Reading this latest "The First Man" (1995) is, unfortunately, a bit of a letdown. Discovered thirty-five years after its author's death in a car accident, the story is clearly unfinished. Additionally, the numerous footnotes, while generous, don't fully clarify the text for readers. Instead, they seem to distract with vaguely understandable information. For example:

Three days ago they had finished over the Atlantic, …, had unraveledᵇ on the Moroccan peaks, …
------
b. Solférino. (p. 3)

Interestingly, reading Camus can be both exhausting and demanding. He writes fluidly, following his train of thought, which often results in pages without paragraphs, as seen on pages 193-195. This requires focus and attention from the reader, or else one might become lulled and sleepy. However, I found the experience productive and entertaining. We can learn from what he has narrated or described, as seen in some interesting extracts:

Moreover, each book had its own smell according to the paper on which it was printed, always delicate and discreet, but so distinct that with his eyes closed J. could have told a book in the Nelson series from one of the contemporary editions Fasquelle was then publishing. And each of these odors, even before he had begun treading, would transport Jacques to another world full of promises already [kept], that was beginning even now to obscure the room where he was, to blot out the neighborhood itself and its noises, the city, and the whole world, … “Jacques, for the third time, set the table.” Finally he would set the table, his expression empty and without color, a bit staring, as if drunk on his reading, and he would return to his book as if he had never put it down. … (pp. 248-249)

As advised in the Editor's Note, we should read the letter Camus wrote to his teacher, Louise Germain, in the appendix. We can see how much he respected and appreciated her academic and moral support. His letter was dated 19 November 1957, after he received the Nobel Prize. An extract:

… But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching, and your example, none of all this would have happened. I don't make too much of this sort of honor. …, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart. … (p. 321)

In essence, Camus was and remains one of the great writers of the 20th century and beyond.

Parlerò insomma di quelli che amavo. E di nient’altro. Gioia profonda.

Inevitably fragmented, incomplete, and full of ideas yet to be explored, Camus' unfinished novel, published posthumously, contains pages of stunning and moving beauty. Jacques Cormery decides at forty to know more about his father, never known as he died during the Battle of the Marne. A father who, in the face of the horrors of war, said: “A man doesn't do these things, a man holds back.” What remains of that obscure life? Nothing, an intangible memory – the intangible ash of a butterfly's wing burned in the forest fire.

The novel is Jacques Cormery's (i.e., Albert Camus') physical journey back to Algeria and also a journey back in time to find his native land. It is an act of love for the land of his youth, splendid and terrifying, and for all the people who populated it. His friend Pierre, his uncle, his grandmother, his schoolteacher. And especially for his mother: smiling, silent, deaf, sweet, illiterate, tenacious, beautiful, an ignorant Myskin.

The love of bodies from the tenderest infancy, of their beauty that made him laugh with joy on the beaches, of their warmth that attracted him without pause, without a precise idea, animalistically, not to possess them, something he wouldn't have known how to do, but simply to enter their sphere of action, to lean his shoulder against that of his companion, with a great sense of abandonment and trust, and the feeling of almost fainting when in the crush of a tram a woman's hand touched his for a long time, the desire, yes, to live, to live still, to mix with what the earth had that was warmest, and this was what without knowing it he expected from his mother, and that he didn't obtain or perhaps didn't dare to obtain.

The mother is the central figure and the starting point of this journey. The forty-year-old Jacques, in an Algiers already the target of repeated attacks, shortly before the outbreak of another war, the war of independence, first visits his seventy-year-old mother, who always waits for him in the same place, in the same house.

“You went to the hairdresser,” said Jacques. She smiled, with the air of a child caught in the wrong: “Yes, well, you were coming.”

After being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1957, pressured by questions about the Algerian war, Camus had said: “At this very moment in Algiers bombs are being thrown at trams. My mother could be on one of those trams. If this is justice, I prefer my mother.” All the values for which he had lived would have died in vain. And what would have retained value? The silence of his mother. Before her, he laid down his arms.

The manuscript of this was among the possessions of the passengers that were pulled from the wreckage of the car accident that killed Camus. This was his last, and unfinished, work. For some reason, it took over 30 years for it to finally appear in print.

