Albert Camus: Death At The Meridian

Abstract

“The great question as to a poet or novelist is,” Henry James once said, “How does he feel about life ? What, in the last analysis, is his philosophy? When vigorous writers have reached maturity, we are at liberty to gather from their works some expression of a total view of the world they have been so actively observing. This is the most interesting thing their works offer us. Details are interesting in proportion as they contribute to make it clear.”¹ In the case of philosophical writers, of poets and novelists whose work is centrally directed toward metaphysical questions, the relevance of James’ remark is intensified in several ways, and also rendered strikingly complex. The philosophical novelist is not only concerned with issues generated out of the essential terms of our existence, he is self-consciously committed to creating a work of art whose very character expresses the urgency of his quest. A philosophical novel, let us say, is about itself; it is a meta-literary performance which reveals the triple bond that compels author, characters, and reader to come to terms with themselves and each other. That bond is an existential commitment to self-justification, to engaging impossible questions and to the despair of an enterprise that is destined to perpetual renewal. Philosophy becomes the conscience of art.