Camus - Visitors Recommend

Visitors Recommend

Albert Camus »


The Fall (La chute)	I don’t know why I like this book. I read it in an afternoon and I liked it very much. It shows the reality of our time. /Giannis Christopoulos, 25, Greece It's a perfect portrait of a human being. Very well-written. Camus was a master of writing. I also recommend "The Plague", "The Stranger" and "The First Man." You must read Camus! /Jakob, 17, Sweden

The First Man (Le premier homme)	It was found in his car after the crash, unfinished, absurdly, just like its author's life. It is beautiful, dreamy and dusty. And is the end. /Liudmila, 19, Netherlands

The Myth of Sisyphus (Le mythe de Sisyphe)	It contains a very interesting philosophical analysis about happiness and what it can mean when there's no hope of change. /Adrian Georgescu, 17, Romania

The Plague (La ceste)	This is the first book of Camus's that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. In fact, when I was in the process of reading 'And the Band Played On' by Randy Shilts I found a quote from 'The Plague' and decided to read the book. I was surprised at how the epidemic in 'The Plague' mirrored the AIDS epidemic. Public officials completely ignorant of the seriousness of the epidemic tried to play down the outbreak and doctors struggling ruthlessly to contain the epidemic. The novel is about how individuals cope in extraordinary circumstances to the tremendous and horrible loss of life, to the isolation of loved ones in quarantine and the constant fear that you too could be the next victim of the plague. /James Berret, 18, United States It represents man's fears of separation, distance, danger, loss of life and gives us an idea of what a pest is. Santiago, 17. Guatemala Because of the author's great affection for human beings and the powerful style with which it has been portrayed. /Soroosh Seyyedi, 16, Iran In the face of disaster, of the absurd, human courage will rise and it will demand justice, dignity and companionship. The most important book ever written in modern age. /Samuel, 16, Sweden

The Stranger (L'étranger)	Simply striking read for a young man. It has a mystery at its heart: the honesty to feelings, the inability to misrepresent those feelings. A short novel with few characters and much resonance. There is a philosophy, the incarnation of myth, the sensuality of the everyday. Two halves. /John Sharman, 57, United Kingdom A unique tale of an alienated man told in the first person. He is proscribed by society not only for having committed an inadvertant murder but more so for his straight honesty in confessing his alienation with prevailing social sentiments unrelated to the murder which go to serve as evidences and add to his committed guilt. He is more accused of the crimes he has not been aware of. In other words this book represents the bewildered struggle of a man trying to find a meaning with life, which he enjoys living, yet in the end finds absurd. So much is told within so little a span in the straight forward narrative of this book which first I read as the Penguin publication 'The Outsider' and started recognising the outsider inside myself soon after. I could not resist the temptation of translating this book in Bengali, my mother tongue. I am presently trying to find a publisher for the translation. It is one of the many books that demands a fresh rethinking of this life we live. I never have read its kind ever before or after. /Oumitra Lahiri, 54, India It was an easy-to-read book that had an amazing quick moving plot. I also love the existentialist inspiration for the book. /Alex, 13, United States I like it because it makes people think about absurdity in our own lives, and ask questions about ourselves and the reasoning behind our way of life. /Major Dhaliwal, 17, Canada Simple effective prose that is ample enough to allow a vision for the reader but never extraneous and archetypal of the existentialist thought. The idea of the absurd and our expectations of each other in society is portrayed as ridiculous as the main character's ignorance to society's standards. /Scott Siverling, 31, United States The depiction of alienation and the living with "absurd" amused me. /Shishir, 19, Bangladesh The author's philosophy transmitted through this brilliant novel. 'The Stranger' is a must-read. /David R., 18, Canada When I read "The Stranger' I was completely ignorant of its recognition or the author. It was a decision of what to read on summer holiday near the beach and I quickly picked it from my home bookshelf as one of my family members had read it in the past. I did not even get into trouble of searching the title or read any introductory details about the author. I only started reading the book, exactly as intended, at the beach, under the sun in Kefallonia, where I happened to spend my summer. The book was so full of light, a true revelation. It didn't surprise me then. It absorbed me. And ever since, for years, I have been searching hard to find any word that would make me feel and understand to say anything about it than: light! No other book has given me anything similar, than 'The Stranger'. /Paraskevi Matsouka, 38, Greece He was the best author in the history of literature, analysing the behaviour of characters in his stories to reach for the causes of problems in the human spirit and to defeat the sadness and hardness of life by the innovating instrument in his famous qoutes. /Moataz Mohsen, 28, Egypt The best ... most 'absurd' ... subtly touches the deep, unmarked and hegemonic ways of social hegemony ... /Steven, 18, Canada Because he's great, I like his way of thinking about life and the entire story. /Sara Soria Estrugo, 19, Bolivia It is a great fictional story, written in a very simple manner and as powerful as life itself. Saúl Alvarez Lara, 57, Colombia This book is very powerful. It really made me think about society, good, evil, innocence, and guilt. I felt a lot of sympathy for the main character. /Elisabeth, 15, United States It's the story about a man who was punished for his views instead of his crime. /Guga, 14 I teach this novel to high school juniors, and the concept of an absurd hero is fascinating to them. Camus' character Meursault refuses to lie or say more than he feels - this is what makes him heroic. In the end of the novel, Meursault opens himself up the indifference of the world, and is finally happy. Just like Sisyphus, Meursault overcomes his fate by accepting it. /Cindy, 29, United States Existentialist view of the conscience. /Akshaya, 23, India Meursault is amazingly indifferent to the extent that you feel like slapping him and telling him to speak up and defend himself when he is being tried for murder. But that is his character - this indifference. I read this book as a part of a school course Rebellion & Conformity in Lit. We staged a retrial of Meursault and though the prosecution tried their best to prove him guilty, the jury still found him not guilty. I was playing the part of the caretaker of the home, and I believe my take on the character helped the defense's case. /Mandar, 16, United States For describing a portrait of a stranger in society and exposing ideas of revolt and absurdity. /Arminas, 17, Lithuania

Summer (L'été)	So simple but so profound contemporaneously. I finished it directly. I just loved it because it learned me such interesting cultures. /Irini Lioli, 18, Greece

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