This delay may have lessened its impact. In his far-too-short life, he was an internationally revered writer and thinker. He was a winner of the Nobel Prize at a young age. He brought creative writing, philosophy, and political activity together. He did not live long, but he lived fully and left behind some truly great works of literature for the rest of us to appreciate.

I am not really a big reader of existentialist philosophy, so my experience with Camus has mostly been with his fiction and autobiographical essays. In my humble opinion, he was unsurpassed at both, particularly at the latter. I have always marvelled at the depth, clarity, rich detail, and restrained passion of his personal essays. If there is anything lacking (and there is not), one could point to the slim quantity of humor in these pieces. Camus took things seriously, including his own life and the lives of those around him.

"The First Man" was called a novel, though I am not sure why, since it is clearly a memoir. It is a recollection of his childhood from birth into a working class French-Algerian family up to his teen years and emergence as a promising scholarship student and soccer player. The title refers to his father, who was killed in WWI before his son's birth. Later the writer imagines what he was like and goes to visit his grave. The personal is mingled with the historical, as it always is in reality. Camus shares with us his vivid impressions of settlers leaving Paris and elsewhere and settling in this hot, dry, disease-spawning land, populated with Arabs who fought back against this invasion.

In the preface, Camus's daughter notes that he was an emotionally reserved man and would have most likely rewritten the book to present his feelings less nakedly. It is fair to say that what we are seeing here is probably the author's honest recollections of his childhood - their simple circumstances in an Algerian town, their hard-working lower class life, his deep love for his quiet, calm mother, his experiences with his expressive, deaf uncle and his grandmother. Little is said about his brother however - one wonders if the relationship was a difficult one. He presents to us his early experiences as a pupil, an apprentice at a shop, as a kid messing around in the streets and tangling with dog catchers and shopkeepers. A teacher and early mentor of his is remembered with great fondness - the two stayed in touch throughout their lives. A few commentators here have mentioned that this book was unfinished, that it may have been very different if he had spent more time on it. For myself, I have no complaints along these lines - it is great the way it is, and I am just sorry that the book, and his life, ended so soon.

His first experiences with Catholicism (the family was not religious) did not suggest that he would eventually become a leading French philosopher - but this is not an intellectual autobiography. It is a vivid, moving depiction of a childhood that was both very ordinary and, because it was the youth of one of the 20th century's greatest writers, taking place on the fringes of the French-Algerian colonial struggle, very unusual. This is one of the best memoirs I have ever read, and in this period in which memoirs are very popular, deserves to be more widely known.

The first man is an extraordinary story of a miracle. It begins with a little boy who grows up in abject poverty in North Africa. Amidst the chores at home and the rare moments of freedom running through the streets of Algiers with his friends, the boy faces numerous challenges. His father is unknown, and his mother is desperately weak, unable to provide any emotional support to her two sons. The real master at home is his grandma, a mighty dictator whom the boy has to overcome to be allowed to go to high school instead of getting a petty job to contribute to the family's meager earnings.

When there seems to be no hope of escape and no prospect other than to make enough to survive one more week, the boy's struggle for an education would have been in vain had it not been for the unwavering support of his good school teacher. The teacher stops at nothing to overcome all obstacles and accompanies the boy on the path to enlightenment. He tutors him at night, lends him money, and even corners grandma in her kitchen to win the final battle for his dear pupil.

And then what? Does the boy simply make it to high school and grow up to be a perfect clerk in an obscure low-ceiling office? No, no, no. That boy turns out to become one of the most iconic writers in post-war French literature, the founder of a new philosophical concept, and the eventual winner of the Nobel Prize. His name is Albert Camus.

This is the last book of Camus, his autobiography that he wanted to be his most perfect work. Filled with such a high level of emotion, you can actually feel through the lines the very fabric of his life growing up in Algeria. Unfortunately, Camus died before he had a chance to complete the work, and the book was only published in 1994, more than 30 years after his death by his daughter. Nevertheless, the book is a masterpiece for the power of its writing. I actually read it like a fairy tale anchored in reality. Isn't that what we want in this gloomy century? We want fairy tales, but not the ones with fake castles and princesses that only six-year-olds can believe. No, we want the real ones that will show us that not everything is predestined, that the winners and losers of the world are not always the usual suspects.

Now, when I write my own books, I can say to myself, here you go, do your very best because no matter how low you started, Camus started lower and see where he ended up.

