter released it in 1994 and intended it to be an autobiographical book. From his formative years and early adulthood, the main character Jacques Cormery is followed throughout the book. It differs from Camus’ other writings in terms of physicality and emotion.

Albert Camus was born in Mondovi, Algeria, on November 7 1913. He grew up impoverished in an already poor country. Despite these circumstances, Camus still made school his priority. He worked odd jobs to pay for his education and attended the University of Algiers. L’Étranger, or The Stranger (sometimes The Outsider, depending upon the publisher), is by far Camus’ most famous novel. Camus was clearly inspired by his own personal experiences when writing the book, as the story is centered around a French man named Meursault who is living in Algeria. It was published in 1942. In 1960, the year Camus passed away, a collection of articles titled “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death” were published. The writings focus on conflict, particularly as it relates to Algeria and the Algerian War of Independence. He discusses the death sentence in “Reflections on the Guillotine.” Camus, Albert. (2004). The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays. Trans. Justin O'Brien. New York: Everyman's Library. ISBN 1-4000-4255-0

The Fall” is a lyrical poem, suffused with Christian themes, mixed with the images of autumn in New England. The themes are allusive and suggestive but nonetheless stark and an integral part of the poem, imbuing the seasonal descriptions with a transcendent quality. Jean-Baptiste, who fears being judged, is a judge himself both verbally and professionally. He deeply understands the hypocrisy of the situation, and commented cynically on this modern society around him: Born in Algeria in 1913, Albert Camus published The Stranger-- now one of the most widely read novels of this century-- in 1942. Celebrated in intellectual circles, Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. On January 4, 1960, he was killed in a car accident.Camus' novel The Stranger, sometimes known as The Outsider, follows the life of a man, Meursault, who lives in Algiers. He receives a telegram of his mother's death, and the story is about him dealing with the events that unfold. A theme throughout the book is the idea that there is no inherent purpose to human life. In the book, Camus points out that the only certainty in life is death since all human beings die. Throughout the novel, Meursault moves towards this realization, and by the end of the book, he finally grasps this. For much of the book, Meursault is indifferent to the world around him. Ultimately, he realizes the world has also been indifferent to him. The Plague Bottum, whose interest in religious topics and culture is evidenced by his writing for First Things, is probing the religious underpinnings of New England life, as readers see immediately in the poem’s title, with its studied reference to both a New England autumn and the fall of humankind in Adam and Eve. According to the Bible, the fall of Adam brought sin and death into the world, and both are prominent in this short poem. Sin and death are symbolized in the red color of the September leaves, which brings the poet to think of “welcome slaughters” and the “blood of martyrs.” This section culminates in vengeful imagery: The leaves themselves, each a “burning tongue,” accuse us of our “wrongs.” Throughout the narrative, Camus presents a critique of modern society, challenging the reader to question their own moral responsibility and the values of the collective. The character of Clamence embodies the complexities of human nature, as he oscillates between sympathy and manipulation, arrogance and self-loathing. Have you noticed that Amsterdam's concentric canals resemble the circles of hell? The middle-class hell, of course, peopled with bad dreams. When one comes from the outside, as one gradually goes through those circles, life — and hence its crimes — becomes denser, darker. Here, we are in the last circle. (Camus 23) Amsterdam

Camus is known first and foremost for his writings, but he was also a French Resistance fighter and a philosopher. He was born and grew up in Algeria, a French colony at the time. Camus’ early life greatly influenced his writings, and he was famously anti-colonialist. He worked for a leftist newspaper in Algiers until it was eventually shut down, and then decided to move to Paris in 1940. But The Fall is famous for more than its interesting narrative technique. For one, it was written by Albert Camus, a French thinker known for his philosophy of the absurd, a close cousin to existentialism, and his frenemy status with Jean-Paul Sartre, another French philosopher of the mid-1900s. (Note that throughout his life Camus maintained that he was not an existentialist.) Now, Camus is most famous for three big novels. The first is The Stranger, published in 1942, which tells the story of a detached, emotionless man convicted of murder, who finds existential freedom while in prison awaiting his death. The second is The Plague, in 1947, which revolves around an outbreak of the bubonic plague in an Algerian town, and the struggle of its citizens to deal with human suffering. And of course, the third is The Fall, in 1956, published shortly before Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature. Camus died only three years afterwards, making The Fall his final piece of fiction.

Clamence proceeds to "destroy that flattering reputation" (Camus 326) primarily by making public comments that he knows will be received as objectionable: telling beggars that they are "embarrassing people," declaring his regret at not being able to hold serfs and beat them at his whim, and announcing the publication of a "manifesto exposing the oppression that the oppressed inflict on decent people." In fact, Clamence even goes so far as to consider