a wonderful book, even better than "the stranger".
.....
Barely more than a hundred pages, "The Fall" represents Albert Camus' ultimate foray into the recesses of psychic anguish. Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a once-respected and successful Paris barrister, sits alone in an Amsterdam bar delivering his stark monologue to an unknown listener. It is a confessional narrative, a tale in which Clamence slowly unravels the spare facts of his life, his deceptions, his inauthenticity, his bad faith.
As he sits in the dimly lit bar, Clamence makes the locus of his telling a metaphor for the narrative to follow: "We are at the heart of things here. Have you noticed that Amsterdam's concentric canals resemble the circles of hell? The middle-class hell, of course, peopled with bad dreams. When one comes from the outside, as one gradually goes throught those circles, life-and hence its crimes-becomes denser, darker. Here we are in the last circle." It is a metaphor that resonates with existential imagery, reminiscent of Sartre's claim, in "No Exit", that "hell is other people." From this grim place, Camus writes a classic of Existentialist literature, building on this metaphor, writing an extended trope of unremitting self-examination, self-doubt and anguish.
Clamence was, by all outward appearances, both a virtuous and a modest man. His courtesy was famous and beyond question. He was generous in public and private, literally exulting at the approach of a beggar. He helped the blind man cross the street and the indigent defendant secure a reduced sentence. He ended his afternoons at the café with "a brilliant improvisation in the company of several friends on the hard-heartedness of our governing class and the hypocrisy of our leaders."
But appearances give lie to the truth, for the truth in "The Fall" is that life has no meaning, that it is full of ennui, and that people act unthinkingly, inauthentically, habitually. Thus, Clamence reflects on a man he knew, a man "who gave twenty years of his life to a scatter-brained woman, sacrificing everything to her," only to realize in the end that he never loved her. How does Clamence explain this? "He had been bored, that's all, bored like most people." And from this boredom, the man married and created "a life full of complications and drama." For, as Clamence suggests, "something must happen-and that explains most human commitments."
Clamence describes himself, too, as "a double face, a charming Janus," for his motives and feelings, his very psyche, belie his outward virtue. While outwardly supporting the poor and downtrodden, he is "well aware that one can't get along without dominating or being served, [for] every man needs slaves as he needs fresh air." While known as a defender of justice, a great Parisian lawyer, his "true desire" is not "to be the most intelligent or the most generous creature on earth, but only to beat anyone [he] wanted to, to be the stronger." While professing deep love and affection for the many women in his life, he is a misogynist who "never loved any of them." As Clamence cynically suggests, "true love is exceptional, [occurring] two or three times a century more or less. The rest of the time there is vanity or boredom."
"The Fall" is a little novel that makes the reader ponder big questions, questions of meaning and existence and death, of how we live our lives and of what motivates our actions. It is, in other words, a novel that articulates the open-ended questioning characteristic of the French Existentialism of the 1940s and 1950s. But it is more than that, for it is also perhaps the finest work of one of France's greatest Twentieth Century authors, a work that deserves to be read, re-read and pondered.
- posted on 12/23/2009
卡繆在一九五○年的《筆記》中,為自己的寫作規劃訂下三個主題:「1.薛西弗斯的神話(荒謬)— 2.普羅米修斯的神話(反抗)— 3. 涅墨西斯的神話」,但是在第三階段並未寫下思想主題。本論文嘗試以「荒謬」、「反抗」與薛西弗斯和普羅米修斯的關係上去推敲其未言明的內容。涅墨西斯在《反抗者》一書的最後章節裡,代表著一種「節制」的精神,而這個精神正是延續著「反抗」階段的生活態度。本論文結合了卡繆的「限度」與涅墨西斯的形象,得出卡繆的三階段寫作計畫則變成:「1.薛西弗斯的神話(荒謬)— 2.普羅米修斯的神話(反抗)— 3. 涅墨西斯的神話(限度)。」
此外,在卡繆對於「存在」與「荒謬」的討論中,隨著每一階段的體驗不同,「反抗」有著不同的表現模式,以及不同的追求目標。因此,論文的討論範疇則從卡繆的兩本哲學論述著作(《薛西弗斯的神話》、《反抗者》)出發,試圖找出各階段的「反抗」邏輯。再者,透過古希臘神話故事人物的形象(薛西弗斯、普米修斯、涅墨西斯),推論出卡繆所描述的「反抗」三種模式(荒謬、反抗、限度),並且更進一步推演卡繆的「反抗」進程。本論文共分四個章節:第一章「反抗」的萌芽與形成,描述「反抗」的歷史性;第二章「反抗」的內涵,與第三章「反抗」的形式則分別從兩種文學模式,兩本哲學論述,以及三本小說(《異鄉人》、《瘟疫》、《墮落》)的作品來討論卡繆的「反抗」;最後,第四章「反抗」的時代意義,透過卡繆的生平經歷,來討論「反抗」之於卡繆的實踐與主張。 - Re: Albert Camus and The Fallposted on 12/23/2009
卡繆對文學的貢獻是無容置疑的,在現代小說中,他和卡夫卡、紀德、杜思妥也夫斯基…等人被公認為最具獨立性的小說。《墮落》是卡繆的最後一部小說,旨在寫出面對罪惡的現代人的良知,是一另類的懺悔錄;在書中,卡繆每自擬為一「懺悔審判者」,可說是卡繆對自己思想的總剖釋。因其文體獨特,故坊間鮮少有譯本或相關論述。它衝破傳統小說的結構,流瀉於字裡行間的是一些「設計的紊亂」、隨想、獨白、囈語;文字優美流暢,但語氣尖刻,充滿警句和似是而非的雋語。
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