MIN E R VA PRE SSM 76 $1.95 Albert Camus Luppe By Robert de translated from the French by J. John Cumming and Hargreaves Funk & Wagnalls / New York Albert Camus © The Merlin Press Ltd. 1966 First published in France by Editions Universitaires Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68·22177 First American edition published in 1968 Funk & Wagnalls, A Division of Reader's Digest Books, Inc. Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS TRANSLATOR'S NOTE VI PREFACE TO FIFTH EDITION Vll PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION IX BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Xl 1. Camus' Thought. Basic Ideas 1 2. Camus' Thought. Action 19 3. Camus' Aesthetic 35 4. Camus as Novelist. Outsider 41 Th~ 5. Camus as Novelist. The Plague 50 6. Camus as Novelist. The Fall 66 7. Camus as a Dramatist 74 8. Lyricism in Camus' Works 85 89 CONCLUSION 91 BIBLIOGRAPHY I. Works by Camus 91 II. Critical Assessments of Camus' Works 95 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE IT WAS thought necessary to include an account of Camus' third novel, La Chute (The Fall), in this English edition: I am responsible for this and for the extension of the bibliography to cover some English translations and certain critical articles not listed by M. de Luppe. The English versions of the quota tions from Camus' works were made by the present translators. The English titles of the collections of essays by Camus, Noces and L'Envers et l'endroit, are those used by Mr Philip Thody in his translation of the Carnets. The following abbreviations have been used: MS for Le My the de Sisyphe, and HR for LJHomme Revolte. Page references are to the original French editions published by Gallimard of Paris. JOHN CUMMING London, 1965 PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION MY INTENTION in this essay was to retrace the development of Albert Camus' ideas, starting from a privileged moment of insight, which "on a street-corner or in a restaurant's revolving door" eclipses everyday settings and opens our hearts to the poetry of the world, and arriving eventually at the controlled thought of L'Homme Revolte (The Rebel), the schematic form of La Peste (The Plague), and the restrained anguish of Les J ustes (The Just) . Since then, Camus has become even more exact in his thought, in his analysis and in his style. The landscapes in L'E xil et Ie Royaume (The Exile and the Kingdom) are more realistic than even the "hill-top" of Tipasa he had recalled so warmly only a short time before; the conscience of the juge penitent in La Chute (The Fall) is more complex than the charitable soul of Rieux; the mists and gold of Amsterdam are conveyed more precisely than any previous setting . . . The path lengthens and the initial ardour is spent; now the traveller is nostalgic for the place from which he started; he looks back to measure the distance that he has come; he even retraces his steps to return to the original source of his inspira tion. In L'Ete (Summer) he wrote with affection of Tipasa, his youth and his love of the world. In his preface to the new edition of L'Envers et l'endroit (Betwixt and Between) he makes no apology for the simple and deeply-felt images that inspired him, but speaks of the "unique spring" or "central point" from which he would never wish to be separated ... He would like to banish the temporal distance which affects the CAMUS written work, and "begin anew" like Meursault in L~ Etranger (The Outsider): "1 feel a vague conviction that if 1 do not manage to rewrite Betwixt and Between one day, in spite of so many efforts to forge a language and renew myths, I shall have accomplished nothing." Let us try once more, with Camus, to understand that initial inspiration which nourishes his work. Paris~ December 1958 PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION THE ACCIDENTAL death of Albert Camus in January 1960 appears to set a final seal on his work at the very moment when it seemed possible to see a desire for renewal through a "return to the initial sources of inspiration". The year 1960, so Camus confided to Giacomo Antonini (See the special number of the Nouvelle Revue Fran(aise), was to be devoted to a major novel, Le Premier Homme (The First Man) : "I have drawn up an outline and set to work in earnest. It will be a long task. But I shall finish it." If this sketch ever sees the light of day, we shall be able to continue our affectionate discourse and take up again the broken thread of Camus' life and thought. Whatever the fate of his unpublished works may be, the shocked reaction to the news of his harsh death is a sure con· finnation of the position his other writings have won him. Paris, May 1960 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ALBERT CAMUS was born on 7th November 1913 at Mondovi (Province of Constantine) in Algeria, where his family were agricultural workers. His father, who was killed at the front in 1914, was French, while his mother was of Spanish origin. He studied at Algiers University under difficult conditions: he was in turn a salesman of car accessories, a meteorologist, a clerk in a firm of ship-brokers and at the Prefecture. He was also an es enthusiastic sportsman. After becoming a Licencie Lettres in philosophy he was awarded the diplOme d'etudes suphieures, a higher degree, for a dissertation on St Augustine and Plotinus. Sickness prevented him from sitting for his agregation. His passionate interest in the theatre was already evident: he founded the Theatre du Travail and then L'Equipe and both produced and acted in plays. He staged a work entitled Revolte dans les Asturies (The Revolt in the Asturias) and written in collaboration with his friends, which depicts the rebellion of the Oviedo miners in Spain, in 1934. He adapted Andre Malraux's Le Temps du Mepris (A Time of Contempt), Andre Gide's Le retour de l'enfant prodigue (The Return of the Prodigal) and the Prometheus of Aeschylus; he staged Charles Vildrac's Paquebot uTenacity" (TheSteamshipuTena city"), Ben Jonson's The Silent Woman, Jacques Copeau's adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov (in which he took the part of Ivan), and Pushkin's Don Juan. He travelled more or less haphazardly, visiting Spain, Italy and Czechoslovakia-countries which appear in his early