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Albert Camus Page
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Biography
Biography
Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913, in Mondovi, Algeria. His father, Lucien, died in 1914, during World War I's Battle of the Marne. War was to remain
a constant throughout Camus' life -- and his literature.
Camus' mother was left to raise her son alone, in extreme poverty. Widowed and nearly deaf, there was little possibility of her earning a reasonable income. She
moved the family to Rue de Lyon, in the Belcourt section of Algiers. Belcourt was a crowded, almost third-world neighborhood. The family was forced to move to
the region so a grandmother could raise Albert and his older brother. Albert's grandmother was dying of liver cancer, while an uncle living in the house was
paralyzed. Camus' family represented all human misery and misfortune.
According to Camus' accounts, his mother was permanently melancholy. To escape this home life, Camus buried himself in studies and participation in local athletic
teams. He distinguished himself in sports as a leader and competitor. In academics, Camus also excelled. When Camus entered the local Belcourt schools, an
instructor named Louis Germain noticed young Albert's intellect. The teacher tutored Albert, helping him pass the lycée entrance exams in 1923. A lycée is an
exclusive secondary school for students destined to university -- as Albert was.
An important step out of poverty, Camus was accepted into the University of Algiers' school of philosophy. In 1930, his studies were interrupted by severe
tuberculosis. The disease took one of his most important possessions -- his strength. As a result of the disease, Camus reduced his studies to a part-time pursuit.
Albert would attend lectures at the University of Algiers from 1932 through 1953, never losing his enthusiasm for learning.
Combat and Resistance
The period from 1939 through 1942 presents some difficulty to trace accurately. Biographers differ on exact events in Camus' life, so this document presents those
basic facts for which there is agreement. It is important to recognize that World War II created a great deal of confusion. Camus was a member of a resistance cell,
so not all of his activities could be recorded by himself or others. If the order of events in this section are in error, please offer any corrections.
In 1940, Camus left Algiers for Paris, hoping to establish himself as a reporter in the leftist press. Unfortunately, the German army invaded France, and Camus
returned to North Africa. Camus remarried in Africa, and found a teaching position in Oran. Camus was shortly declared a "threat to national security" and "advised"
to leave Algeria in March 1940. The political right's rising power in both France and Algeria resulted in the mistreatment of many leftist and pacifists. Camus was a
pacifist and wrote openly about avoiding war in Europe. The invasion of France left a terrible impression upon Camus.
He travels light, carrying one case with white shirts, ties, toothbrush, and three manuscripts in various stages. These manuscripts were "The Absurds" -- as named by
Camus. During the year 1940 he produced some of his greatest essays and short stories. In less than a year, Camus wrote or completed drafts of The Stranger, The
Myth of Sisyphus, and The Plague. In addition to these works, Camus filled notebooks with his thoughts on philosophy and politics.
The German army soon reached Paris, forcing Camus and many others to flee for Vichy France. In November 1942 the Allies landed in North Africa, giving Camus
some hope the war might end. Camus soon traveled to Saint-Etienn, in Central France. During the winter, his tuberculosis symptoms worsened and his mood sank.
Camus, The Journalist
After the war, Camus continued to work at the newspaper Combat. For Albert Camus, "journalist" was as prestigious a job description as "novelist" or "playright."
Camus wrote of the sounds and smells of the press room, where the words he had written were typeset and printing plates created. He often spent hours watching
the typesetters work with hot lead and the pressmen adjusting the presses while newspapers were printing. Camus realized that newspapers were far more influential
than most other forms of writing -- thanks to their larger and loyal audiences.
