The Fall (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Bottum’s images of fall raise the central questions of human and Christian life. The title evokes both a New England autumn and humankind’s first descent into sin. Evocations of violence, judgment, forgiveness, and mercy are sprinkled through each section. The dominant metaphor of fire in September describes the blaze of colors of a New England autumn but also makes explicit violent references to the “welcome slaughter,” “blood and spew and mongerings of war,” and “flames like the blood of martyrs.” Biblical hints resonate in the allusions of “children pass[ing] through fire” (Isaiah 43:1-2; Daniel 3:26) and to “fire falls” and “the world [a]s kindling for the Lord.” (Luke 12:49: “I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled!”) This sentence reveals Clamence’s sadness that despite his love for himself and even being judged by others, he knows that he will never stop judging himself. That is one of the true ‘falls’ of the novel, in which you come to a point in your life where you have a realisation that you are a person with flaws, faced with your own guilt from your actions and importantly too, your inactions. Linker, Damon. The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege. New York: Doubleday, 2006. Controversial description of the rising influence of religion in American culture and politics, which focuses on the journal First Things and features a lengthy quote from Bottum on public religiosity. Olson, Ray. Review of The Fall, and Other Poems. The Booklist 98, no. 3 (October 1, 2001): 278. A short, favorable review of the book that mentions its religious overtones. Set in Amsterdam, The Fall consists of a series of dramatic monologues by the self-proclaimed "judge-penitent" Jean-Baptiste Clamence, as he reflects upon his life to a stranger.

The hint of optimism in this paradoxical theme— happiness is, after all, possible for some if the circumstances are dire enough—is, however, insufficient to offset the fundamental pessimism of The Plague. Aglance at the fates of the main characters will make the basic bleakness of this work manifest. At the center of the action is Bernard Rieux, a doctor who risks his life every day to lead the fight against the plague and who, more than anyone else in the novel, experiences the satisfaction and the joy of finding himself equal to a heroic task and feeling with others a fraternal bond engendered by their common struggle. His satisfaction is brief and his joys few, however. He knows that he cannot cure victims of the plague and must suppress his sympathy for them if he is to be effective in palliating their suffering and in keeping them from infecting others. The result of this bind is that Rieux strikes his patients and their families as cold and indifferent; he ends up being hated by those he is trying to help. The fraternal bond with others who are trying to help develops in only a few instances, since most of his fellow citizens are too frightened or egocentric to join him in the effort. Moreover, where the bond does develop, it proves too tenuous to penetrate his natural isolation. But The Fall is famous for more than its interesting narrative technique. For one, it was written by Albert Camus, a French thinker known for his philosophy of the absurd, a close cousin to existentialism, and his frenemy status with Jean-Paul Sartre, another French philosopher of the mid-1900s. (Note that throughout his life Camus maintained that he was not an existentialist.) Now, Camus is most famous for three big novels. The first is The Stranger, published in 1942, which tells the story of a detached, emotionless man convicted of murder, who finds existential freedom while in prison awaiting his death. The second is The Plague, in 1947, which revolves around an outbreak of the bubonic plague in an Algerian town, and the struggle of its citizens to deal with human suffering. And of course, the third is The Fall, in 1956, published shortly before Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature. Camus died only three years afterwards, making The Fall his final piece of fiction. Charney, Noah (2010). Stealing the Mystic Lamb: the True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece. PublicAffairs, 2010. Works, such as the novels The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947), of Algerian-born French writer and philosopher Albert Camus concern the absurdity of the human condition; he won the Nobel Prize of 1957 for literature.

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The essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe ( The Myth of Sisyphus), 1942, expounds notion of acceptance of the absurd of Camus with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction." Jean-Baptiste Clamence - refined, handsome, forty, a former successful lawyer - is in turmoil. Over several drunken nights he regales a chance acquaintance with his story. He talks of parties and his debauchery, of Parisian nights and the Aegean sea, and, ultimately, of his self-loathing. One of Albert Camus' most famous works, The Fall is a brilliant, complex portrayal of lost innocence and the true face of man. Read more Details Published in 1956, “The Fall” by Albert Camus belongs to the genre of philosophical novels. In this work, the French existentialist tried to answer the eternal question: “What is the meaning of human existence”? To answer, he chose the form of a monologue, coming from the lips of former Parisian lawyer Jean-Baptiste Clamence and the current “judge on repentance.” Confession of the hero is a kind of analysis of the state of the contemporary author of society. I just finished this book yesterday and I found it one of those good, really nourishing reads. I guess it’s because I am definitely one of those “Camus was for life” types. I know the book drew a picture of modern life as basically a crab pot full of people pulling each other down through judgement. It also completely nixed the idea of altruism as being a redeeming act because, as much as we would like not to admit, there is the very real possibility that one does their act in the hopes of being lauded by the community. Sure it’s kind of smarmy when you think about it, but also, it’s still being judged.

A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the newspapers.” So pronounces Jean-Baptiste Clamence, narrator of Albert Camus’s short novel during the first evening of a monologue he delivers to a stranger over drinks at a shabby Amsterdam watering hole. Then, during the course of several evenings, the narrator continues his musings uninterrupted; yes, that’s right, completely uninterrupted, since his interlocutor says not a word. At one point Clamence states, “Alcohol and women provided me, I admit, the only solace of which I was worthy.” Clamence, judge-penitent as he calls himself, speaks thusly because he has passed judgment upon himself and his life. His verdict: guilty on all counts. In what amounts to a confession, Clamence tells of his success as a wealthy Parisian defense lawyer who was highly respected by his colleagues; his crisis, and his ultimate "fall" from grace, was meant to invoke, in secular terms, The Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. Jean-Baptiste, who fears being judged, is a judge himself both verbally and professionally. He deeply understands the hypocrisy of the situation, and commented cynically on this modern society around him: Camus employs symbolism and allegory throughout the novel to enhance its philosophical depth. The city of Amsterdam, with its network of canals and labyrinthine streets, mirrors Clamence's psychological journey into the depths of guilt and self-deception. The bell tower in the center of the city serves as a constant reminder of judgment and the consequences of one's choices. His early essays were collected in L'Envers et l'endroit ( The Wrong Side and the Right Side) and Noces ( Nuptials). He went to Paris, where he worked on the newspaper Paris Soir before returning to Algeria. His play, Caligula, appeared in 1939. His first two important books, L'Etranger ( The Outsider) and the long essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe ( The Myth of Sisyphus), were published when he returned to Paris.You may be tempted to assume, due to everything else about me and what I do and who I am as a person, that this is sheer laziness on my part. That because I do not enjoy "putting" "effort" "into" "things," I appreciate when a book takes me an hour or two to read. Bronner, Stephen Eric. Camus: Portrait of a Moralist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. After the occupation of France by the Germans in 1941, Camus became one of the intellectual leaders of the Resistance movement. He edited and contributed to the underground newspaper Combat, which he had helped to found. After the war he devoted himself to writing and established an international reputation with such books as La Peste ( The Plague 1947), Les Justes ( The Just 1949) and La Chute ( The Fall; 1956). During the late 1950s Camus renewed his active interest in the theatre, writing and directing stage adaptations of William Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun and Dostoyevsky's The Possessed. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. He was killed in a road accident in 1960. L’Homme révolté, or, The Rebel, is an essay from the “cycle of revolt” series I’ve already mentioned. Published in 1951, the essay focuses on the revolution of rebellion in modern society. Camus also aims to summarize and analyze the various theories he has written on up until this point.