Customer Reviews

A Happy Death

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It's been written about "A Happy Death" that Camus' unpublished first novel was brilliantly written, and terrible organized. It's hard to deny that the novel may have some structure problems, but it's hard to care when it's written so beautifully. Philosophically, it hints at topics Camus would explore later (exile, suicide, rebellion and of course, the absurd). Even young Camus had a way with words, and although like the existentialist of his time he had a way of telling dark and depressing tales, he manages to write with an emphasis on the simple pleasures of life. Whether he's describing the act of bathing in the sun or savoring food items he has a way of making the reader want to live and experience life, for better or worse, to the fullest. "A Happy Death", in a literary sense, doesn't even come close to the heights of The Stranger (with which it bares many similarities) or The Plague (my personal favorite) but one really can't complain about a novel capable of reaffirming how beautiful (yet absurd) life can be.

In "A Happy Death", Camus took a different approach to writing what later became "The Stranger". The latter work is famous (and sometimes despised) for it terse, efficient prose, its brutal frankness, and its avoidance of moral consideration. As a result, many readers do not know what to make of Merseault and often mistake him for a psychopath. In "A Happy Death", Camus writes in the third person and adds considerably more elements to the story. The ending also differs from "The Stranger".

In "The Stranger", Merseault kills an Arab for no apparent reason other than caprice or irritability. Merseault is then put on trial and condemned more for his flagrant aversion to bourgeois hypocrisy than for the crime he committed.

But in "A Happy Death", Merseault's crime had a clearer motive and a deeper symbolism. Merseault kills his crippled friend Zagreus in order to obtain his wealth and use it to transform his otherwise mundane life. In Greek mythology, Zagreus was torn apart by the Titans but Zeus was able to give his still beating heart to his daughter who later fathered Dinoysis, the god of wine. Zagreus literally means "torn apart" in Greek. The myth of Zagreaus is comparable to the role of Christ in the Christian tradition because Zagreus was mocked, tortured, and executed. But unlike Christ, Zagreaus escaped the final humiliation by having a substitute take his place.

Camus re-appropriates this legend in "A Happy Death". The wheelchair bound Zagreaus essentially prompts Merseault to murder him so that he can escape the humiliation of his infirmity and pass his wealth on to Merseault. There are subtle indications that the two men are inextricably bound to each other. Both men experience the same lover at different times and both share the same cynical view that she is only an image of what they want to see in her. Each man also has what the other needs. Merseault has the physical capability to enjoy life, but he is hampered by routine and by his work. Zagreus has wealth but lacks the physical capability to enjoy it.

The re-appropriation of the Zagreus myth asks the question "what does it mean to truly be alive"? Is it better that only one of the two men live as long as he lives his life to the fullest rather than both living unhappy, restricted lives? After killing Zagreaus, Merseault leads a life of travel, hedonism, and leisure. When he is subsequently stricken ill, he dies a happy dignified death.

In this sense I would disagree with the reviewer who characterized "A Happy Death" as a primer for "The Stranger". Instead, it is a story with a completely different emphasis. Where the stranger depicts the fate society metes out to an honest individual, "A Happy Death" asks what it truly means to be alive.

Camus' book "A Happy Death" was never published in his lifetime. Camus was very specific and deliberate as to when he would publish what. This novel, the first written by Camus, has been published after being reclaimed from his papers.

The question that comes to mind then, is "Why did Camus never publish this work?" It seems that the book was a transitional writing for Camus. It allowed him to move forward from the life he had always thought about, to the life he believed he lived in, that being an "existential" existence.

In reading the book, one finds that Mersault, the protagonist, seems to have too many moments of happiness as compared to other protagonists in Camus' other publications. This in fact, is probably an autobiographical reflection of Camus' early life, and the book, a work to allow him to metamorphosize, transform his vision into what came next, "The Stranger."

The beauty of the novel is recognizing this transition and then, with such recognition, comes the ability to apply those thought patterns and feelings to Camus' later works, seeing how he transformed from a "regular" human being, to an "existentialist" one who has the feeling of being unique, and apart from others and the world around him.

The book gives valuable insight into Camus' mental process as he moves from where he was, to where he will go. For Camus readers, the book is truly a MUST. And for anyone with an interest in the "Existential" genre, it is truly an enlightening piece of literature.

