I finished The Myth of Sisyphus by Camus. It was generally very interesting. For several pages, I thought this is really deep. For the rest I was left baffled, which may have been the intention! He quoted generously from Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. (I did not recognise a single Nietzsche quote for memory.) Since the book is pro-paradox it can’t be summarised in any conventional sense. It is a foundational text in absurdism, I would imagine. I admire his clear statement of his assumptions – that the world is absurd. In a sense, attempting to justify this is impossible. He is appealing to those who already know this is the case. I am not really sure I am one of those entirely but I can feel where the thought originates. To me, it is a reaction or over-reaction to idealism – that there is order behind the apparent chaotic world. The idealism is rejected… obviously. But to cling to the idea that the world is chaotic? Or to use his terms, humans are unreasonable and the world is not reasonable and therefore inhuman. There are many responses to this lack of reasonableness. The famous response is suicide (and this makes this work infamous). The absurdist response is revolt against the world and without hope that the world can become humanised. A third is acceptance and embracing it, with a hope of a leap into meaning – Kierkegaard is said to have taken this option.

It is refreshing to read an author who is more well read in existential writings than myself, but I still read it from a existential and frankly Nietzschian viewpoint. The main objection to my view is how does Camus separate himself from this world he finds so inhuman? The world can only be experienced through his body and any judgements of the world reflect more on his body than on the world. Although I’m sure Camus does not need lessons in existentialism:

…that “other world” is well concealed from man, that dehumanised, inhuman world, which is a celestial naught; and the bowels of existence do not speak unto man, except as man.

Meaning the metaphysical world is inhuman. But the metaphysical world cannot be known except by accepting (tacitly or otherwise) the testimony of our senses. So where does the expectation that the world should be “reasonable” originate? In our nostalgia i.e. ourselves? But with the rejection of metaphysics, we reject the a-priori idea of reasonableness of the world. Of course, Camus does not claim that people generally share his view. He spends effort distancing himself from Kierkegaard when I perhaps would have been interested in a constrast with Nietzsche (surprise surprise!) The appendix discusses Kafka’s work and interestingly rejects it as absurdist. The possibility of K reaching The Castle is, according to Camus, retained. I don’t see the stark contrast he draws between that and The Trial. The protagonist tenaciously seeks access to The Castle or acquittal from The Trial. Both are predicted by other characters to be impossible. And even if he does access the Castle, which is never described since the author abandoned the work, he probably would find another layer of bureaucracy and another and another – in the same fashion as Kafka’s parable Before The Law.

Anyway, it got the juices flowing. Knowledge of Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky is recommended before reading this work!

Anti-Citizen One