Insightful look into one, who, "all my life, as soon as a person got attached to me, I did everything to distance them."
In addition, for understandable reasons, we have removed some proper names and changes some initials.
At this final volume of his Notebooks begins, Albert Camus is completing what would become his most controversial book, L’Homme Révoltéˆ(The Rebel). Its publication in October 1951, seven months after this volume opens, sets off a polemic so aggressive that its effects, both political and personal, reverberate throughout the remainder of Camus’ life.
polemic = a strong verbal or written attack on someone or something
Camus returned home to Algeria. and it was undoubtedly in Laghouat that the story “La Femme adultère” took shape.
In the fall of 1953, Camus’ spouse, Francine, fell into a serious and lasting depression, probably, at least in part, as a result of Camus’ infidelity, which was fairly public in France and not at all a secret from Francine. If, by most accounts, he tried not to openly expose his spouse to his philandering, he also did little to successfully conceal it.
On Nov 7, 1953, in his own cloud of depression, Camus turned 40.
In November, as fighting in Algeria escalated, Camus became more and more anguished over the state of his homeland, escaping to Italy on the invitation of the Italian Cultural Association.
In Oct 1958, he purchased a house in Lourmarin, a small village in the south of France, where he was not able to stay for an extended period of time until 1959.
The Notebooks end in the last days of Dec 1959 with an eerily final and personal entry, likely a draft of a letter to Catherine Sellers, which sees Camus lamenting the failures of his intimate relationships and, consequently, his life.
"The one who has conceived what is grand must also live it." - Nietzsche
Insanity of the XXth century: the most dissimilar of minds confuse the taste for the absolute and the taste for logic. Parain and Aragon.
Naturalness is not a virtue that one has: it is acquired.
Response to the question about my 10 favorite words: "World, pain, earth, mother, men, desert, honor, poverty, summer, sea."
The eternal voice: Demeter, Nausicaa, Eurydice, Pasiphae, Penelope, Helen, Persephone.
Man of 1950: he fornicated and read the newspapers.
Truth is not a virtue, but a passion. It is never charitable.
These are the atrocities of Admiral Kolchak who, according to Victor Serge, gave the Cheka in the Russian CP the advantage over all those who desired greater humanity.
There is not one talent for living and another for creating. The same suffices for both.
Like this they confuse love and knowledge, those who have enough arrogance to believe in self-sufficiency. Others recognize their limits and their love is therefore unique because it demands everything, and being rather than knowledge.
Sep '67 I am nothing but a miserable reptile that has been crush, I am good for nothing, nobody loves me, I am nauseous, two rotten teeth, bad breath, I am pregnant, etc...
Tolstoy's spouse writes: Love does not exist. There is no sensual need to unite oneself with another being and the reasonable need to have a companion for life.
Novel: What struck him then was how few objects there were in his house. The necessary -- never had a word been better illustrated. When his mother lived in one of the rooms, she left no trace, except, if anything, a handkerchief.
Emerson: Every wall is a door.
"A labyrinthe man never seeks the truth, but always and only Ariane."
The love of god is apparently the only one that we stand since we always want to be loved in spite of ourselves.
Divided between a person who refuses death completely and a person who accepts it completely.
Ah! well, here you are, a whole like the others.
I don't believe those who say we should rush into pleasure through despair. True despair never leads to anything but sorrow or inertia.
In love, hold on to what is.
Tolstoy challenges Turgenev to a duel, but Turgenev makes excuses.
Searching Tolstoy's residence: A colonel reads his diary. T writes to Alexandra Tolstoy, who is familiar with the imperial court: Fortunately for me and for your friend I was not there, because I would have killed him.
Response from Alexandra to calm him: Have pity. Nothing in reality is more merciless than a man who strongly feels his innocence and who is unfairly mistreated.
Too much security for the child's heart and the adult will spend his life demanding this security from people -- even though people are only opportunities for risk and freedom.
Focused. Sharpened - I ask only one thing, and I ask it humbly, although I know that it is exorbitant: to be read with attention.
Forgive me, then, the pain I have caused you... If your heart remembers nothing but the love it has for me, this would be the salvation in death that I could not have in life.
They seemed to love freedom; it turns out they only hated the master.
=======
Shortly after great historical crises one finds oneself as dissatisfied and sick as on the morning following a night of excess. But there is no aspirin for the historical hangover.
Nietzsche: One could classify religious men as top-notch artists.
Socrates learned to dance at an advanced age.
Two million union members out of 11 million employees. In 1947, there were 7 million union members.
Virtuous men often make the citizens pusillanimous (timid). At the root of true courage, imbalance.
There are moments when letting yourself go to sincerity is equivalent to an inexcusable laxity.
Mahler's 4th symphony in G major for sopranos and orchestra. At times, Mahler, by contrast, makes one appreciate Wagner, showing how much the latter remained master of his fog. Other times, Mahler is excellent.
X says to me: Why reproach the world for precisely what gives us consciousness, which is to say pain and suffering...
Mail. Dead day.
Terrible morning. Afternoon exhibition of Cézanne: the first mad and morbid paintings (sexual obsession in particular). A madness of this sort required the terrible discipline that Cézanne had. The demented alone are classic because they are that or nothing. C pushed demand to the limit of his disorder and chose still-life and landscape painting because he found in them an architecture, a geometry. Toward the end he returned to bodies and faces and rediscovered madness, the madness that he mastered. Here, Cubism is ordered (foretold).
