Jean-Paul Sartre, his one-time friend and then polemical adversary—who was himself often guilty of the grossest misinterpretation of Camus, as the body of this work will show—offered a moving eulogy to Camus, which may serve as an appropriate initial summation. He wrote that Camus’s
obstinate humanism, narrow and pure, austere and sensual, waged an uncertain war against the massive and formless events of the time. But on the other hand through his dogged rejections he reaffirmed, at the heart of our epoch, against the Machiavellians and against the idol of realism, the existence of the moral issue. In a way, he was that resolute affirmation. Anyone who read or reflected encountered the human values he held in his fist; he questioned the political act (Bree 2, 173-4).1
It is to this effort to grasp the philosophical resonance of Camus’s thought, as it echoes forth in strength and weakness the sounds and turmoil of our world, that my work is committed. I take him at his word when he writes: “I do not believe … in isolated books. With certain writers . . . their works form a whole in which each is clarified by the others, and reflect each other” {Kill, 63-4).
In treating his work as a whole, I seek to elucidate the vision that many among us have found so compelling. Why has it touched us? To what extent does it offer answers to the profound challenges with which we are confronted? Toward what future does it point? And what limitations does it reveal, for him and for us? I engage his work in dialogue, treating it as an invitation to reflect upon the essentials of that cultural drama in which all of us are implicated. I am confident he would have welcomed such an undertaking.
Before turning to the body of the text, it may be helpful to focus briefly upon the scope and direction of Camus’s work as it suggests the structure of this project.
Camus’s standpoint is naturalistic. He shared Friedrich Nietzsche’s view
that “when one speaks of humanity, the idea is fundamental that this is
something which separates and distinguishes man from nature. In reality, however, there is no such separation: ‘Natural’ qualities and those called ‘human’ are inseparably grown together” (PN, 32).
This metaphysical naturalism feeds a tragic vision, deeply marked by the sense of God’s absence. For ours is an age in which absolutes have been found wanting and satisfactory alternatives lacking. Human beings, torn from a world they can no longer believe in, long for another whose outlines are not yet clear.2 No wonder Camus preferred classical drama and the Greek tragedians. But, though his vision of our world is tragic, it is certainly not marked by resignation or despair.3
His literary and theoretical work begins with varied attempts to articulate the essential parameters of his original experience, from within the frame of that tragic naturalism. In Two Sides of the Coin, 4 and later in Nuptials, we have the sensitive physical being reflecting upon the extent of meaningfulness in a world stripped of the conventions of civilization. The first of these works expresses a sensitivity to human dignity, to silent suffering and the passionate will to live, qualities that permeate and pervade Camus’s entire outlook. In this book, he was later to
write, lie the roots of his thought, however awkwardly expressed. “It is in this life of poverty, among these humble or vain people that I most surely reached what seemed to me the real meaning of life.”
In the second work it is the pagan Algerian who speaks—of the beauties of nature, of his rejection of any illusions as to human destiny, and of the desiccation of time. While Nuptials and Two Sides are sometimes overlooked in considering Camus’s thought, the sensitivity and perspective they articulate are crucial.
The unity of Camus’s thought ma}’ be traced from these two early works through Summer (a collection of essays spanning the years 1939 to 1953) to a tentative and suggestive completion in Exile and the Kingdom (1957). This line of development provides the framework for Camus’s artistic and theoretical output. It is in that artistic output, however, what he called his “real work,” that the philosophical tale resides.
Within the framework of his carefully conceived artistic production lie four recits, nouvelles, or romans: The Stranger, The Plague, The Fall, and Exile and the Kingdom; four plays:
“Caligula,” “The Misunderstanding,” “The State of Siege,” and “The Just”; and two philosophical essays: TheMyth of Sisyphus and The Rebel. His editorials, reviews, speeches, interviews, and dramatic adaptations complement and nuance that more precisely articulated corpus without modifying its basic themes.
In that work one can see the exploration and development of a few fairly well-defined stages. In each stage a play, a novel, and an essay were the media for exploration of a basic problem. In his completed work two stages have
been developed; a third, lacking such clear outlines, may be discerned; a fourth and fifth are but hinted at.5
The first stage concerns the individual’s encounter with the absurd. It achieves its theoretical articulation in TheMyth of Sisyphus, as a philosophical consideration of problems initially posed in The Stranger and “Caligula,” and implied in Two Sides of the Coin and Nuptials, then a little later in “The Misunderstanding.”
The second stage, a development from but in no sense a denial of the insights achieved in the previous works, directly treats the individual’s encounter with others, and with himself as among others. Here The Plague performs the experiential spadework, reaping the harvest of what was most tragically sown in “The Misunderstanding.” “The State of Siege” then focuses the problem onto the plane of the social; while “The Just” serves as the dramatic prologue to the detailed consideration of these issues in The Rebel.
At this point, the clarity of the artistic outline slackens. With The Fall we encounter a species of oppression significantly different from that found in “Caligula,” The Plague, or “The State of Siege”; an oppression by duplici-tous monologue in the service of self-promotion, offered as the existential ground of the ideological oppression studied in Stage 2. This monologue contrasts sharply with the silent innocence of Meursault, or the silent yet tragic dignity so prominent in Two Sides.
With Exile and the Kingdom—so similar in title and structure to Two Sides of the Coin—a more positive orientation begins to find expression, reaching a tentative symbolic fulfillment with the action of D’Arrast in “The Growing Stone.” This development—the encounter with the absurd; the attempts at resolution; the stoic acceptance-in-revolt; the experience of the absurd on the social level in oppression; the explicit revolt; the encounter with ideology; the search for community through dialogue; then the self-reflective and critical exploration of Western competitive individualism—finds a temporary resting point entre oui et non in these stories of exile, “The Renegade” excluded. The transition from this philosophico-literary perspective to the artistic and sociopolitical problems involved in the practical construction of a dialogic community, with which my work concludes, is only a development of the inner logic of Camus’s life and thought.6
One final word on language. Camus’s experience was male-oriented, and so is his language. While I have of course kept his formulations in all quotations, I have sought to avoid sexist language in my own writing. Gender-related expressions have been used only when justified by the context. The issue of Camus’s position on sex is itself discussed in the text.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In a work that has required as much time and effort as this one, the result must needs be in large part a product of collective effort. It is not possible even to list, not to say express my appreciation to, the many people without whose assistance this project would never have been completed, but certain individuals deserve special mention.
My friends Jeffrey Isaac and James Edwards carefully read extensive portions of the manuscript at different stages of its development. Without their comments and suggestions, the final product would be far less satisfactory than it is. John McDermott was the inspiration not only for my study of Camus but for my philosophical career. He has encouraged, nurtured, and sustained my work throughout. My debt to all three of them is enormous.
In addition, I benefited greatly from extensive, stimulating, and sustained discussions with Terry Hillman, Arthur Lothstein, Peter Manicas, John Pavlidis, Jeffrey Reiman, and Ronald Santoni, as well as from my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy at C. W. Post College of Long Island University.
Support came at a crucial time from my thesis adviser at Penn State University, Henry Johnstone, for which I will always be grateful. Valuable assistance in transcription came from Joy Sanderson. Financial assistance was provided by the Research Committee of C. W. Post College. Finally, the enthusiastic support and encouragement of my editor at Temple University Press, Jane Cullen, was crucial in bringing this work to fruition.
PART ONE
Introduction
To create a language and to bring myths to life (LCE, 16).