Abstract
albert camus opens his foundational essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, with a challenging and now-famous dictum: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”1 Almost twenty years after the publication of these words, the author died in a car accident, a death that resulted not from any nihilistic purpose of his own hand but from a fateful combination of uncertain road conditions and questionable automotive circumstances. As the above quotation suggests, death was a thematic cornerstone of Camus’s writings, and he spent most of his literary life articulating a moral philosophy surrounding this inevitability. Indeed, his writings, as well as his life, have gained meaning largely within the context of his death.
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Notes
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, trans. Justin O’Brien (New York: Vintage, 1955), 3.
Jean-Paul Sartre, “Albert Camus,” Situations, trans. Benita Eisler (New York: George Brazillier, 1965), 111–112.
The following account of Camus’s death is taken from Lottman’s seminal biography. See Herbert R. Lottman, Albert Camus (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979).
See also Patrick McCarthy’s Camus (New York: Random House, 1982).
For a fascinating study on the cultural appropriation of Orwell, see John Rodden, The Politics of Literary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of “St. George” Orwell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Donald Lazere, The Unique Creation of Albert Camus (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973), 236–237.
Albert Camus, The Rebel, trans. Anthony Bower (New York: Vintage, 1956).
Norman Podheretz, The Bloody Crossroads—Where Literature and Politics Meet (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986), 12.
Conor Cruise O’Brien, Albert Camus of Europe and Africa (New York: Viking, 1970), 75.
Conor Cruise O’Brien, Passion and Cunning: Essays on Nationalism, Terrorism and Revolution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 250.
Germaine Brée, Camus (New York: Harbinger, 1964), 28.
William Barrett, Time of Need: Forms of Imagination in the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 50.
Michael Harrington, The Accidental Century (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 167 and 169.
See, for instance, Robert Greer Cohn, “Sartre-Camus Resartus,” Yale French Studies 30, University Press of New Haven, 1963 (reprint, Kraus: New York, 1962);
Bernard Murchland, “Sartre and Camus: The Anatomy of a Quarrel,” in Choice of Action: The French Existentialists on the Political Front Line, trans. Michel-Antoine Burnier (New York: Random House, 1968), 175–194;
Germaine Brée, Camus and Sartre: Crisis and Commitment (New York: Delta-Dell, 1972);
and Donald Lazere, “American Criticism of the Sartre-Camus Debate: A Chapter in the Cold War,” in Arthur Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1981). Brée’s is perhaps the most extensive study of the intellectual and political differences behind Camus and Sartre. Lazere’s, on the other hand, is the most revealing account of the Cold Warriors’ use of the debate.
Germaine Brée, “Introduction,” in Germaine Breé, ed., A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1962), 2.
Emmett Parker clearly illustrates that “Neither Victim nor Executioner,” not The Rebel, was the first of Camus’s works to draw serious ideological reaction. See Emmett Parker, Albert Camus: The Artist in the Arena (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965).
Jean-Paul Sartre, “Reply to Camus,” Situations, trans. Benita Eisler (New York: George Braziller, 1965), 71.
Albert Camus, State of Siege. Caligula and Three Other Plays, trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Vintage, 1958), 205.
Albert Camus, The Plague, trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Modern Library, 1948), 197.
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, trans. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1980), 48.
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© 2001 Mikita Brottman
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Royal, D.P. (2001). Rebel with a Cause. In: Brottman, M. (eds) Car Crash Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-09321-9_25
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