I am a sophmore in high school at the moment and I read this book when I was in eighth grade. At that time I was very depresed and unhappy. I don't mean I was on the verge of suicide but I was just very gloomy. Then my english teacher told us we had to read a novel of our choosing and keep a journal on it. For some reason I choose this book. I had only read one of Camus's short stories: THE GUEST and that did not prepare me for the beauty of A HAPPY DEATH. I had never read anything of such raw unmitigated emotion! Camus tossed feelings around like jugglers do balls! When I had finished I felt at peace with myself for the first time in a year and a half. I urge everyone to read this book. Granted, there are structural problems but who cares! All that is left to say is: Thank you Albert! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I am a Camus fan. I've read everything of his, starting with The Stranger and ending with A Happy Death. I must say that A Happy Death is my favorite. I (re-)read it several times a year.

A Happy Death is the most beautifully written, in my opinion. Content aside, the language (albeit in translation) is gorgeous and incredibly evocative. I can't get over it.

Content-wise, I felt that A Happy Death was much more human, we got to know Mersault much better. In The Stranger he is so cold, deliberately almost one-dimensional and I felt it was lovely to get to know a different side of him in A Happy Death. The language and descriptions are lush and vivid, the character has a lot more depth, and above all else, when I read it, I can clearly see why Camus vehemently denied being called an "existentialist". Some of the "existentialist" ideas certainly are present, but there seems to be such a different aesthetic.

If you haven't read Camus yet, read "The Stranger" or one of his other works. "Happy Death" does not really hold its own as well as a stand-alone novel; and The Stranger is a much better read. However, "Happy Death" does provide some keen insight into Camus and his philosophy and is worth reading for that reason alone as well as for a decent number of really thought provoking powerful passages scattered throughout.

Those who come to A HAPPY DEATH after THE STRANGER tend to note the similarities in plot and theme that relegate they believe the former to the latter as a juvenile attempt--not bad maybe, but not the real thing either. Such a judgment is overhasty. The Mersault of A HAPPY DEATH may or may not be the Mersault of THE STRANGER. Both live in Algiers and both wander aimlesslessly in life, seeking a philosophical underpinning. Both kill a man, and both suffer for it. But such a facile comparison omits a great deal that suggests when Camus took up the pen again a decade later, he has more in mind than a handy earlier book from which he could self-[...].

The Mersault of A HAPPY DEATH has a first name, Patrice, who is poor and seeks a way to battle a losing effort with time that his poverty proves a hindrance. He finds a rich cripple and kills him, and steals his money, which he uses to work out the details, however bizarre, of a philosophy that involve his finding happiness. The other Mersault seeks happiness too, but with him he already is "happy" in the sense that he knows his place in the universe, which he sees as a disordered self-contained field of entropy from which he concludes that nothing makes sense and everything is meaningless. This Mersault does not need to steal money to reach a higher state. Patrice Mersault seeks to elevate himself to reach a higher state that he feels money is the key and murder is the means. His later counterpart would find it amusing that his namesake would bother to look outside himself for anything. Patrice, could he but jump into HIS counterpart's book, would feel, not amusement, but rage at someone who has no purpose in life except to keep doing what he is doing. Both Mersaults share some surface traits, but in the final analysis, they are no more than two distinct individuals who share a name and a few piddling details of their surface lives. And perhaps this is what caused Camus to take up the pen with his twin Mersaults: to show his readers that the universe cannot mean more than what you put into it or what you don't.

Camus, the master wordsmith, stunningly leads us on one man's inescapable journey towards death. Along the way he realises how inconsequntial material things are in the battle between life and death. Highlights: Beautiful accounts of the hero's last vestigages of strength being drained from his body while swimming in the North African Mediterranean; the startling description of a man in the throes of death. Read it!

I think that I read this one first, or perhaps second, after "The Myth of Sysiphus." It does sort of ramble, go no where, and read like a diary more than a 'work' but but, it reads so true and in the light. Do you know what I mean 'in the light'? Like you are seeing the light that the author saw, and more to the point that the author could see the light that we was writing about. How few of us see it anymore. Aren't we all caught up in our same old same olds? When Camus wrote "The Happy Death" he was raw, haemophilliac. The sun beat down like it would never again. Camus's literary life goes through an arc; he starts here with murder for the sake of gain, he moves through absent minded death, suicide bombing, sacrifice in the face of death, to death for others, and then comes back to absurd, shocking, honest immorality, to prefering a warm walk home, to saving the life someone floating down the River Seine. Camus started as he finished: above all honest. And it is at his extremities that I prefer him. You could read "The Fall" first and if you like it, find more here. If you have already read "The Plague" or "The Rebel" then you may wish to give this a miss because it was almost written by another man.

More honest and less streamlined than The Stranger, this story will connect with the reader if his/her life has reached the point where small things have become both beautiful and final. I enjoyed it when I was 23, but was unprepared for how much I would love it even more at 37.