In 1947, Combat was taken private, which meant it operated for profit. This change did not originally affect content; one reason the paper was privatized was its
popularity. Over time, however, the content did shift and editorial policy moderated. Yet Camus' strong journalistic ideals did not change. He always held that news
must be what people should and need to know, not what they want to read. Commenting upon the press, in 1957, Camus wrote:
"This press, which we hoped…"
Algerian Unrest
The Algerian situation began to deteriorate more rapidly on 1 November 1954, when members of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) attacked various state
assets in Algeria, including military barracks, police offices, and other symbols of French "occupation." Unlike many from the intellectual left in France, Camus did
not side with the rebels. Unlike these left-leaning thinkers, Camus was in the unique situation of being from a colony. He considered self native Algerian. Said Camus,
"It's easy to be anti-colonialist in the bistros of Marseille or Paris."
Camus started writing for l'Express daily newspaper in 1955. His "beat" included coverage of the Algerian war. His articles about Algeria were later collected into
Actuelles: Chronique Algérienne.
Who has capsized all projects of reform for thirty years, if not a parliament elected by the French? Who has closed its ears to the cries of Arab
misery… if not the great majority of the French press? And who, if not France, with its disgusting good conscience, has waited until Algeria bleeds to
finally realize that she exists?
In February 1956, mass demonstrations by pied-noirs forced France to respond to the unrest in Algeria. Reluctantly, 400,000 French soldiers were stationed in
Algeria. The FLN attacks on non-Muslims worsened with the arrival of troops. Unfortunately, yet predictably, the French responsed with torture, mass killings, and
a campaign against Muslim fundamentalists.
A despondant Camus concluded there was no stopping the violence, at least not between rebels and the French troops. Camus begged publically for a "civil" truce in
Algeria, asking both sides to "spare the civilian population" from violence. Taking his crusade to the people of Algiers, Camus and others organized a 22 January
1956 public debate. Outside the hall, Muslims and the Front Français de l'Algérie faced off, but without any major incidents. Unbeknownst to him, Camus guarded
by members of FLN. After the debate, one Algerian writer called Camus, "Le Colonisateur de Bonne Volonté" -- The Well-Meaning Colonialist.
The last essay written by Camus, "Algérie 1958," supported a "Federation of Peoples" in Algeria. Under Camus' plan, Muslims and pied-noirs would share power in
government and Algeria would become an autonomous commonwealth. He had also become convinced that communist were behind much of the unrest. Camus
blamed the Soviet Union, Egypt, and Arab states for encouraging Muslim radicals.
Camus escaped the stress of being a political leader through a series of affairs. From 1956 until 1959, Camus translated and directed plays in France. His leading
actresses were also his lovers, Maria Casarès and Catherine Sellers.
Nobel Prize
The Fall was published in 1956, marking Camus' return to novels. The book was well received, bringing Camus back into favor in intellectual circles. The following
year, Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. While The Fall clearly attracted attention, the Nobel committee sited Camus' essay Réflexions Sur la
Guillotine as an influential work on behalf of human rights.
When Camus received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, he was the second youngest to ever receive award. While in Sweden to accept the award, Camus
went before students at Stockholm university. An Arab student accused Camus of not caring about the Arabs in Algeria. Camus responded, "I have to denounce
blind terrorism in the streets of Algiers, which might one day strike my mother or my family. I believe in justice, but I'll defend my mother before justice."
His comments shocked the left-wing. Just as quickly as The Fall had returned him to favor, these comments isolated Camus again from intellectual circles. Family
before justice? Private concerns greater than the common good? These thoughts ran counter to traditional socialist doctrine. Camus knew that most people would
defend family above country, but he dared to state publically that human relationships superceded political theories.
Privately, Camus had worked to help Arabs, saving many from the death penalty. He later said that "mother" in his comments was meant to symbolize Absurd Death
-- no more meaningless death in the name of politics was acceptable to Camus. Still, leftists failed to understand. The still held to the belief that sometimes revolution
must be violent.
In May 1958, a coup in Algeria, led by right-wing French, temporarily ended the civil unrest. France promised self-determination, assuming the conservative victory
meant French rule would continue. Camus planned to campaign against independence... he could never imagine Algeria apart from France.
