Le Peste - The Plague.

You realize, you could make a great parody called Le Pesto? About the terrible decline of pasta?

Well, my readers, all 2 of you, today is the day we begin examining Albert Camus, and it won't be the last cause I really need to read The Stranger next, which is actually on my list. Anywho, a rundown on someone who is becoming one of my favorite authors:

Albert Camus: Awesome. Is he a nihilist? Existentialist? Absurdist? A conglomeration of all three? Possibly. To give you a clue of his basic philosophy, he once wrote an essay on Sisyphus: The greek legend who was eternally condemned to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it fall back down when inches from the top. That pointlessness, that imposed, deliberate cruelty, is what he called ABSURD. And he pretty much based his work off of it. He was French Algerian and wrote novels and plays and short stories and essays and articles. He ran the underground newspaper during the French occupation and continued to write to the people once they had attained their freedom. I love the first article he writes to France after the German occupation: "Combat Continues." He loved both Algeria and France and hated the conflict between them. This exile because of combat becomes the theme of many of his works including his short story The Guest. In fact, the theme of exile haunts The Plague up and down.

LE PESTE:

Themes. Now the wonderful thing about Camus is that he is very straightforward and obvious in a duh-are-you-listening-now sort of way. He wants you to get the point. And that is why picking out themes is so easy.

EXILE: Now, in the exile the bubonic/pneumonic plague comes and visits a little French Algerian town and they are forced to quarantine the town, effectively EXILING it. Now, is anyone thinking AP essay? It says that the first thing that the people were exiled from was friends and relatives, hope and peace, the future, and the outside world. Suddenly, the town was diseased and no one wanted to go near it though everyone in it wanted to go out. Hey, could disease be a symbol? Hope is also a big deal in the novel, for while the town was mostly exiled from it, the last remnants of hope made them survive and keep on fighting. If I knew this book better, and about 3 months ago, I would've written about it one the AP exam.

LOVE: This is very weird. Camus writes about love in a way that comes out differently in every case. Over the whole town, an apathy fell over love and marriages in general and everyone just figured that if they died, they died and it didn't matter until the quarantine lifted. There were two distinct couples that were separated - man inside the town, woman outside. In Rieux's case, he decided to stay in the town and work ceaselessly to rid the town of it. In his friend's case, I will find the name later, he worked and connived to sneak out of the town to be his sweetheart, then on the eve of his escape, he realized that he needed to help and would lead an empty (absurd alert) life outside the quarantine if he did not sacrifice himself. Guilt led him back. How did this all end? Rieux's wife died because she went away for her health and died just a few weeks before the quarantine lifted. Ironic? Absurd alert. The guy who was going to chicken out got nervous before he met his girl, but it all ended up really well. She just swooned all over him.

So, the fickle man was rewarded while the constant man was punished. So much for a fair universe. Oh yeah, absurdity.

Alright, well, ABSURDITY is a philosophy where the universe is unfair to the point of absurdity. Absurdity, in case you are not getting a clear picture, is ... "tragic, meaningless irony. Usually the inflictor of this tragedy is nature, life, the universe, or some other superior source. Camus states his definition of absurdity: 'Perhaps this notion will become clear if I hazard this outrageous remark: the absurd is sin without God'." Yes, i did just quote my own paper on Camus. And I did get a C on it but that's not really any fault of the reasoning itself (citing error). Can you quote yourself? Anyhow, according to Camus, there is a absurd cycle with several steps. First, you live a totally pointless, absurd life. Next, you realize that your life is absurd and become all depressed and junk. Third, you realize with some sort of joy that yes, your life is absurd, but it really doesn't matter anyhow because everybody's life is absurd!!! Yay!!! Okay, that's the simplified form, but it works for the book. Rieux ends up running the full scale of the cycle from a fairly pointless life, to a life of ceaseless work that runs in circles cause the plague never lets up, to skinny dipping. It's true. Now, the Spaniard and the old guy counting beans have realized the absurdity of life and fully embrace it. Love the old guy counting beans. According to the Spaniard, the ultimate goal in life was to find peace which would eradicate humanity's "plague." Peace could be found through the path of sympathy. Sadly, there is a man who never quite realizes his plight. He is the Sisyphus, but instead of rolling boulders, he is writing a book. Not really a book, cause he only ever got to one sentence which he tirelessly went over again and again to perfect the sentence. Because if he could complete this Sisyphean task, he would somehow get his wife back. He was so dismal in the end, that he burned his manuscript. Shortly to the end, he was full of hope because he had just thought of something else and the burning really didn't matter because he had memorized it and all. And then, he died. Absurdity indeed. There is more to the novel, but I think I will leave you with mere quotes because no one writes like Camus.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves. ( He mentioned wars in the stupidity category.)

All the rest hung on mere threads and trivial contingencies; you couldn't waste your time on it. The thing was to do your job as it should be done.

In short, we returned to our prison-house, we had nothing left us but the past, and even if some were tempted to live in the future, he had speedily to abandon the idea - anyhow, as soon as could be - once they felt the wounds that imagination inflicts on those who yield themselves to it.

Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those who men's justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars.

Thus each of us had to be content to live only for the day, alone under the vast indifference of the sky.

But there was also darkness in men's hearts, and the facts were as little calculated to reassure our townfolk as the wild stories going round about the barraks.

For there's no denying that the Plague had gradually killed off in all of us the faculty not of love only but even of friendship. naturally enough, since love asks something of the future, and nothing was left us but a series of present moments.

Can one be a saint without God? (please see above)

I can say I know the world inside out, as you may see - that each of us has the plague within him; no one, no one on earth is free from it. And I know, too, that we much keep endless watch on ourselves lest in a careless moment we breathe in somebody's face and fasten the infection on him...All the rest - health, integrity, purity (if you like) - is a product of the human will, of a vigilance that must never falter, The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of attention.

Among them I can at least try to discover how one attains to the third category [healer]; in other words, to peace.

Alright, I'm almost done with The Stranger (which is actually on my list) and I am going out of town on a road trip to my sister's wedding so I'll hopefully be able to finish it within a day! I also picked up 3 books today from second hand book shops (I love those!). I got The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy (I've watched all the film versions!), Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (which is actually on my list as well) and 95 poems, a collection of poems by e.e. cummings. I'm pretty excited. I love that guys. Alright, sorry it took me so long and hopefully I'll return to blogging next Tuesday or Wednesday!