![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Camus doesn't claim to know all the answers, or even all the questions, but he does have the novelist's ability to make you wonder what those questions might be, and to reveal all the complex mess of human psychology. This is no screed setting out the rules of existentialism, or even absurdism. Mersault's story isn't a simply framework for a philosophy, it is something in and of itself. So I should preface this remark by admitting I may be doing Sartre an injustice – but from what I can remember, another big difference between Nausea and The Outsider is a refusal to preach. My own battle with Camus' frenemy's famous book took place quite a few years ago, and I came out the loser. It may be plain, but only in the way of a well-turned piece of wood, where the surface is smooth, yet also reveals all the undulations of the grain.Īnyway, anyone who has slogged through Sartre's Nausea will appreciate Camus' qualities as a storyteller. My French isn't up to it, and it's no particular insight to point our that his writing is vivid, and elegant. I set that down both as an insight into his attitude to writing and as a good reason for me to avoid going into a practical criticism-style essay into his prose. There's a famous Camus quote that "saying things badly increases the unhappiness of the world". ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |