Selected essays and notebooks; (Peregrine books) [Paperback]

Albert Camus (Author)

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Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140550852
• ISBN-13: 978-0140550856
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,632,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars It is good to have more of Camus, November 17, 2004

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Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Selected essays and notebooks; (Peregrine books) (Paperback)

This is from Philip Thody's introduction to this volume." The essays and other texts published in this volume are not primarily concerned with Camus's philosophical or political ideas. They are intended to give a portrit of Camus the writer and literary critic, as well as of Camus the individual" The volume is divided into four sections, the first on Lyrical Essays the second on Critical Essays, the third 'Camus on The Outsider and the Plague, the fourth on Sketches for a Self- Portrait.
The essays and notebooks do not have the force of his major works, but it is good to have more Camus, more of his reflective wisdom and his lyrical perception of life.
Here is an excerpt from an essay titled, " The Future of Tragedy" It seems in fact that tragedy is born in the West each time that the pendulum of civilization is halfway between a sacred society and a society built around man. On two occasions, twenty centuries apart , we find a struggle between a world that is still interpreted in a sacred context and men who are already committed to their individuality, that is to say, armed with the power to question. In both cases , the individual increasingly asserts himself , the blance is gradually destroyed and the tragic spirit falls silent.When Neitzsche accuses Socrates of having dug the grave of classical Greek tragedy, he is right up to a certain point- exactly to the same extent that it is true to say of Descartes that he marks the end of the tragic movement born of the Renaissance. In fact, the traditional Christian universe is called into question by the Reformation, the discovery of the world and the flowering of the scientific spirit. Gradually, the individual stands up against the sacred order of things and against destiny. Shakespeare then throws his passionate creatures against the simulataneously evil and just order of the world. Death and pity invade the stage and once againthe final words of tragedy ring out " A higher life is born of my despair".