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Albert Camus -- forever modern
L.A. Times ^ | 11/7/2013 | Robert Zaretsky

Posted on 11/07/2013 1:11:17 PM PST by Borges

Albert Camus, who would be 100 years old Thursday, is ageless. The French Algerian's life and work reflect the long tragedy of the 20th century, marked by disquiet, genocide and violence, but his diagnosis of our absurd condition, and his effort to find not a cure (there is none) but the proper response, tie him just as firmly to the new millennium.

Camus lived on intimate terms with the absurd. He lost his father, whom he never knew, in the war to end all wars that emphatically failed in that regard. He was a French intellectual from working-class Algiers, a writer raised by a grandmother who could not read and a mother who could not read and could scarcely speak. And he discovered mortality as an athletic teenager, when he began to cough up blood from his tubercular lungs.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: albertcamus; algeria; france

1 posted on 11/07/2013 1:11:17 PM PST by Borges
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To: Borges

Gregore Samsa woke up one morning to find that he had been changed into a ...


2 posted on 11/07/2013 1:18:36 PM PST by KC Burke (Officially since Memorial Day they are the Gimmie-crat Party.h)
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To: Borges
an act the absurdity of which is revealed only when others demand in vain a reason.

Everything happens for a reason:

1) To help you feel at home in the world
2) to help you totally accept yourself
3) to show you that you can let go of fear
4) to bring you to a place where you can feel forgiveness
5) to help you uncover your true hidden talent
6) to give you what you need to find true love
7) to help you become stronger
8) to help you discover the play in life
9) to show you how to live with a sense of mission
10)to help you become a truly good person

3 posted on 11/07/2013 1:27:43 PM PST by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
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To: mjp

I had to buy and read The Stranger in college. I think there was a gun pointed to my head.


4 posted on 11/07/2013 1:32:40 PM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: KC Burke

That’s Kafka...


5 posted on 11/07/2013 1:33:28 PM PST by Borges
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To: Borges

Metamorphosis


6 posted on 11/07/2013 1:51:09 PM PST by oldsicilian
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To: massgopguy

Never knew Camus was a pied-noir.

French Algerians got royally screwed by De Gaulle back in 1962. Lost everything & boarded ship as penniless refugees.

At least they burned their Renault cars in that soccer field to keep the muzzies from seizing them.


7 posted on 11/07/2013 1:52:38 PM PST by elcid1970 ("In the modern world, Muslims are living fossils.")
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To: Borges
Interesting guy, and about the only existentialist I can stand to read cover to cover. The Myth of Sisyphus alone is worth the price of admission. I came away from that one convinced that Camus was clinically depressed and I haven't really shaken the conviction.

I found The Plague fascinating. Camus denied that it was an existentialist novel and in that I concur. I do think there's an awful lot of postwar commentary going on under the surface. Great book club material. Happy B-day Albert, wherever you are. We must imagine him happy...

8 posted on 11/07/2013 2:05:33 PM PST by Billthedrill
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To: massgopguy
I learned that you should never drink cafe au lait at a wake. At least not if the person who just died was your mother.
9 posted on 11/07/2013 2:07:17 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
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To: Borges

You are right.

The wrong first line sprang to mind when I saw the post — dang cobwebs in the brain.


10 posted on 11/07/2013 2:23:51 PM PST by KC Burke (Officially since Memorial Day they are the Gimmie-crat Party.h)
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To: Billthedrill

The Plague inspired me to be a writer.


11 posted on 11/07/2013 2:53:24 PM PST by GOP Poet
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