It's not dying that I fear, but living in death.
The Hague.
This entire world gathered in a small space of houses and waters, one silently stuck to another, and it rained at length over the entire city, without a moment to breath, while ugly, sulky little children directed the traffic of placid cars and beautiful [...]
Nov 7, 1954
41 years old.
The Bacchae
In Sicily. Now. A small village in the Palermo region. And everything has the same pleasantness.
Ortega y Gasset (Spanish philosopher). Who wants to know to who he speaks - to write --
Stupidly, tears come to my eyes. Rome. Another one of these luxurious hotels, stupid like the society that maintains them. I'll move tomorrow.
Chaste fear and servile fear. "You will always be able to enjoy everything but you will never see my Face. Choose." Nobody always wants to enjoy everything.
Those who accuse the time of being a time of misfortune. "What they want is not so much an era of peace and quiet but rather the security of their vices." XVIIth century, Augustian century.
July 12. Palermo.
About the mistral. The days are hot and I wait for the mistral to pick up.
The two greatest minds the heavens gave to the Romans - Lucretius and Seneca -- committed suicide.
July 21
Rain that does not let up for days. Profound and dry sadness.
July 26
Buddhism is atheism that became religion.
Aug 12
CS "It is not pain that must arouse the greatest pity but indignity. The most extreme misfortune is to feel ashamed."
In love she breathed like a swimmer and smiled at the same time, then swam faster and faster, beaching herself on a hot and humid shore, mouth opened, still smiling...
Oct 17
Nobel. Strange feeling of overwhelming pressure and melancholy. At 20 years old, poor and naked, I knew true glory. My mother.
Recover the greatest strength, not to dominate but to give.
May 29, 1958
The artist is like the god of Delphi: He does not show nor does he hide: he signifies.
It is not humiliating to be unhappy. Physical suffering is sometimes humiliating, but the suffering cannot be, it is life, just like this happiness...
The gardens in the night, washed beneath the moon but dark. Karin is 18 years old. Parents divorced. She left Sweden, I don't know why, and earned her living as a model for a second-rate designer who exploited her. 35,000 francs for seven hours of work a day. The courage of these girls of the half-century, it always fills me with the same admiration.
Catherine is ill. I suspend my departure for the Midi. Heartache.
She says Vichy for all mineral water.
The flesh, the poor flesh, miserable, dirty, faded, humiliated. The sacred flesh.
Detrás de la cruz esta el demonio = Behind the cross is the devil
Destroy everything n my life that is not this poverty. To lose everything.
Pasternak on Scriabin: Each one of us has known a similar moment in our life. To each one of us the revelation is offered, this gift of a personality promised, and, in its way, to each one this promise is kept.
id: The greatest works in the entire world, while speaking of the most diverse things, in fact, tell us of their own birth.
...one can, day after day, run to rendezvous with a bit of built-up earth, as if it were a living being.
Nietzsche in '87 (43 years old): My life is, at this very moment, at its meridian: one door closes, another one opens.
Apr 28.
Arrival Lourmarin. Grey sky. In the garden, marvelous roses weighed down by water, luscious like fruits. The rosemary is in bloom. Stroll, and in the evening, the irises' violet shade deepens. WOrn out.
For years I've wanted to live according to everyone else's morals. I must rebuild a truth -- after having lived all my life in a sort of lie.
May 21
This is the red season. Cherries and poppies.
Paris, Jun '59
I have abandoned the moral point of view. Morals lead to abstraction and to injustice. They are the mother of fanaticism and blindness. Whoever is virtuous must cut off the heads. But what to say of those who profess morality without being able to live up to its high standards. The heads fall and he legislates, unfaithful. Morality cuts in two, separates, wastes away. One must flee morality, accept being judged and not judging, saying yes, creating unity -- and for the time being, suffering agony.
Danoise de Joski
The city drunk with heat.
The hour where the borders of bodies fall, where the singular being is finally born in the total nakedness of profound benefaction.
One hundred forty thousand dying per day; ninety-seven per minute; fifty-seven million in one year.
This is left that I belong to, in spite of me and in spite of it.
For the mature man, only happy loves can prolong his youth. Other loves throw him suddenly into old age.
The vanity of men erects these magnificent mansions only to receive the inevitable host there, Death, with all the ceremonies of superstitious awe (Conrad, Anguish).
St. Ignace (spiritual journal)
He tells the devil who tempts him: Stay in your place. Elsewhere: that God is immutable and the devil immobile and changing.
What also helped me - equity - this difficult acceptance of oneself and others is creation. But since I am in this crisis, in this sort of impotence, I understand this ignoble desire for possession that, in others, has always incensed me. One can conquer a being for lack of being conquered oneself. And it is true that at precisely this moment, I have need of this belonging that you had given me. For this reason, as much as for your evasion, I have suffered from your lie. But this will pass. A little more pessimism still and unhappiness will radiate in turn: I will become myself again.
I have suffered from what you revealed to me: that's a fact. But you do not have to be sad for my sadness. I am wrong I know it, and if I cannot prevent my heart from being unjust, I can at least make it capable of equity. It will not be difficult for me to overcome the injustice that I do to you in my heart. I know that I have done everything to detach you from me. All my life, as soon as a person got attached to me, I did everything to distance them.
I sometimes accuse myself of being incapable of love. Maybe this is true, but I have been able to select a few people and to keep for them, faithfully, the best of me, no matter what they do.