/lit/ - Literature

>>18175312
He just refused to express any more than he thought or felt in any given moment. He was willing to be existentially uncertain and live without appeals to the unfalsifiable, which makes his very existence offensive to those who are clinging to value judgements, who need his reactions to be such and such. "He didn't cry at his mother's funeral" stood in place for "Well he's obviously a bad guy and intended to kill then" because people do not actually need information in order to hold you accountable for their emotions.

That is an excellent intro to absurdism. Pick up the fall next.

>>18175329
good post

>>18175312
I DON'T CARE, I LOVE IT

>>18175329
In English, Doc.

Arab had it coming

>>18175404
Truth, whatever that is, is unwelcome in this world and trying to search for it is an act of rebellion for which the world will become very threatened.

>>18175420
>>18175329
Probably just wrote OP's essay for him.

>>18175329
I loved the stranger but thought The Plague was only good. Will I like The Fall?

>>18175435
The Fall is by far the best of his work. Fuck sisyphus. Let the struggle fill your heart. Push forward in spite of the absurd human condition. Picture sisyphus happy. Blah blah.

The fall is such a goddamn beautiful depiction of the human condition. I won't even bother trying to break it down. This guy does it well enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Id9iuwYCI

>>18175420
Did Meursault actually try to search for Truth or a-priori resign himself to the notion that the search itself is ill-fated?
It's not that he's obviously a bad guy, it's that his sullen resignation contributed to his murdering a man and then to his death. His philosophy does not paint a meaningful-enough vision of human life and consciousness; his decision to instead abstain entirely and (now through Camus) look down upon or otherwise meaninglessly question those that attempt to live their life towards a purpose greater than themselves is only the natural conclusion and self-termination of his own philosophy. Meursault and Camus are life-denying.

>A philosophical cohort of Unamuno, Dienstag, and Brashear is the French existentialist writer Albert Camus. In his essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Camus represents the unattainable goal of the title figure as an apologetic for going on with life rather than ending it. As he insists in his discussion of this gruesome parable, “We must imagine Sisyphus as happy” as he rolls his boulder to the top of mountain from which it always tumbles down again and again and again to his despair. The credo of the Church Father Tertullian, “I believe because it is absurd,” might justly be placed in the context of Camus’s belief that being alive is all right, or all right enough, though it may be absurd. Indeed, the connection has not been overlooked. Caught between theirrationality of the Carthaginian and the intellectuality of the Frenchman, Zapffe’s proposal that we put out the light of the human race extends to us an antidote for our existential infirmities that is infinitely more satisfying than that of either Tertullian or his avatar Camus, the latter of whom meditated on suicide as a philosophical issue for the individual yet did not entertain the advantages of an all-out attrition of the species. By not doing so, one might conclude that Camus was only being practical. In the end, though, his insistence that we must imagine Sisyphus as happy is as impractical as it is feculent. Like Unamuno, Dienstag, and Brashear, Camus believed we can assume a view of life that can content us with the tragedy, nightmare, and meaninglessness of human existence. Camus may have been able to assume this view of life before his life ended in a vehicular misadventure, but he must have been jesting to pose it as a possibility or a duty for the world.

>>18175495
conclusion: Camus btfo

>>18175487
He didn't have to do either, he just has to be unsatisfied with untruth. What remains is a horrifying void that people will not allow into their consciousness and will violently rject.

>>18175480
Thanks anon! I'll add it to the list

>>18175487
>>18175487
Dude you're drawing a lot of conclusions that are not there to draw. Mersault never said he had a philosophy. see>>18175541

>>18175495
Just because it makes you feel bad feelings does not mean truth must be elsewhere.

>>18175312
fun fact, i read this book and literally understood nothing of his ideology/philosophy. I just liked the book and the style in which it was written. The simplicity and the *dont care* french summer mood. Any more books like this?

>>18175583
I hate you

>>18175480
You should kill yourself. The fall is easily his weakest work.

>>18175597
don't care; i guess that makes me "The Stranger" after all.. ;)

>>18175608
Strong argument.

>>18175622
It's not an argument, you're just a faggot.

>>18175655
No u

>>18175541
>>18175563
To be unsatisfied with untruth presupposes that the truth that people claim to have found is false; that is exactly the resignation I was referring to. Meursault and Camus presuppose the non-existence of such truth out of infantile (though understandable in the contemporary milieu) empiricist demands. Camus disregards outside meaning and then exhorts meaning from the self. Thought along this line is reducible to the cope of having your cake and eating it too.

Camus is neither the first nor the most eloquent and convincing that espouses this. In philosophy it had been around for a hundred years, and in literature a couple decades prior Quentin and his father in The Sound and the Fury not only more succinctly and convincingly describe this idea but then simply and appropriately follow it to it's conclusion. Again, self-defeating. "Temporary." Dressing it up with a new name does not make it more profound or correct.

>>18175312
>first thing he does after his mother’s wedding is grope his gf’s small tits
>covers for his sketchy friend after he beats his whore of a Moroccan gf
>is racist af
>shoots Arab because there was glare in his eyes
>doesn’t apologize even after being given the choice to walk free
>dies
Mersault was an absolute Chad

On the topic of Camus, I'm reading Myth of Sisyphus. Is it supposed to be randomly generated words with a couple of memorable quotes? Perhaps because I read it when I was a bit tired, but it makes very little sense for a couple of pages, until he makes it clear for a sentence, only to go back into random text.

>>18176186
It seemed pretty clear to me when I read it. I had to flip back to a few key passages I stickied every so often, but other than it was pretty easy to follow.

>>18176186
It's supposed to be absurd. That's the whole schtick.

>>18175613
Oh shit, he understands the book now

>>18175480
Fuck you Clifford Lee Faggot

>>18175312
i don't care so much i wrote a book about it