Before his death, Camus had planned another set of three works. His new theme was to be "love." According to some biographers, Camus also had three lovers in
Paris.
It seems almost fitting that Camus died at the pinnacle of his career as a writer. Camus died in a freak automobile accident near Sens, France, on 4 January, 1960.
Curiously, Camus had once said there would be no death less meaningful than to die in an automobile accident. He disliked cars, especially driven at high speeds. He
was not driving when he died. Among his papers was the novel The First Man, a fictionalized account of his family history. This novel was published in 1995, leading
to renewed interest in Camus and his works.
What sets Camus apart from many existentialists and modern philosophers in general is his acceptance of contradictions. Yes, Camus wrote, life is absurd and death
renders it meaningless -- for the individual. But mankind and its societies are larger than one person.
The Absurds
In 1940, Albert Camus arrived in Paris where he was to work as a reporter for the newspaper Paris-Soir. Unfortunately, the Nazis were not far off, so the
newspaper's staff left Paris for Clermont-Ferrand. The stay in Clermont-Ferrand was brief, as the Nazis moved onward, and Camus found himself in Bordeaux.
During this period Camus, like many others, was forced to travel lightly -- carrying only essential items in case it became necessary to flee France entirely. Among his
possessions were three manuscripts, which he called "The Absurds."
The Absurds defined Camus to other French intellectuals; Jean-Paul Sartre considered them Camus' best philosophical works. The Absurds are the following works:
Novel: L'Etranger
Essays: Le Mythe de Sisyphe
Play: Caligula
For Camus, the absurd was not negative, not a synonym for "ridiculous," but the true state of existence. Accepting the view that life is absurd is to embrace a
"realistic" view of life: the absence of universal logic. This approach to philosophy is more radical than Nietzsche's "G-d is dead." One might rephrase Camus'
absurdism as "G-d? No thanks… I'm on my own."
Many mistakenly believe Camus saw no meaning in life; even Camus and Nietzsche seek "meaning" in life, but not in manners familiar to most. For Camus, meaning
was in the human experience. Absurdity does not render life meaningless -- people have meaning because they interact with each other, while remaining in control of
their own destinies.
Chronology
1913 November 7
Born in Mondovi, French Algiers.
1914
Father, Lucien, killed in World War I, Battle of the Marne.
1930
Treated for tuberculosis.
1935
Founds The Workers' Theatre to educate and entertain the working class of Algiers.
1937
Began writing the collection of essays known as the Algerian Essays.
1938
Joined the reporting staff of the Alger-Republicain.
1939
The Workers' Theatre closes.
1940
Left Algeria for Paris, then left after the Nazi invasion.
1941
Returned to France to join the French Resistance Movement.
1942
Publishes The Stranger.
1943
Becomes editor of the Parisian Daily Combat, a French Resistance newspaper.
1943 June 2
Meets Jean-Paul Sartre.
1951
Publishes The Rebel, a study of revolt and rebellion. The book's criticisms of the Soviet Union and the Communist Party lead to a split
from Sartre.
1956
The Fall published, a study of fraud and guilt.
1957
Awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
1958
Actuelles III is published, a collection of Camus' columns on the condition of Arabs in Algeria.
1960
Publishes Resistance, Rebellion, and Death.
1960 January 4
Died in Sens, France in an automobile accident.
Works
The Stranger; Novel: 1941, 1942, (English 1946)
The Myth of Sisyphus; Essay: 1942, (English 1955)
The Misunderstanding; 1943
Cross Purpose; Play: 1944
Caligula; Play: 1944
The Plague; Novel: 1947
State of Siege; Play: 1948, (English 1958)
The Just Assassins; Play: 1950
The Rebel; Essay: 1951
The Fall; Novel: 1956
Exile and the Kingdom; Short Stories: 1957
Resistance, Rebellion, and Death; Essays: 1960
A Happy Death; Novel: 1971
Youthful Writings; Essays: 1973
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Quotes
Art
"Art does not tolerate reason."
