/lit/ - Literature

>>13013166
faggot, camus is shit and the world would've been better off if the car hit him twenty years earlier and spared us all his novels

read Demian, then we'll talk about existentialism

>>13013166
can't tell if bait or pasta

>>13013166

I respected Camus a lot more when someone taught me about The Fall and its autobiographical nature. It was written as an apology to his wife, because he cheated on her with other women. His wife loved him so much that she jumped off a building two different times and had to be temporarily institutionalized because she was completely delirious upon finding out. Camus wanted to kill himself for a time after that.

>>13013166
>Avid lover of existentialist literature
Crime and Punishment.

>>13013166
based

>>13013166
I once heard this book described as the "existentialist manifesto" by some long-haired pretentious community college student with an unbecoming beard. Put me off from it forever

>>13013166
This seems a lot like pasta

>>13013240
I read it in high school. It wasn't bad, and I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed most books at the time, but I wouldn't say it's worth rereading.
It's pretty short, so you don't have to invest much time in reading it.

>>13013247
You think I'd deign to read Camus before at least tackling Plotinus, Hegel, and Kierkegaard? Please

>>13013254
Fair enough

>>13013166
This book was enjoyable, but you have to be pretty retarded to shoot someone for shining the sun in your eyes.

>>13013223
Source for this information?

>>13013223

fucking based.

>existentialist "literature"

Philistine detected.

>>13013171

Baahased

>>13013223
I finished The Fall two weeks ago, brilliant book, I’m going to reread it in the morning

It's a great book and easy read 8/10

>>13013303
Hey sexy, want fucky sucky

>>13013297
literacy itself is a spook
as is language

>>13013223
You sure? Which wife? I never heard about it.
I read The Fall last month and was rather disappointed. Not that it's bad, but what was "new" by then is common knowledge now (guilt, existentialism, depression, blah blah)

>>13013281
Todd Olivier's book, "Albert Camus: A Life". This old article talks about it as well in some limited form: https://www.theguardian.com/books/1997/oct/15/biography.albertcamus

"The Fall (1956) is the confession of a celebrated Parisian lawyer brought to crisis when he fails to come to the aid of a drowning woman. The 'drowning woman' was Camus' second wife, Francine, who had a mental breakdown. As mother of his two children, Camus decided it would be more appropriate if her relationship with him was that of 'a sister', allowing him erotic freedom. For years she appeared to go along with this but then she cracked. Todd says that Francine said to her husband: 'You owed me that book,' and Camus had agreed."

There's also this article about his correspondence with Maria Casares, the other woman that he was madly in love with up until his sudden death: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/no-longer-the-person-i-was-the-dazzling-correspondence-of-albert-camus-and-maria-casares/

Camus soon rediscovered the desire to live, but it was a life increasingly besieged by private and public struggles. Fears over his writer’s block — he tells Casarès, “I need to work, but I cannot work. Really, I cannot” — compounded his guilt over Francine’s emotional state.

In 1953, Francine seems to have suffered a nervous breakdown, a collapse in part precipitated by Camus’s relationship with Casarès. In an especially harrowing letter, Camus reports a suicide attempt made by Francine, in which she sprang toward a terrace window apparently in order to throw herself off. Camus caught her, but remained traumatized. She would have succeeded, he told Casarès, “if I had not been quick enough.” Though he insisted that he did not “fully understand” Francine’s deteriorating state, Camus found himself in an absurd situation that was, in large part, of his own making.

>>13013320
His second wife, Francine Faure. He had a turbulent brief marriage to Simone Hei before that and I think it was part of the reason he became so insistent upon treating his second wife like a family relative at first.

>>13013435
I lifted this off Harold Bloom's BioCritique book about Albert Camus:

"In 1953, Francine's pain at Camus's indifference and her unreciprocated love became overwhelming. It was expressed in a depression that grew in severity into a full blown illness which included a suicide attempt and severe withdrawal, staring straight ahead and repeating the name Maria Casares. Francine was hospitalized and subject to more than thirty electroshock treatments. Camus himself spoke of a struggle at this period against killing himself. He expressed guilt at what he called his Don Juanism, and "wondered" if his affairs weren't the cause of her illness.

Despite his bouts of regret, then, and despite an awareness of Francine's response to them, he continued his several attachments until his death."

>>13013166
When you're ready to move on from children's books, read Beckett.
>I shall soon be quite dead at last in spite of all.

Camus isn't an existentialist

>>13013166
Yeah I really like it. I don't know much about philosophy, but I read it as an exploration of how a true nihilist would interact with our society that assigns meaning to everything.

Read As I Lay Dying.

>>13013608
is it the sequel that was written by an arab?

>>13013628

>>13013628
No but there's a "post colonial" book called trial of meursault which is a "response" to the stranger and tells the story from the arabs point of view

>>13013166
That wasn't the opening line was it? Unless I read a fucked up translation I remember it being "I can't be sure" then he goes onto explain that the message he received wasn't specific about when she died so he had no way of knowing. It wasn't supposed to show his indifference.

>>13013670
>explaining that guy's joke to him
You really need to kill yourself

>>13013166
Funny how /lit went from choosing The Stranger as the second greatest work of literature of all time, to having a massive shit show whenever camus is mentioned

>>13013232
Agree!

>>13013685
Why do people laud this book so much anyway? The writing isnt great and the meaning behind isn't very profound.

