The Fall by Albert Camus - Notes and Comments

     Camus is one of, if not my all-time favorite author.  My comments could never suffice to replace or substitute his works which is why this blogpost is not, and should not be considered, an essay or a book report or any kind of analysis.  It is merely brief commentary.  For a works such as those of Camus, there can be no Sparqnotes or thinking that reading these selected notations would suffice reading the primary text itself.  Such a substitution without the proper context would never be able to deliver the ambiance, emotion, inspiration, or the majesty that is commanded by each of the pages Camus has written. 
     With that said this The Fall is beautifully written, and that is a severe understatement.  It is a brief 147 pages that tells it how it is, pulls at your heart strings, makes you think, and will undoubtedly inspire you to more deeply consider and reconsider the world you live in and the people you interact with as well as the way you interact with them.  There is not an adjective in the English language that can express my praise for this book so a simple verb/predicate will have to do... "Read It"
 

The Fall by Albert Camus

“an irresistibly brilliant examination of modern conscience” – The New York Time (Cover)

“Some were dreadfully insulted, and quite seriously, to have held up as a model such an immoral character as A Hero of Our Time; others shrewdly noticed that the author had portrayed himself and his acquaintances … A Hero of Our Time, gentlemen, is in fact a portrait, but not of an individual; it is the aggregate of the vices of our whole generation in their fullest expression”  - Lermontov (inside cover)

“when one has no character one has to apply a method” (11)

“…those islands where men die mad and happy” (14)

“the avidity which in our society substitutes for ambition has always made me laugh” (20)

“to tell the truth, just from being so fully and simply a man, I looked upon myself as something of a superman” (28)

“I was at ease in everything, to be sure, but at the same time satisfied with nothing” (29-30)

“may heaven protect us… from being set on a pedestal by our friends!  Those whose duty is to love us – I mean relatives and connections (what an expression!) – are another matter” (31)

“…he can’t love without self-love” (34)

“something must happen – and that explains most human commitments.  Something must happen, even loveless slavery, even war or death.  Hurray then for funerals!” (37)

“If pimps and thieves were invariably sentenced, all decent people would get to thinking they themselves were constantly innocent… and in my opinion… that’s what must be avoided above all.  Otherwise, everything would be just a joke” (41)

“when the body is sad the hear languishes” (42)

“every man needs slaves as he needs fresh air… the essential thing, after all, is being able to get angry with someone who has no right to talk back.  ‘One doesn’t talk back to one’s father’ – you know the expression?” (44-45)

“we no longer say as in simple times:  ‘this is the way I think.  What are your objections?’  we have become lucid.  For the dialogue we have substituted the communiqué:  ‘this is the truth,’ we say” (45)

“yes, hell must be like that:  streets filled with shop signs and no way of explaining oneself.  One is classified once and for all” (47)

“their guilt made me eloquent because was not its victim” (56)

“after a certain age every man is responsible for his face” (57)

“true love is exceptional – two or three times a century, more or less.  The rest of the time there is vanity or boredom” (57)

“our feminine friends have in common with Bonaparte the belief that they can succeed where everyone else has failed” (59)

“but a certain genus, the worst and most unhappy, cries: ‘don’t love me and be faithful to me!’” (63)

“the act of love, for instance, is a confession.  Selfishness screams aloud, vanity shows off, or else true generosity reveals itself” (65)

“no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures” (66)

“I have no more friends; I have nothing but accomplices” (73)

“martyrs… must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of.  As for being understood – never!” (76)

“…punishment without judgment is bearable.  It has a name, besides, that guarantees our innocence:  it is called misfortune” (77)

“I realized that there was in them an irresistible vocation for judgment” (78)

“Then you know that Dante accepts the idea of neutral angels in the quarrel between God and Stat.  And he puts them in Limbo, a sort of vestibule of his Hell.  We are in this vestibule” (84)

“your success and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.  But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others.  Consequently, there is no escape.  Happy and judged, or absolved and wretched”  (80)

“each of us insists on being innocent at all costs, even if he has to accuse the whole human race and heaven itself” (81)

“wealth… is not quite acquittal, but reprieve, and that’s always worth taking” (82)

“above all, don’t believe your friends when they ask you to be sincere with them.. they merely hope you will encourage them in the good opinion they have of themselves…” (82)

“a liking for truth at any cost is a passion that spares nothing and that nothing resists” (83)

“what we call basic truths are simply the ones we discover after all the others” (84)

“a ridiculous fear pursued me, in fact:  one could not die without having confessed all one’s lies” (89-90)

“’true love’ stories, though they taught how to talk of love, did not teach how to make love.  After having loved a parrot, I had to go to bed with a serpent” (100)

“but truth… is a colossal bore” (101)

“at a certain degree of lucid intoxication… the mind dominates the whole past, and the pain of living is over forever” (102)

“bourgeois marriage has put our country into slippers and will soon lead it to the gates of death” (106)

“I had to submit and admit my guild” (109)

“we cannot assert the innocence of anyone, whereas we can state with certainty the guilt of all” (110)

“religions are on the wrong track the moment they moralize and fulminate commandments.  God is not needed to create guilt of to punish.  Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves” (110)

“Don’t wait for the Last Judgment.  It takes place every day.” (111)

“in certain cases, carrying on, merely continuing, is superhuman.  And he was not superhuman, you can take my word for it.  He cried aloud his agony and that’s why I love him” (114)

“the unfortunate thing is that he left us alone, to carry on, whatever happens, even when we are lodged in the little-ease, knowing in turn what he knew, but incapable of doing what he did and of dying like him” (114)

“too many people have decided to do without generosity in order to practice charity” (114)

“he left forever, leaving them to judge and condemn, with pardon on their lips and the sentence in their hearts” (116)

“but the keenest of human torments is to be judged without law” (117)

“what does it matter whether they are true or false if, in both cases, they are significant of what I have been and what I am?” (119)

“a hundred and fifty years ago, people became sentimental about lakes and forests.  Today we have the lyricism of the prison cell” (123-124)

“empires and churches are born under the sun of death” (127)

“no excuses ever, for anyone… I deny the good intention, the respectable mistake, the indiscretion, the extenuating circumstance… I am for any theory that refuses to grant man innocence and for any practice that treats him as guilty” (131-132)

“at the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that’s why freedom is too heavy to bear” (133)

“for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.  Hence one must choose a master, God being out of style” (133)

“they cannot keep themselves from judging, they make up for it by moralizing” (134)

“they rush out to build piles of faggots to replace churches” (135)

“death is solitary, whereas slavery is collective” (136)

“I show it with great sorrow:  ‘this, alas, is what I am!’  The prosecutor’s charge is finished” (140)

“I was the lowest of the low… this is what we are” (140)

“I was wrong, after all, to tell you that the essential was to judgment.  The essential is being able to permit oneself everything, even if, from time to time, one  has to profess one’s own infamy” (141)

“only, the confession of my crimes allows me to begin again lighter in heart and to taste a double enjoyment, first of my nature and secondly of a charming repentance” (142)

“I pity without absolving, I understand without forgiving, and above all, I feel at last that I am being adored!” (143)

“you would be flabbergasted if a chariot came down from heaven to carry me off, or if the snow suddenly caught fire.  You don’t believe it?  Nor do I.” (146)

“O young woman, throw yourself into the water again so that I may a second time have the chance of saving both of us!”  (147)

“the water is so cold!  But let’s not worry!  It’s too late not.  It will always be too late.  Fortunately!” (147)