Camus

[Pogue]

Anyone like his stuff? I read The Fall recently, I thought it was quality, I really like Camus's style.

Anyone else into the man?

[bricolage]

Yes he is very good although I've only really read the obvious stuff. I have a copy of the Rebel I found in a hotel and I've been lugging about for three odd years now which I'd still be interested in reading. To be honest Absurdism does seem the only philosophy that has ever really appealed to me.

[Pogue]

Yeh, to be honest I was more impressed with how he put his philosophy across than the actual philosophy itself.

[bricolage]

Yeah I do like it because maybe I'm just pretty dense but I find a lot of philosophy really hard to crack so I did like it how Camus manages to make things understandable whilst at the same time not dumming it down. At the same time though I do appreciate the philosophy itself.

[Pogue]

Nah I don't think it means your dense if you find it hard to get into the flow of it, I am a student of philosophy and I find alot of it hard to grapple with, I read The Fall as literature with philosophical underpinnings and found I enjoyed it in both respects.

[thejambo1]

i have read a couple of his and found them rather good. he is certainly worth a read and i am no philosophy student,so if i can like them anyone can!:)

[Pavlov's House Party]

I read "L'Etranger" not to long ago. It was a short, fantastic read, he basically sums up the philosophical message of the book in a monologue given by the protagonist at the end of the book. The way he conveys his pretty complicated ideas through stories is very entertaining.

[Holden Caulfield]

Stop reading Nietzsche, stop reading Camus, don't read Sartre and stop trying to be me. Because its impossible, I'm infinately better than everybody, including you :)

[Pogue]

Stop reading Nietzsche, stop reading Camus, don't read Sartre and stop trying to be me. Because its impossible, I'm infinately better than everybody, including you :)

Everyone on here knows you use audio books because northerners can't read, something about it being too dark in the mines to make out the words.

[BobKKKindle$]

Start reading Rousseau and forget the rest...

[Pawn Power]

I've read a lot of Camus, fiction and nonfiction, and enjoy his literary style and agree with some of his philosophical outlook.

However, recently I have come across Edward Said's analysis of Camus which seems quite accurate. He recognizes Camus' position as a part of a colonizing nation and stresses that we must view his witting in this context. In an interview with David Barsamian he says, "But what bothers me is that he [Camus] is read out of his own context, his own history. Camus's history is that of a colon, a pied noir. He was born and grew up in a place very close to a city in Algeria on the coast... It was made over into a French town in the 1880's and 1890's... His novels, in my opinion, are really expressions of the colonial predicament."

Said goes on to explain the examples from L'Etranger and La Peste where this is the case and says "My reading of Camus, and certainly of his later stories, starts with the fact that he, in the late 1950's, was very much opposed to independence or Algeria... He wasn't just a neutral observer. He was a commutted anti-partisan of the FLN."

Camus, in fact, stated "... as far as Alegeria is convernced, national independence is an emotional formulate. There has never yet been an Algerian nation."

[brigadista]

read Fanon

[Pogue]

read Fanon

care to elaborate comrade, for the purposes of discussion?

[spiltteeth]

I love Camus. 'The Plague' pretty much expresses how I feel like living in this world, when everythings shit, what attitude can you take?
Check out 'The Rebel' its not really philosophy, basically an easy interesting read on the history of Man's rebellion beginning with Sparticist. It's highly critical of Marxism, though not in some complex philosophical way, just common sense.
The Fall is my favorite though - his writing is so infectious. Plus his short stories.

Sartre's like this hyper-rational dude, Camus is the working man's philosopher.

[brigadista]

care to elaborate comrade, for the purposes of discussion?
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-XGKFJq4eccC&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=5&sig=ACfU3U3JAUQOmCHZCH60ceXdXVqbJM0LRw (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-XGKFJq4eccC&printsec=frontcover&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html)
on class race and colonialism - Fanon was from martinique- a philosopher and psychiatrist but also was involved with the liberation of Algeria from the French - this book was censored in France.. fascinating man fascinating writer

[Bilan]

Camus is amazing.
The Outsider is an amazing book, as is the Plague. I really enjoyed the Fall as well, and got one of my friends onto it. It's solid.

[Pogue]

aye the fall was idneed quality, very glad i read that, what should i read next of his? i've only read the fall.

[spiltteeth]

definitely read the plague next

[Pogue]

thanks :)