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The other reviews explain the way the book is structured and what is presented. What the ones I read don't really express is how well this book communicates the "feel" of reading and thinking about the author and his work. This writer was a courageous and determined person who refused to stop acting on what he saw and believed, and yet had the rationality and self-awareness to consider his own filters and motivations very carefully. I read this while still going through the translations of Camus' journals. As an Israeli-born American I see in Zaretsky's description of the author's struggles the same determination, grief, and orphaned hope that arises in me when I consider the misery caused by colonialism and the pointless, stupid, absurd and tragic suffering that people inflict on the world when they assume false permissions under the mantle of victim.
Camus never stopped fighting the religion of worshipping tyrany, competition, material and communal exploitation. The same pathologies that plagued his world, that he tried to make people acknowledge, are the pathologies that are killing us and the world around us today. And his love of being, his profound love of the beautiful world, beautiful life, must have been a central energy that moved him in his rebellion.
The murderers, rapists, tyrants, and torturers of every age are always the men who will not accept "no" from those they would exploit, who will not hear "no" on anything that threatens their self-gratifications. Camus offered the view of the rebel as the one who says no, who will not back down, will not go away, and will tell himself no as well.Read more ›
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Drawn to Camus' work, I looked forward to reading Robert Zaretsky's book and expected a personal overview, hopefully with fresh insights. I was, I'm afraid, rather disappointed. Zaretsky clearly appreciates Camus, and argues that Camus was a moralist rather than an Existentialist. Camus himself disclaimed the Existential label - mostly as a result of his break with Jean-Paul Sartre after the publication of "The Rebel." Still, to me he was more than a moralist. His work raises larger philosophical issues about human mortality, the limits of knowledge and the "benign indifference" of the universe. Zaretsky tends to underplay this dimension of Camus' thought, and thereby underplays the important connections Camus made between metaphysics and ethics.
There are perhaps personal disagreements. What I found even more disappointing in the book was the apparent lack of editing and/or proofreading. There were countless signs of editorial neglect, and this in a book from Harvard University Press.
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One might say that this volume, though written to be expository, might also reflect the author's unconscious tendency to be just a bit exhortatory as well. The development of Camus' thought as it related to his background and life experiences is described clearly and excellently, and perhaps just as much so is Robert Zaresky's passionate conviction that Camus's thought is still as relevant today as it was in the days of the Third Reich and then the Cold War.
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I have, over the years, been increasingly drawn to Albert Camus and his joyous, defiant existentialism. The idea, that a life properly lived is one that both embraces the world while defying its absurdity- it's finality and lack of justice, has been a touchstone for me. Zaretsky explores Camus' thought through his works and words; seeking the essence of Camus. This book is an excellent starting point for those interested in Camus as well as a source of reflection for those familiar with the man and his thought.
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If you want to understand the philosophy of a man with a great mind read this book. You will understand Camus better when you know more about the world he lived in. I did not know he worked with the French Resistance in Nazi occupied France. I also did not know that he died in a car accident in 1961.
The book also takes you into the falling out he had with Sarte. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the man who wrote The Stranger.
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25 of 42 people found the following review helpful
I am saddened to write these words. In 2010, Robert Zaretsky wrote an elegant introduction to Camus's life, thought and art called "Albert Camus: Elements of a Life." I had hoped that in Camus's centenary year, he would again rise to the occasion, but I am afraid he has not. In what is intended to be a celebration of Camus, Zaretsky badly and strangely misstates facts and ideas. Organized thematically, this book does not really guide the reader through the ideas that were important to Camus. It begins inevitably with Absurdity and ends appropriately with Revolt, but in between are Silence, Measure, and Fidelity, motifs so inextricably intertwined that they defy separation into strands. Zaretsky eschews chronology and weaves inconsistently back and forth within the thirty years of Camus's mature life. A reader not already familiar with Camus would be confused by this treatment.
Zaretsky is a good writer, but here his writing evinces carelessness and vagueness. He is ordinarily a careful writer but here there are misstatements that can only be explained by haste. For example, in Camus's childhood Belcourt home, Etienne was his mother's brother, not his grandmother's. And Camus was not driving when the car in which he was riding crashed in 1960, killing him. There are other inconsistencies that verge on incoherence.
Perhaps the problem begins with the title. Many, perhaps most, people live lives worth living. I think Zaretsky wants to make the case that Camus lived a life worth admiring, an important point to make since Camus remains controversial one hundred years after his birth. I would urge readers who want a brief introduction to Camus to read Zaretsky's earlier book and give this one a pass.
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This item: A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning
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