"Music is the most perfect art."
"The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of
freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It
cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom,
even temporarily. No great work has ever been based on hatred and
contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that has
not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known
and loved it."
Beauty
"At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the
softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the
illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote
than a lost paradise . . . that denseness and that strangeness of the world
is absurd."
"Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the
glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of
time."
"Style, like sheer silk, too often hides eczema."
Charm
"You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having
asked any clear question."
Despair
"To those who despair of everything reason cannot provide a faith, but only
passion, and in this case it must be the same passion that lay at the root
of the despair, namely humiliation and hatred."
"In default of inexhaustible happiness, eternal suffering would at least give
us a destiny. But we do not even have that consolation, and our worst
agonies come to an end one day."
"Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a
master, the weight of days is dreadful."
"Punishment without judgment is bearable. It has a name, besides, that
guarantees our innocence: it is called misfortune."
"Everything that makes man work and get excited utilizes hope. The sole
thought that is not mendacious is therefore a sterile thought."
"The absurd enlightens me on this point: there is no future."
Evil
"Only evil can reach its limits and reign absolutely."
Friendship
"Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow; don't walk behind me, I may
not lead; walk beside me, and just be my friend."
"Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always
presuppose further developments, a future--and also because we live as if
our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people."
Faith
"To insure the adoration of a theorem for any length of time, faith is not
enough, a police force is needed as well."
Greatness
"All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great
works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door."
"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to
be normal."
"I don't want to be a genius - I have enough problems just trying to be a
man."
"Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of
evil."
"Politics and the shape of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and
without greatness. Men who have greatness within them don't concern
themselves with politics."
"The work of art is born of the intelligence`s refusal to reason the
concrete."
"A profound thought is in a constnt process of becoming."
"I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints."
Happiness
"When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved
person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that
light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the
unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts
you encounter."
"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness
consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
"I enjoyed my own nature to the fullest, and we all know that there lies
happiness, although, to soothe one another mutually, we occasionally
pretend to condemn such joys as selfishness."
"Sisyphus is the happiest man alive."
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a human heart.
One should imagine Sisyphus happy."
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first
time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle
indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself---so like a brother,
really---I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For
everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to
wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution
and that they greet me with cries of hate."
"But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and
the life he leads."
Life
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.
Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the
fundamental question of philosophy."
"If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing
of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of
this life."
"Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day."
"Instead of killing and dying in order to produce the being that we are not,
we have to live and let live in order to create what we are."
"It is normal to give away a little of one's life in order not to lose it all."
"You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot
create experience. You must undergo it."
"What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying."
"From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the
most harrowing of all. But whether or not one can live with one's passions,
whether or not one can accept their law, which is to burn the heart they
simultaneously exalt--that is the whole question."
"Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined."
"A stranger to myself and to the world armed solely with a thought that
negates itself as soon as it asserts, what is this condition in which I can
have peace only by refusing to know..."
"Death for us all, but his own death to each."
"There is no love of life without despair of life."
"Life can be magnificent and overwhelming- that is its whole tragedy.
Without beauty, love, or danger, it would be almost easy to live."
"It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a
meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be
lived all the better if it has no meaning."
"If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can
always act so that their own lives have one."
Love
"We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to
their advantage, then to their disadvantage."
"We call love what binds us to certain creatures only by reference to a
collective way of seeing for which books and legends are responsible."
"There is no noble love but that which recognizes itself as both short-lived
and exceptional."
Man
"We cannot assert the innocence of anyone, whereas we can state with
certainty the guilt of all. Every man testifies to the crime of all the others -
that is my faith and my hope."
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an
invincible summer. "
"In a universe suddenly divested of illusion and lights, man feels an alien, a
stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of
a lost home or the hope of a promised land."
"A sub-clerk in the post-office is the equal of a conqueror if consciousness
is common to them."