I must also say something about the title: The First Man. It sounds even better in French: Le Premier Homme. Some books smell like a masterpiece as soon as you read the title, like War and Peace, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, Servitudes et Grandeurs Militaires, The Bonfire of Vanities. You can just tell that it will be one of the "ones". "The First Man" also captures that dose of mystery encapsulated in Camus's extraordinary destiny. It contains the mystery about his origins, his unknown father, and the blank sheet he had to deal with as he grew up. The First Man has only himself to show for on his genealogy tree, a little like the first name at the top of family trees of royals. The tree of the kings and queens of England starts with William the Conqueror. William was a first man too. Well, Camus would start a new tree for himself, and HE would be the beacon at the top of it that everyone below would be referring to in future generations. William the Conqueror raised an army and forged himself a kingdom. Albert Camus summoned the power of words to his service and created a new philosophical concept in post-war thinking: the Absurdism of which The Stranger is the flagship.

Beyond the chronicle of the young boy's path, the book also struck me by its powerful quotes that outline Camus's ability to strike at the core with little. For example, "Here even the unnecessary was shabby, because they never had anything superfluous." "A child is nothing by himself; it is his parents who represent him. It is through them that he defines himself, that he is defined in the eyes of the world. He feels it is through them that he is truly judged." "All the men born in this country [Algeria] one by one tried to learn to live without roots and without faith and all together today risked permanent anonymity and the loss of the only sacred traces of their passage on this land." "The long summer was wearing out for Jacques in gloomy days and in insignificant occupations. This office work was coming from nowhere and led to nothing. Jacques discovered in this office vulgarity and cried for the lost light." "Heat, boredom and tiredness revealed his own malediction."

This is a must-read book that offers a profound and moving look into the life and mind of one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

He was only moved, and in an obscure way, by the evening masses. There were more and more of them in that dreadful cold church. The organ, however, made him listen to a music he was hearing for the first time. Until then, he had heard nothing but stupid tunes. He dreamed richer, deeper dreams featuring sacerdotal objects and vestments glistening in the semi-darkness. He hoped to meet the mystery at last. But it was a nameless mystery where the divine personages named and rigorously defined in the catechism played no role at all. They were simply an extension of the bare world where he lived.

However, the warm, inward, and ambiguous mystery that now bathed him only deepened the everyday mystery of his mother's silence or her small smile when he entered the dining room at evening. When alone in the apartment, she had not lit the kerosene lamp, letting the night invade the room step by step. She herself was a darker, denser form, gazing pensively out the window, watching the brisk—but, for her, silent—activity of the street. The child would stop on the doorsill, his heart heavy, full of a despairing love for his mother, and for something in his mother that did not belong or no longer belonged to the world and to the triviality of the days.

Albert Camus was one of the greatest figures of the 20th century. His work, "The First Man," is the result of deep intellectual fermentation, remarkable in its awareness and refinement of many lofty ideas that were prevalent at that time.

"The First Man" tells the story of a French boy born in Algeria who realizes from an early age that the country that boasts of human rights and freedom is the first to violate them.

The boy is born into a family burdened by poverty and ignorance, and he becomes a reference for himself, not following his father or brother, and influenced deeply by his mother in his upbringing.

The boy is a side of Camus' life that remained imprisoned in the recesses of his soul and exploded in that unique creative work.

Camus tells the story of that boy who becomes a man without a father, without a creed, without a role model, as if he were the first man.

The first sentence in the novel shook me. It is the sentence that indicates to whom Camus addressed his works.

"Here you are, you who will never be able to read my book."

And congratulations to you, you who read this unique work.

A child is nothing on his own. It is the father and mother who show him. It is because of them that his limit is determined, and his limit is determined in the eyes of the people. It is because of them that he feels that he is truly judged about himself, and that is a judgment from which he cannot appeal, and this is the judgment of the people that Jack has just discovered, and along with this judgment of his own, it is about the tumultuous emotions in his heart. He cannot understand that when he grows up, if he does not feel this tumultuousness, he will have fewer advantages. Because the people, whether good or bad, see the person himself and judge, and very rarely judge based on the person's family, and sometimes they even judge the family based on the grown-up child.

