Forty nine years after the death of Albert Camus (car accident, January 4, 1960), the debate continues: was Camus an existentialist? Or was he an absurdist?
Camus refuted both labels, but maybe these two terms did define him. Existentialists are often funny by accident. Absurdists, by nature, are supposed to be funny. Camus was funny.
Here are some quotes from The Fall, his 1956 confessional-style novel, which he published one year before winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, and four years before his death in a car accident. Here goes:
* There are always reasons for murdering a man. On the contrary, it is impossible to justify his living.
* Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face.
* ...style, like sheer silk, too often hides eczema.
* I had principles, to be sure, such as that the wife of a friend is sacred. But I simply ceased quite sincerely, a few days before, to feel any friendship for the husband.
* ...I don't believe there is a single person I loved that I didn't eventually betray. Of course, my betrayals didn't stand in the way of my fidelity...
* He (the Lord) simply wanted to be loved, nothing more. Of course, there are those who love him, even among Christians.
* One plays at being immortal and after a few weeks one doesn't even know whether or not one can hang on till the next day.
* A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.
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