>>13013694
it's so short and simple that even people with disabilities can finish it. and it's easy to laud the only book they've read

>>13013194
Based, Demian changed my life

>>13013694
the stranger is literally me

>>13013694
Being simple doesn't mean it isn't profound. But understanding Camus isn't all that easy.

Can't believe so many people took the bait. This is canonical pasta at this point

>>13013852
It's about a nihilistic young man who refuses to conform to societal standards and, in a pang of rage, kills a man who was shining light into his eyes. He gets sentenced to death for premeditated murder not because it was proved that the murder was actually premeditated, but because it was proved that he refused to conform. Simple.

>>13013166
Is this new pasta?

>>13013957
so how does this relate to Sisyphus and the idea of the Absurd?

>>13013166
>Mother died today

Or was it "Today mother is dead"?

Can any frogs give us the best translation of "Aujourd'hui maman est morte"?

>>13013972
You tell me

>>13013998
Well retard its pretty clear what the order the words are in french however it sounds like shit to directly translate that to english. You're fully aware of this. Stop being a brainlet.

How is it that so many people misunderstand the opening line?

>>13014009
fuck you faggot you don't understand shit.
you didn't even have the courtesy to search google.

>>13014026
Translator's not from my copy (Matthew Ward).

>>13014044
I haven't read the Myth of Sisyphus, so perhaps reading that would elucidate some deeper meaning in the Stranger. As it stands, I saw nothing further in it than nihilism/rejecting social norms/not seeing the value in his relationships and job etc and how this may have deleterious effects.

>>13013957
Moby Dick is about a man who tries to kill a whale. Metamorphosis is about a man who suddenly turns into an insect. The sorrows of young Werther is about a guy who can't get laid and therefore killed himself.
There, summarized some other classics for you. They are all simple. Literature is a spook.

>>13014212
>>camus is fucking simple lmao
>doesnt understand Absudism
>didnt read the myth of Sisyphus
i guess that makes you a pseud
kill yourself

>>13013171
Some men have given up the Good Fight.

>>13014278
Notice how you've only namedropped different philosophies which you say will elucidate its profundity without actually countering what I said. A typical sign of someone who just reads Wiki articles on philosophy and reckons himself an expert. How about explaining to me how my interpretation of it was wrong and why it is actually more complex than I took it?

>>13013257
No? If you're meant to shoot someone because of sun shining light into your eyes, then that's just life.

>>13014267
Funny. I looked up some interpretations of it and found Camus' summary:
>I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: 'In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death.' I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.
Basically identical to how I summarised it. You should take this up with Camus.

>>13014374
>Basically identical to how I summarised it.
Maximum delusion

Was Camus the first person to feel "Absurdism" as their Worldview? Or was he putting a name to and defining/describing a feeling that people already had? Or did he not feel it at all, and was just putting out some ideas that nobody feels?

Is Absurdism felt by all people? Or is it only felt by a few?

>>13014379
me:
>He gets sentenced to death for premeditated murder not because it was proved that the murder was actually premeditated, but because it was proved that he refused to conform.
camus:
> I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.

>>13014381
I've felt absurdism once, on one of 30 mushroom trips

This doesn't deserve its own thread, so:

How do I into Nietzsche?

>>13014381
He was describing what people felt. Remember, this is in early 20th century. It was the beginning of the atomic age. There were so much new stuff to create new arbitrary simculuras. There were "senseless" wars conducted. Think of 4chan before the honkler meme. We all knew the world was absurd, but honkler let us to authentically express it clearly.

>>13014439
>>13014439
Chronologically. Nietzsche's dream was for philosophers to be read via their biographies. So I think this is the best route.

>>13014369
Everything is "just life." It doesn't even make sense. If he's a sociopath or a narcissist then he wouldn't have done it because he would know it would ruin his life because of how obvious the crime was. He would at the very least plan something.

>>13014856
>making sense
that's your mistake.

>>13013194
Thank you for reminding me that I should read Demian again, but this time for philosophical meaning as opposed to simple enjoyment. Cheers friends!

>>13013998
As >>13014047 points out by posting an excerpt from the translator's note, Camus used the familiar/informal "maman" as opposed to the formal "mère". So for one, mom/mum or mommy/mummy is more literal to the Word of the sentence, so it would be (approximately) "Mommy died today." Two, if it was "Today Mommy is dead." like you are having it, that's fuckin literalist and also sounds rather dumb from an English speaking perspective. git gud

>>13014964
Sounds like bad writing desu

>>13015663
nothing make sense. why should people cater to your arbitrary made up bullshit?

Bye, I'm going to read something, i spent too much time on this board without actually reading.

>>13013171
Baited

>>13015691
>Arbitrary made up bullshit
This is certainly bait. If it's not, then I'm sorry about your down syndrome, anon. Surely everything and anything can be done in literature, but should it? Perhaps it should, but is it meaningful or even good writing? No. If I wanted lolrandom I would be using 9gag. As I said before, the book is good, but if you want to drown yourself in some delusion of perfection, then go ahead. Let's just give all books a 5 star rating shall we? After all, critique is just arbitrary bullshit.

>>13014439
The Viking Portable Nietzsche and The Basic Writings of Nietzsche are pretty much all the major works of Nietzsche collected into two compilations. Both are translated by Walter Kauffman, if that means anything to you.

>>13015647
"Today mommy is dead" also fails to establish the contradiction created in the next sentence

>>13013254
cringe

>>13013852
Every time someone says this I prepare myself to see all the "depth" of an author rounded out by followers of his work. Look at Kafka if you need an example of how many ways people can interpret things to give it their own take.