“My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I don’t know.”
The ‘returning scene’ from The Stranger by Albert Camus (Powers, 2015)
The first line of The Outsider (often translated as The Stranger) by Alber Camus is one of the most arresting introductions in novel history, vying with Moby Dicy by Herman Melville and Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Penguin, 2022).
No sooner had this 159-page novella been published than it enthralled readers and critics, becoming the solid cornerstone for the future Nobel Prize in literature (The Novel Prize, 2019).
Who is Alber Camus?
Alber Camus is a French novelist, essayist, and playwright who was called a pied-noir, which means “black foot” in French, referring to French colonial settlers in Algeria during the French regime. (Hammer, 2013) Through writing his pieces like L’Etranger (The Stranger, 1942) and La Peste (The Plague, 1947), he tried to find a way to overcome nihilism by using the concept of “absurdity.” He refused to be treated as an existentialist with Jean-Paul Sartre. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957 and passed away three years later in a car accident.
In Early Days
Right after Camus was born in 1913, his father died in World War I, so his mother, who has Spanish ancestry, did housekeeping to support the family, including two children, a maternal grandmother, and a disabled uncle. Later, Camus described the environment of the family in his several essays, illustrating the Algerian rural atmosphere and trying to express the pauper’s happiness in natural beauty.
In 1918, Camus entered elementary school and was taught by an extraordinary teacher, Louis Germain, who helped Camus get a scholarship to Algiers High School, making Camus dedicate his Nobel Prize for Literature to Germain. A period of academic and philosophical thought followed, tagging along with great ardor for sport, especially football and swimming. However, in 1930, he got tuberculosis and was obliged to end his sporting career and studies. Camus registered at the University of Algiers to study philosophy and obtained a diploma in 1936 for a thesis about the relationship between Greek and Christianity based on the philosophical compositions of Plotinus and St. Augustine (Cruickshank, 2019).
Camus’ Literary Career
Absurdism, often referred to as the predominant philosophical achievement of Camus’s oeuvre, is the ultimate purpose of his work. It is easily found in these pieces. For example, in his debut novel “The Stranger,” Camus says: What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying (Das, 2020).
Even though he is often regarded as an existentialist, he refused the tag, making him startled by the fact that he would be deemed a philosophical associate of Sartre. Being worshipped by numerous devotees, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) stated the elements of absurdism and existentialism. Also, it articulates Camus’ theory of absurdity most straightforwardly.
The protagonists of The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947) always face up to the absurdity of societal and cultural conventionalism, causing dreadful results.
As a native Algerian, Camus infused a lift into French literature of the period, presenting an enlivening, outsider perspective that is diametric to the metropolitan literature of Paris. He wrote not only novels but also adapted plays and was shown in theater from the 1940s to the ’50s. The Fall (1956) and Exile and the Kingdom (1957) are included in his literary works during this period (BIOGRAPHY, 2021).
The Difference Between Absurdism and Existentialism
After the two World Wars, the era of science provoked by “Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin had ended, and the survival and existence of humans started to be treated as an essential topic of literature. Existentialism and absurdism are constantly compared with each other in this period and are often misunderstood by people as the same concept. However, there is a huge difference between the notions of two philosophies. The former stated that individuals are responsible for their actions and the way they deal with the world and emphasized personal choice and beliefs. On the other hand, absurdism focuses on the meaninglessness of the world and lives, so that it is impossible to find meaning for individuals. (Salah, 2023)
Nobel Prize for Literature and Demise
The Nobel Prize in Literature went to Albert Camus. The awarding group cited him as ‘the world’s foremost literary antagonist of totalitarianism.’ Dr.Osterling, the undersecretary of the group, quoted one of Camus’ statements from the war years: “We have to patch together what has been torn apart, to make justice conceivable in an unjust world, to make happiness meaningful for people who have been poisoned by the unhappiness of the age. Of course, this is a superhuman effort. But what we call a superhuman task is simply one that mankind needs a long time to carry out.” (Belair, 1957)
On January 4, 1960, merely three years after the zenith, Camus died in a car accident. He was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car driven by his friend during his return to Paris. Right after the accident, a train ticket to Paris was found in his pocket, leaving conspiracy theories until these days. (Bracken, 2019)
Reference list
Portrait from New York World-Telegram and Sun Photograph Collection, 1957
Belair, F. (1957). Albert Camus Wins Nobel Letters Prize. The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1957/10/18/archives/albert-camus-wins-nobel-letters-prize-nobel-prize-won-by-albert.html [Accessed 2 November 2023].
BIOGRAPHY (2021). Albert Camus – Books, Quotes & Facts. [online] Biography. Available at: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/albert-camus [Accessed 1 November 2023].
Bracken, H. (2019). How did Albert Camus die? [online] Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/story/how-did-albert-camus-die [Accessed 2 November 2023].
Cruickshank, J. (2019). Albert Camus | Biography & Works. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Albert-Camus [Accessed 31 October 2023].
Das, R. (2020). 5 Powerful Quotes by Albert Camus that Prove Life is Absurd. [online] Medium. Available at: https://baos.pub/5-powerful-quotes-by-albert-camus-that-prove-life-is-absurd-114a1a027e3 [Accessed 1 November 2023].
Hammer, J. (2013). Why is Albert Camus Still a Stranger in His Native Algeria? [online] Smithsonian. Available at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-is-albert-camus-still-a-stranger-in-his-native-algeria-13063/ [Accessed 31 October 2023].
Penguin (2022). 18 of the best first lines in fiction. [online] www.penguin.co.uk. Available at: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2022/04/best-first-lines-in-books [Accessed 30 October 2023].
Salah, D.S. (2023). EXISTENTIALISM VS ABSURDISM; A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF JEAN-PAUL SARTRE’S NO EXIT AND ALBERT CAMUS’S THE STRANGER. IMRAS, [online] 6(4), pp.72–83. Available at: https://journal.imras.org/index.php/sps/article/view/230/219 [Accessed 2 November 2023].
The Novel Prize (2019). The Nobel Prize in Literature 1957. [online] NobelPrize.org. Available at: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1957/camus/facts/ [Accessed 30 October 2023].
Powers, J. (2015). Algerian Writer Kamel Daoud Stands Camus’ ‘The Stranger’ On Its Head. [online] www.wbur.org. Available at: https://www.wbur.org/npr/416828000/algerian-writer-kamel-daoud-stands-camus-the-stranger-on-its-head [Accessed 3 November 2023].
