I ran into my friend Dan at the club last week, and he was drunk.

So we talked Camus. We didn't just superficially touch on Camus's theories. Instead, we delved deeper, discussing how Camus's ideas related to Dan's life and mine.

We didn't bring up the irony of the fact that he avoided riding in cars and then died in a car crash. That wasn't the focus of our conversation.

The only truly interesting aspect for me is how something affects me. That's the honest truth.

Dan and I agreed that an interest in Existentialism is somewhat like a stage in your life. It's similar to when you liked Pearl Jam or lived in a small house with a name and seven other people.

We then further agreed that a re-exploration of all things Existential is usually preceded by your significant other telling you to get bent.

Later, Dan taught me how to cure a salmon. And we decided to co-host a dinner party in the second week of April.

I truly doubt we would have come to this conclusion without having read The Fall. It seems that Camus's work had a profound impact on our evening and our plans.

Left me thinking more than ever.

It truly made me engage in deep reflection. There are still so many aspects that remain unanswered.

The book has this uncanny ability to leave you feeling uneasy. You find yourself constantly contemplating, grappling with the need to uncover the logic that lies beneath the issues that the author has so skillfully raised and addressed.

But the big question that looms is, can there really be any sense to the working of human minds?

The complexity and mystery of the human psyche seem almost insurmountable. It makes you wonder if we will ever truly understand the inner workings of our own minds and the motives behind our actions.

This book has definitely opened up a Pandora's box of thoughts and questions that will continue to haunt me for a long time to come.

I was at the St Louis City Museum with my family in the summer of 2017.

Taking a break, I was reading this edition of The Fall. An employee noticed that I was reading it, and it was a fifty-year-old copy that I had owned all my life. "Oh!" she said, "My favorite philosopher! And such an old book! Can I smell it?" I understood her fetish and her admiration for Camus, which has been a lifelong thing for me.

I had decided to re-read the (sort of) trilogy from Camus this year, including The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall. I never really related to The Fall when I first read it. I began re-reading it in August, set it aside, and only finished it now, in December. The Stranger is sort of sensational, the story of an amoral murder without guilt. The Plague, which I consider one of the great novels, features Dr. Rieux who commits to saving lives even when the plague advances and things seem hopeless. Another way to distinguish them is that The Stranger is a portrait of an alienated, nihilist man, while The Plague is almost the opposite, featuring a passionate commitment to social justice. The Fall shows us that we have largely failed to learn from WWII.

The Fall is a first-person account of a Parisian lawyer, Clemance, a self-satisfied hypocrite, making a confession to another man in a bar. The confession pertains to something that happened one night when Clemance was walking by the Seine and saw a woman fling herself from the riverbank. He heard her cries but didn't move to help her.

Clemance represents modern man living post-WWII, post-Holocaust. The woman's fall triggers Clemance's own moral fall. Camus said the book is a kind of confession without transformation. It reminded me of Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground.

Clemance's story begins with a mention of the Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam. If The Plague is an inspiring story of resistance, The Fall is one of a failure to act. Clemance says, "I have no friends; I only have accomplices. To make up for this the number has increased; they are the whole human race." We are all morally culpable for the Holocaust and subsequent atrocities.

Clemance, not penitent, is haunted by his moral failure. The Stranger and The Plague have always been great books for me, but The Fall is chilling, as dark as The Stranger in many ways. (And all my fifty-year-old paperback copies have that same musty smell!)

Camus's Three Antidotes to the Absurdity of Life, from Maria Popova!

https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/07...

I would like to say a lot about this book by Camus that I read for the second time. Since I understood very little the first time, but I don't know what to say that could convey even one tenth of the experience that The Fall gives. And so I say nothing, except only: it must be read by everyone.

This book is truly a masterpiece. Camus' writing style is so profound and thought-provoking. It makes you question your own values and beliefs. The story is set in a seedy bar in Amsterdam and follows the protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, as he reflects on his life and his past actions.

The character of Clamence is complex and multi-faceted. He is both charming and repulsive, and you can't help but be drawn into his world. As you read, you start to see the similarities between Clamence and yourself, and it makes you uncomfortable. But that's the beauty of this book. It forces you to face the truth about yourself and the world around you.

Overall, The Fall is a must-read for anyone who is interested in philosophy, literature, or just a good story. It will stay with you long after you've finished reading it.

