“In a world whose
absurdity appears to be so impenetrable, we simply must reach a greater degree
of understanding among men, a greater sincerity. We must achieve this or
perish. To do so, certain conditions must be fulfilled: men must be frank
(falsehood confuses things), free (communication is impossible with slaves).
Finally, they must feel a certain justice around them.” —French novelist,
essayist, and playwright—Nobel Literature laureate—Albert Camus (1913-1960),
“Three Interviews,” in Lyrical and Critical Essays, edited by Philip
Thody, translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy (1970)
The loss to the world
when Albert Camus died in an automobile accident 65 years ago today is
incalculable. At only 46 years old, he was still in the prime of his career.
His death came at a
tricky time for the novelist: France’s divisive, debilitating attempt to crush
the independence movement of the colony where Camus was born and spent his
formative years, Algeria. As a pacifist, he was so anguished by the Algerian
War that he said it affected him “as others feel pain in their legs.”
Like his counterpart
across the English Channel, George Orwell, Camus issued a clarion call for liberal
democracy when it was threatened by totalitarian regimes of both the left and
the right. The successors of these two writers are issuing their own warnings
about similar perils that confront our age, but so far they are going unheeded.
Maybe it’s time to re-read
Camus, to understand, as he demonstrated in his postwar novel The Plague
(much discussed at the outbreak of COVID-19), that withstanding pestilences, whether
the medical or political kind, requires eternal vigilance lest they return, but
ordinary people must maintain their resistance, no matter how great their
weariness.
(For a more extended
overview of how Camus balanced political activism with engaging with time “on
the smallest and most personal scale,” see Maria Popova’s June 2024 post from her blog “The Marginalian.”)
