Content area
Full Text
A lecturer in French explores the sense of the Absolute to be found in Camus' writings. `It can be seen in many of his descriptions of nature and in the quest for authenticity that marked his journey through life.'
Camus is generally regarded as one of the brightest stars in twentieth century French letters. He became unpopular in his own time among his erstwhile Communist allies for his outspoken comments on totalitarian regimes, but people are now beginning to see how courageous a stand he took in denouncing what he saw as the excesses of Soviet expansionism. His existentialist contemporary, Sartre, did not engage in the politics of Stalin-denunciation because he would lose many of his supporters. Bryan Appleyard, in a thoughtful article on Camus entitled `The lone voice of sanity' (Sunday Times, October 1997), noted wistfully that it was Sartre who came to dominate French intellectual life in the 40s and 50s, while Camus was ostracised. After structuralism came post-structuralism and deconstruction, ideologies that changed the whole face of literary appreciation and criticism in France and elsewhere. Form became everything: 'isms' held sway in a remarkable fashion. Mr Appleyard analyses the fruits of this: Hypnotised by these complex, radical and frequently incomprehensible systems, students and teachers turned against the humane, moral impulses of the Enlightenment, adopting instead a hermetic, anti-humanist and pseudo-scientific language that dismissed the pursuit of meaning and purpose as bourgeois constructs. From my studies of French literature, I must say that I never warmed to structuralism or poststructuralism, which I saw as deliberately obtuse and precious systems. Hence, I agree with the views expressed above. Despite being cast aside during his own lifetime by Sartre et al, Camus still remained steadfastly true to his belief in the dignity of the human spirit. History has a way of demonstrating and proving the validity of certain stances and opinions. Camus' biographer, Olivier Todd, notes: Camus was opposed to `revolutionary imperialism' and to Nazi or Fascist imperialism. Few other leftists dared to write as Camus did in 1939 that `today the USSR can be classed among the countries that prey on others'.' This was a brave pronouncement indeed at a time when over thirty per cent of the French electorate supported the...