Based on my experience, I have come to the conclusion that talkative people basically don't like the talkativeness of others. They quickly lose patience and are eager for an opportunity to take control of the conversation. I too sometimes got tired of Mr. Klemens' constant chattering. But fortunately, cutting off this chattering was easily accomplished by simply closing the book. And this action, unlike in the real world, had no consequences. Because not only was Jean-Baptiste not bothered or angry by this, but in the next turn, without taking over the conversation, he continued his talk.

Analyzing one's personality and beliefs requires sharp insight, courage, and honesty. Sharp insight in order for the individual to find the core of their personality and beliefs, and courage and honesty in order to express them without omission or distortion. In the absence of the above three, stupidity or cunning may take the place of all three! In Mr. Klemens, besides the great respect I have for his noble profession, I found the element of cunning to be very prominent. I am skeptical of the person regarding all that dear Jean described, and I consider them to be the inventions of his creative mind. Jean, in my opinion, is not a "penitent judge" but a "cunning judge." Of course, in the face of his worldview, natural elegance, sharp thinking, and precise understanding of human nature, I bow in admiration.

Jean is a fisherman who has a delicious bait in his pocket. A bait that deceives every fish or sea creature. Jean describes himself. He describes his life with all its pomp and grandeur. The path he takes is not straightforward. First, he boasts about his prominent social and professional position and tells tales of his successes. Basically, everything that has become a kind of good for humans through the bipolar world, he attributes to himself and absolves himself of all evil. These narratives arouse a sense of pity and appreciation in humans. This pity/appreciation places Jean in a higher position than us and creates a respect in our hearts for him, which in turn makes us continue to listen to his conversations. Then, gradually, he falls into contradiction. A contradiction that is familiar to us. A contradiction that occurs frequently in all of our conversations. For example: I am an emotional person. Jean expresses this sentence and its opposite several times in the middle of the book. In general sentences, the contradiction is always evident. Now, Jean falls from his lofty position to our human position. He expresses his small weaknesses and becomes human like us. Like us, he is subject to contradiction and like us, he is not perfect! Like us, he makes mistakes and like us, he feels remorse and embarrassment. In this state, our sense of empathy towards Jean is awakened, and we want to listen to his confessions again, sigh deeply with him, and perhaps be happy that we are not alone in these weaknesses. In the final stage, Jean continues his fall into the abyss and falls to the bottom of this hell. He becomes a lowly human whose world is completely desolate and full of condemnable qualities. He confesses to all his weaknesses and allows us to look down on him from above. We feel that he is a pitiful and touching human. Now, we will have no problem confessing our weaknesses to a human whom we consider weaker and lower than ourselves. Moreover, many of the ugliness of things will be revealed to us during this acquaintance. That you can be a high-ranking lawyer who is self-loving and lustful. Or defend a criminal in court but not endanger your own innocent life for the sake of saving someone else's.

This book can still arouse many more discussions, but I am patient until my second reading of this book (perhaps with a different translation), and then I will address issues such as happiness, judgment, forgiveness, religion, ethics, social classes, love, and friendship...

Yes, this small book is a mirror of our era and of humanity today.

From now on, I hear their voices: "He killed himself because he couldn't bear that..." Ah! Dear friend, how poor people are in terms of creative power! They always think that a person commits suicide for one reason. But one can very well commit suicide for two reasons. No, this doesn't occur to their minds. So what's the use of a person dying of their own will and sacrificing themselves in an imagined way that they want to leave something of themselves behind? When you die, they count the opportunity as a prize to find stupid or ordinary motives for your actions.

Despite its small volume, it is time-consuming and mind-boggling! :))))) Until the middle of the book, I was looking for the start of a current, but then I realized no... there is no need to start, and I'm in the middle of the current. The more lines you read, the more you can generalize it to yourself, to those around you... and that's what makes it time-consuming.

I wasn't one of those scattered weavings that forgives every insult, but I always remembered it at the end of the work.

And in the end, I think it had a relatively good preface and translation. (Translation by Shurangiz Farrokh.)

Consciência -- The Hell of Our Existence

Will even our acts of kindness towards others stem from an excessive narcissism?!

Whenever we give alms, help a blind person cross the street, and so on, and so forth... do we do it because such attitudes are positively evaluated and rewarded by others who label us as "good people"?!...