"The First Man" is an incredibly fascinating unfinished novel penned by the renowned Albert Camus. It was published in 1994, nearly 30 years after his untimely passing. Despite its incomplete state, this novel offers a truly unique and deeply heartfelt perspective into the personal life of one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Camus masterfully delves into his own childhood memories, vividly描绘ing the strong bonds he shared with his family. He also takes us on a journey as he attempts to merge his personal experiences with his broader philosophical musings. This book is a captivating read that is sure to engage anyone who has an interest in uncovering the man who lay behind the profound philosophy. It provides a rare opportunity to peek into the inner world of Albert Camus and gain a deeper understanding of the forces that shaped his life and work.

This is the first unfinished novel written by Camus that I have read, and it was also his last.

I am familiar with his philosophy, but this novel deviated from that. It was somewhat inspiring, especially the relationship between the main character and his teacher. However, overall, it was a difficult book to "want" to finish.

It failed to hold my attention except during moments of vivid descriptions of various characters and the landscape of Algeria. I am a notoriously slow reader as I like to capture all the nuances and flavors of a book, but this one was dry and repetitive.

Perhaps it's because Camus wrote extremely long paragraphs throughout the entire book. Some paragraphs were a page and a half long. If I were his editor, I would suggest some variety in sentence and paragraph structure.

As a novel, the storyline was overly burdened with repetitive motifs, and some editing of the chapter lengths could have been done to reduce the retelling of the already established plot.

I discovered this book in a used bookstore, which is how I typically find new books to read. In the future, I will probably look elsewhere rather than in the Camus section.

This book is about the past of an orphan boy who has lived in poverty since childhood. It is said that this book is about the life of Kamo, who is left half-alone because of his death.

The story unfolds, taking the reader on a journey through the hardships and challenges that the boy has faced. Despite the difficult circumstances, he shows remarkable resilience and determination.

We witness his struggles to survive, to find food and shelter, and to make sense of a world that seems so cruel and unforgiving.

But through it all, there are also glimmers of hope and moments of kindness that give him the strength to keep going.

This book is not just a tale of poverty and loss, but also a story of courage and the human spirit's ability to endure. It makes us think about the importance of compassion and the impact that a little kindness can have on someone's life.

Super translation that manages to capture the remarkable clarity, vividness, and unfussiness that is characteristic of Camus's writing. It is truly a masterpiece in translation. This work holds a special place among my favourites, and the reason is purely because of its incredibly evocative powers. It has the ability to transport the reader into a world that is both familiar and yet completely unique. The words seem to leap off the page and paint a vivid picture in the mind's eye. With each sentence, the reader is drawn deeper into the story, experiencing the emotions and thoughts of the characters as if they were their own. It is a testament to the skill of the translator and the genius of Camus himself that this work can have such a profound impact.

There is a terrible emptiness in me, an indifference that hurts. It feels as if a part of my soul has been hollowed out, leaving a void that nothing seems to be able to fill.

The sea was gentle and warm, the sun fell lightly on their soaked heads, and the glory of the light filled their young bodies with a joy that made them cry out incessantly. They were like gods ruling over life and the sea. With the confidence of nobles who were certain that their riches were limitless, they heedlessly consumed the most gorgeous of this world's offerings. They lived in the moment, not a care in the world.

Yet, life in its entirety was a misfortune you could not struggle against but could only endure. It was a constant battle, a never-ending cycle of pain and suffering. And now the year consisted of nothing but a series of hasty awakenings and hurried dismal days. Each day blended into the next, a blur of monotony and despair.

From the darkness within him sprang that famished ardor, that mad passion for living which had always been part of him and even today was still unchanged. It made the sudden terrible feeling that the time of his youth was slipping away even more bitter. In the midst of the family he had rediscovered and facing the images of his childhood, he realized that his youth was fading like the woman he had loved. Oh yes, he had loved her with a great love, with all his heart and his body too. With her, it was a fervent desire. When he withdrew from her with a great silent cry at the moment of orgasm, he was in passionate harmony with his world. He had loved her for her beauty and for the openhearted and despairing passion for life that was hers. She denied that time could pass, though she knew it was passing at that very moment. She didn't want people to say she was still young one day, but rather to stay young, always young. She burst into sobs one day when, laughing, he told her youth was passing and the days were waning. "Oh no, oh no," she said through her tears, "I'm so in love with love." Intelligent and outstanding in so many ways, perhaps just because she truly was intelligent and outstanding, she rejected the world as it was.