Having just gorged on Gide (see previous Post), I turned to Camus again, for a quick fix. I chose his The Fall (La Chute, 1956). I noticed that I had written in pencil "Swindon, October 1973" on the front fore title page. This sent me scurrying to check on my other Penguin paperbacks: also bought that day in Swindon was The Plague (La Peste, 1947). The other three have written in them "Marlborough, October 1973": The Outsider (L'Etranger, 1942), Exile and the Kingdom (L'Exil et le royaume, 1957) and A Happy Death (La Mort heureuse, published posthumously in 1971). I checked my 1973 Diary and read that it was the Autumn half-term week and I had spent the previous few days touring South Wales and the Borders, feasting on castles - Chepstow, Raglan, Grosmont, Skenfrith, Monmouth, Goodrich, Croft, Ludlow, Stokesay; then North Wales - Shrewsbury, Whittington, Denbigh, Rhuddlan, Flint and Ewloe. All in three days - oh to be young again! Back home in Marlborough, on Wednesday 31st October it reads "Up town - bought books by Camus". On Thursday 1st November: "Swindon". So my dates are wrong for those two.
Swindon - Penguin, 1972 Swindon - Penguin 1972
Penguin, 1971 Penguin, 1972 Penguin, 1973
Marlborough
The only one I can't remember reading is A Happy Death. I know I re-read the others a few years ago. So - to The Fall. Perhaps not the best novel to pick up during the debilitating Covid-19 period. If you are feeling too happy or smug, then a good antidote is Camus. I must admit I endured rather than enjoyed the re-read this time. I should have picked The Outsider (not The Plague!)
Sartre called Camus' pessimism "solar"...the philosophy of Camus is the philosophy of the absurd, and for him the absurd springs from the relation of man to the world, of his legitimate aspirations to the vanity and futility of human wishes. The conclusions which he draws from it are those of classical pessimism. The Fall is the story of Jean-Baptiste Clamence, once a successful barrister in Paris, now settled in a fogbound Amsterdam as a self-styled 'judge-penitent'. From a cosy life of self-esteem and near-adulation by others, a few events make him see through the fundamental hypocrisy of his existence. His good nature and kindnesses are merely condescension writ large. He descends into debauchery and then self-judgement. Rather like The Ancient Mariner, he collars an un-named cher compatriote who has to listen to his (rather drawn-out for me) tale. I found I had to concentrate beyond the line of enjoyment as the bon mot sentences came too thick and fast. Why are so many French writers (and films) so 'deep'? or, rather, soul-destroying? Left wing, tubercular (severely) and a compulsive womaniser, Camus is an acquired taste. I just hope that in 1972 I was in a much more receptive frame of mind. Camus once said: What interests me is knowing how we should behave, and more precisely, knowing how to behave when one does not believe in God or reason. His books reflect this ambition.
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