"To know oneself, one should assert oneself. Psychology is action, not
thinking about oneself. We continue to shape our personality all our life. If
we knew ourselves perfectly, we should die. "
"True debauchery is liberating because it creates no obligations. In it you
possess only yourself; hence it remains the favorite pastime of the great
lovers of their own person."
"We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages.
But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in
ourselves and in others."
"More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is
one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one
tries to do for the common good ends in failure."
"The principles which men give to themselves end by overwhelming their
noblest intentions."
"We are not certain, we are never certain. If we were we could reach some
conclusions, and we could, at last, make others take us seriously."
"Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is."
"Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom:
therefore they do not believe in dying completely."
"If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can
always act so that their own lives have one."
"Man wants to live, but it is useless to hope that this desire will dictate all
his actions."
"We come into the world laden with the weight of an infinite necessity."
"The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind."
"Alas! after a certain age every man is responsible for the face he has."
"One cannot be a part time nihilist."
"He seemed to indulge in all the usual pleasures without being a slave to
any of them."
"[people have] an irresistible vocation for judgment."
"Men are never convinced of your reasons, of your sincerity, of the
seriousness of your sufferings, except by your death. So long as you are
alive, your case is doubtful; you have a right only to your skepticism."
"We are all exceptional cases. We all want to appeal against something.
Each of us insists on being innocent at all cost, even if he has to accuse
the whole human race and heaven itself."
"The nobility of our calling will always be rooted in two commitments
difficult to observe: refusal to lie about what we know, and resistance to
oppression."
Nature
"It is impossible to give a clear account of the world, but art can teach us
to reproduce it-just as the world reproduces itself in the course of its
eternal gyrations. The primordial sea indefatigably repeats the same words
and casts up the same astonished beings on the same seashore."
"...a burning and frigid, transparent and limited universe in which nothing is
possible but everything is given."
Politics
"Whoever today speaks of human existence in terms of power, efficiency,
and 'historical tasks' is an actual or potential assassin."
"The only conception of freedom I can have is that of the prisoner or the
individual in the midst of the State. The only one I know is freedom of
thought and action."
"The myth of unlimited production brings war in its train as inevitably as
clouds announce a storm."
"Every revolutionary ends up by becoming either an oppressor or a
heretic."
"We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And
now we realize that we know where it lives, that it is inside ourselves."
"Politics and the shape of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and
without greatness. Men who have greatness within them don't concern
themselves with politics."
"Between my mother and justice I choose my mother"
When asked about the war his country of nationality, France, was waging
against his country of birth, Algeria
Rebellion
"Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal
to the essence of being."
"What is a rebel? A man who says no."
"The theme of permanent revolution is thus carried into individual
existence."
Religion
"If Christianity is pessimistic as to man, it is optimistic as to human
destiny. Well, I can say that, pessimistic as to human destiny, I am
optimistic as to man."
"I do not want to believe that death is the gateway to another life. For me,
it is a closed door. I do not say it is a step we must all take, but that it is
a horrible and dirty adventure."
"We turn toward God only to obtain the impossible."
Society
"At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the
face."
"Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when
perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the
future."
"Children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his
greatest effort, man can only propose to diminish, arithmetically, the
sufferings of the world."
"To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society
because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely
good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today."
"The real passion of the twentieth century is servitude."
"Absolute freedom mocks at justice. Absolute justice denies freedom."
"The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the
unreasonable silence of the world."
"If it is true that the only paradises are those we have lost, I know what
name to give the tender and inhuman something that dwells in me today."
"There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people
behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no
need of rules."
Truth
"Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who
tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a
beautiful twilight that enhances every object."
"There exists an obvious fact that seems utterly moral; namely, that a
man is always a prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot
free himself from them."
"There are places where the mind dies so that a truth which is its very
denial may be born."
"Truth is mysterious, elusive, ever to be won anew. Liberty is dangerous,
as hard to get along with as it is exciting."
Writing
"To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in
art."
"Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have
commentators."
"A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images."
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