Is altruism a form of hypocritical egoism?!

A masked Narcissism?!

In "The Fall", Camus questions human nature, condemning it to a sterile judgment -- there is an inoperative self-punitive conscience that merely condemns the irremediable.

It is an Eternal Cycle of Sin and Self-Judgment, where Change has no Place!

We are irremediably Bad -- beings in continuous Fall, with a massacring conscience, an instrument of torture whose only function is to point out each of our mistakes.

What a disbelief in Humanity -- not only does it not help, but there is no turning back ☹️

If you are seeking verification of the magnificence of Bulgakov, this is the place.

In "The Master and Margarita"..

This extraordinary book..

I established a very strong connection..The writing style and narrative of this work are truly unique.

The sentences, ideas..Everything gives the flavor of real life..A scent that perhaps each of us has in the layers where we try to hide our morality, phenomena, and emotions..And Bulgakov brings them out and throws them towards us..And there is no escape from "The Master and Margarita"..Bulgakov is extraordinary.

From all of this, I create a face that is everyone's image and at the same time, no one's image.

The novel is a monologue of a man named Klemens who talks about his past deeds and behaviors, and actually reveals the truths hidden behind each of his actions! Of course, in many places, the reader also engages in similar contemplation with him, and this part is a painful experience :) I think in this regard, Camus himself expresses the meaning better:

"And when I say: 'I have been the meanest of the mean,' the time has come to gradually and imperceptibly transform 'I' into 'we' in our speech. When we reach the point where 'we are such beings,' the game is over, and then I can tell them the truth of their existence. Of course, I am also like them, we are all from the same fabric. However, I have an advantage over them in one respect, that I know myself, and this gives me the right to speak. "

After finishing the book, I thought to myself, could I also be as open, explicit, and loud about the truths of my existence? Or can I only think about them in my solitude and privacy (although this also requires a lot of courage).

What books I had read halfway, what friends I had loved halfway, what cities I had visited halfway, what women I had held halfway! I moved either out of despair or for the sake of entertainment. People came after that, they wanted to shake hands but there was nothing in between and that was the misfortune. The misfortune for them. Because for me it was just forgetfulness. I had never remembered myself.

Life seems to be a series of unfinished stories and incomplete experiences. The books left unread, the friendships not fully explored, the cities only partially seen, and the loves not fully embraced. All these half-hearted endeavors lead to a sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction. We rush through life, constantly seeking something new, but never truly stopping to appreciate and complete what we have started. Maybe it's time to slow down, look back, and try to finish those things that were left unfinished. Only then can we find true fulfillment and meaning in our lives.

The review is 3.5/5.

  
   

Some people felt a terrible and intense sense of humiliation because they had taken an example from such an immoral personality who is called "the hero of our era", and others noticed with wisdom that the author had portrayed himself and his acquaintances... that the hero of our era, ladies and gentlemen, is actually a portrait, but it is not a portrait of an individual, but rather a collection of the vices of our entire generation, in the most complete expression of it..."

       《 Lermontov 》

  

Judge Taib confessed as he said about himself to his friend who is supposed to be virtuous and talk to him, but you will only hear his voice. Maybe you will feel strange at first, but after a while you will get used to it.

You will wonder if he is really talking to someone else or if he is talking to himself and confessing to things that he will not tell anyone else. Maybe he remembers, maybe he calculates himself, maybe he judges himself in front of himself...

  "The essential thing is that a person should be able to allow himself everything, even if he has to confess his vices aloud from time to time. I allow myself everything second by second... I have changed my way of life, and I have returned to loving myself and taking advantage of others. And it is only my confession of my crimes that makes me start again, with a lighter heart and enjoy double pleasure, first with my nature and second with my magical repentance..."

This novel is one of those that I find it difficult to talk about, describe, or summarize the points it talks about. It is one of the novels

where there were parts or sentences that I felt I was struggling with, and I didn't understand what it wanted to say! There were parts in the last third that I couldn't understand, and this was one of the reasons for my low rating. There were words that were strange, and I didn't know if the problem was in the translation, in Camus' style, or simply my fault.

But this did not prevent my attraction to reading despite the disappointment that I felt a little, but Camus was satisfying me from time to time and sending me sentences that shook my soul and made me regain my interest... It is also one of those novels that may have filled my interior, but I cannot rephrase it.

