"A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the newspapers." So pronounces Jean-Baptiste Clamence, narrator of Albert Camus's short novel during the first evening of a monologue he delivers to a stranger over drinks at a shabby Amsterdam watering hole. Then, during the course of several evenings, the narrator continues his musings uninterrupted; yes, that's right, completely uninterrupted, since his interlocutor says not a word. At one point Clamence states, "Alcohol and women provided me, I admit, the only solace of which I was worthy." Clamence, judge-penitent as he calls himself, speaks thusly because he has passed judgment upon himself and his life. His verdict: guilty on all counts.
And my personal reaction to Clamence's monologue? Let me start with a quote from Carl Jung: "I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success of money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon." Camus gives us a searing portrayal of a modern man who is the embodiment of spiritual poverty - morose, alienated, isolated, empty.
I would think Greco-Roman philosophers like Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius would challenge Clamence in his clams to know life: "I never had to learn how to live. In that regard, I already knew everything at birth.". Likewise, the wisdom masters from the enlightenment tradition -- such as Nagarjuna, Bodhidharma and Milarepa -- would have little patience listening to a monologue delivered by a smellfungus and know-it-all black bile stinker.
I completed my reading of the novel, a slow, careful reading as is deserving of Camus. The Fall is indeed a masterpiece of concision and insight into the plight of modern human experience.
Here is a quote from the Wikipedia review: "Clamence, through his confession, sits in permanent judgment of himself and others, spending his time persuading those around him of their own unconditional guilt."
Would you be persuaded?
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