Camus

by Conor Cruise O'Brien

Forty years ago Conor Cruise O'Brien wrote a small but brilliantly argued critique of Camus' work. In The Outsider, for example, amongst many things O'Brien notes is that a European in Algeria would not face the death penalty for the murder of an Arab. More fundamentally O'Brien takes issue with the allegorical value of the plague in La Peste. It is of course generally accepted that the disease is a metaphor for the Nazi occupation of France & Western Europe, however the impact of this metaphor collapses when one considers that Oran itself was occupied by the French colonialists--an irony which Camus seems blissfully unaware. In passing there is not a named Arab who is the victim of the plague. It's as if these deaths are of little value compared to the French occupiers.

Genres: Biography, Philosophy, Literature, France, Nonfiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Irish politician, writer, historian and academic.

Member of the Irish Parliament for the socialist Labour Party.

Member of the Northern Ireland Forum for the United Kingdom Unionist Party, which advocated direct rule of Northern Ireland from London.

Virulently anti-IRA.

Reviews

[مهسا · Rating 3 out of 5]

اول اینکه بیاید از بی‌طرفیِ اوبراین و ترجمه‌ی عزت‌الله فولادوند به مثابه‌ی اثر هنری لذت ببریم.

پنج ستاره ندادم چون جنبه‌های مغفول‌مانده زیاد داشت این کتاب. برای مثال؛ مساله‌ی کنشگری میان کامو و اعراب الجزایر، عرضه شده بود اما بسط نه،
مجادلات کامو و سارتر فقط از نظر گذرونده شده بودند، صدا و موضع دوبوار به عنوان روشنگری که حین نوشته‌شدن این کتاب، زنده بوده، رسونده نشده بود.

ارجاعات نویسنده به کتاب‌های دیگه و آرشیوِ روزنامه‌ها، فوق‌العاده بودند اما.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice addition to my Camus collection. A short 3 part essay on the mindset and circumstances around Camus’s three major works, The Stranger, The Plague and The fall as well as the essays and short story collections that surrounded them.

The essayist narrates Camus’s suspected development from French colonist to French revolutionist to a sympathetic but unrepentant colonialist.

Next time I read either of these three works I will definitely keep in mind some of the ideas in this one.

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Most European criticism, ethnocentric to the point of imagining itself universal, slides easily into colonial assumptions and perspectives and only notices the appearance of 'politics' when these assumptions and perspectives are contested." (49)

I have the unfortunate honor of being the first to rate and review Camus by Conor Cruise O'Brien, the Irish politician, writer, historian, and academic. Profoundly moved by Camus's works, O'Brien wrote this critique in order to challenge some lingering misinterpretations of and misconceptions about the French-Algerian writer.

The book, relatively short at 86 pages, is divided into three main sections: The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall. These three novels constitute the backbone of O'Brien's critique; however, he also discusses other works by Camus, such as his essays (The Myth of Sisyphus, Betwixt and Between, Neither Victims nor Executioners, and The Rebel), his plays (Caligula, The Just Assassins, A State of Siege, and The Misunderstanding), his story collection Exile and the Kingdom, and his journalistic writings. Overall, then, Camus's body of work is well-represented by O'Brien.

For each of the three novels in question, O'Brien provides a wonderfully succinct summary, after which he draws attention to the points of interest. The main, overarching theme for O'Brien is the way in which Camus grappled with his native Algeria (the setting of so many of his works), with the indigenous Arabs who inhabited it (but who are – not so surprisingly in the end, as O'Brien will argue – curiously absent in his works), and with the question of Algerian independence from French colonialism (which twisted him into paradoxical positions and pitted him against other French intellectuals). The conception of Camus as the conscience of Western civilization is too simplistic and not entirely accurate, as O'Brien will show. "We may indeed accept the fact that Camus's work is a notable expression of the Western moral conscience. But we should not ignore the fact that it also registers the hesitations and limitations of that conscience and that one of the great limitations lies along the cultural frontier, the colony." (27)

I will not go into all the details of O'Brien's argument; the book speaks for itself. I will just offer one example of O'Brien's scrutiny. He describes, in his section on The Plague, how in the beginning of that novel, the journalist Rambert comes to see the local doctor, Rieux. He is writing a story for a Paris newspaper about the 'condition of the Arabs' and is seeking information about the matter. Rieux asks Rambert if he could report the truth – the whole truth – if he were told it. Rambert admits that, no, he could not. Rieux then responds, admirably, that if this is the case then he will not offer any information. O'Brien then points out that after this moment, early on in the novel, of high-mindedness concerning the truth about the Arab condition, this very condition – and the Arabs with it – practically disappears from the novel. Near the novel's end, as Rambert and Rieux walk through the native quarters, Camus describes these as 'curiously deserted' – a phrase that is emblematic to O'Brien of Camus's treatment of the Arabs. Camus's Algeria is a wholly French Algeria – to a considerable extent illusionary and therefore a source of deep conflict for Camus.

O'Brien knows his subject well, and here and there discloses previously unknown things to me, someone who also – at least pretends – to know his Camus; from relatively small facts, like that The Fall was originally conceived as part of Exile and the Kingdom, to larger constructs like the interrelations between Camus's three novels, the developments within them, and their relations to Camus and the issues with which he struggled throughout his life – particularly with regard to the question of Algeria.

I would have liked it to be longer – there was room for further development – but alas. As it stands, Camus is a perceptive book and one that should not be missed by an avid reader of Camus. Nor, I would say, by anyone interested in literature and history generally, especially in relation to colonialism.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author does an excellent job on summarizing the three great novels by Camus. Divided in three sections covering the Stranger, The Plague and The Fall.

It was sad he died so young but n a car accident.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I love justice and I love my mother but if I have to choose I will choose my mother over justice."--Albert Camus. It's precisely this type of brilliant writing combined with an insipid, pro-colonialist, and, perhaps, racist thinking that Conor Cruise O'Brien, Irish literary critic, and sometimes politician, dissects brilliantly in the finest English-language introduction to Camus. Here is a writer who through novels, short stories, plays, and essays sought to teach the world to "cherish anguish" yet could never admit to himself the real anguish French colonialism had inflicted upon Algeria, which he falsely and shamelessly equated with his beloved mother. "Albert Camus of Europe and North Africa" is a classic in its own right.

[James Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent, prescient little work of criticism that endures well.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was introduced to Camus and Sartre in high school. Sartre's Nausea turned me off almost immediately, but I like Camus' The Stranger enough to go ahead to read a number of his plays, essays and, most especially, The Plague--one of the very few books I intentionally read twice.

The reason I liked Camus is because he appeared to reject all the metaphysical and naive beliefs that I had come to intellectually reject: There is no God, the just are not rewarded, I am condemned to certain death etc. Yet, and this impressed me, he chose not only to live, but to write in the face of nihilism and despair, and not only to write, but to act politically. Now this was brave. This was honest. I was impressed.

O'Brien's review of Camus' life and works is quite critical, deflating of some of my adolescent admiration for the man by pointing out blindspots both the author and I suffered.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an intellect 'The Cruiser' had. They don't make people like him anymore!

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently re-read it as was doing something on The Fall, an interesting and challenging review of his work.

[Sharif Farrag · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite measured...little sign of the ranty CCOB who dished up endless right wing soundbites.