  "Yes, we have paved the way of light, the dawn, and the holy innocence that those who forgive themselves possess."

Despite everything, Camus managed to keep me attracted and I finished listening to his personality until the end as if I were the person in front of him or his mirror that he was talking to... And when I approached the end and at a certain confession, I found myself looking at him and saying: What a despicable personality you have, what a pity.

  "I realized that a person cannot continue to live with others without controlling them or serving them, for every human being needs slaves as he needs clean air, and even the most pious people can breathe, and the most silent person in social peace has a wife or children, and if he is not married, he has a dog. And the important thing after all that is that a person should be able to be angry with someone who does not have the right to answer."

Well, dear Camus, what a despicable world, false and full of self-confidence, lies, and deceit... The faces we see are not the real faces of people, the beautiful and noble actions that we witness hide a lot of filth, nastiness, deceit, and hidden desires. As for love, it is a word lost in filth and lies, and more than that, it is used to achieve worldly goals...

The personality that Camus presented to us is full and overflowing with vices, meanness, and the degradation of people, a personality that gathers a lot and a lot of the vices of people. And the worst thing is that it is not just a fictional personality.

  "After a thorough search in myself, I came out with the essential duality in the human being. Then I realized, as a result of my immersion in my memory, that modesty helped me to be amazed, and submission enabled me to control, and virtue encouraged me to rebel. And I knew war by peaceful means, and thus I achieved through means that have no relation to my interests everything that I desired."

What a despicable world that we live in, excuse me, it is not the world that is despicable but we humans.

As Ahmed Zaki said, "We are all corrupt, no one is an exception."

  "The more I accuse myself, the more I have the right to accuse you, and this frees me from some of the burden."

Did Camus drown me in his inadequacy and darkness?

I have actually been drowning for a long time, and maybe this is the secret of my attraction to the novel.

  "People will never be convinced of your reasons, your truth, and the sincerity of your pain until you die. And as long as you are alive, your judgment is clouded by doubt, and you have no right to get anything but their doubts."

2/2/2024

An Oil Flask

This is a monologue as the interlocutor never speaks and his questions are inferred from the protagonist's answers. It's a difficult monologue to follow due to the constant changes in direction and the vastness of the arguments. The book, like the Google browser, functions in tabs and not in windows as is the case when using the precious Mozilla option. With Google, closing the main window strikes all the associated tabs. When reading "The Fall", one is forced to keep all the arguments open, patiently waiting for Camus to close them. As a monologue, it is almost devoid of action and is mostly set in the protagonist's mind. I now discover in the short preface that the interlocutor is not always the same. This is entirely marginal as the role is pretextual.

But what is said in the monologue? I report some of the things I underlined. I'm not sure I fully grasped the overall meaning of the work, which is markedly philosophical.

My nature pleased me, and we all know that happiness is this, even if, to reassure each other, we sometimes pretend to condemn such a pleasure under the name of egoism.

He was bored, that's all, he was bored like most people. So he had fabricated with his own hands a life of complications and dramas. Something must happen, this is the explanation for most of the commitments that men assume. Something must happen, even servitude without love, even war, or death.

Of course, true love is exceptional, about two or three times in a century. For the rest, vanity or boredom.

Above all, don't believe your friends when they ask you to be sincere. They only hope to be maintained in the good opinion they have of themselves, provided with an additional certainty that they will infer from your promise to be sincere.

Once desire was removed, women bored me beyond measure, and, obviously, I bored them too. No game, no theater, I was undoubtedly in the truth. But the truth, dear friend, is boring. Despairing of love and chastity, I finally thought that I was left with pleasure, which very well substitutes for love, stifles laughter, restores silence and, above all, confers immortality.

I didn't know that freedom is not a reward, nor a decoration to be celebrated with champagne; nor is it a gift, a box of delicacies. Oh! no, on the contrary, it is an ungrateful task, a very solitary, very tiring endurance race. No champagne, no friends raising their glasses looking at you affectionately. Only in a dark courtroom, only on the bench in front of the judges, and only to decide, in front of oneself or in front of the judgment of others.

The book is short, but it's not a flask of water, it's an oil flask. Don't think you can quench your thirst with it. It will lubricate some of your rather dishonorable ideas about the human race.