miniZibaldone

The Plague by Albert Camus 'In short, this epidemic has done him proud. Of a lonely man who hated loneliness it has made an accomplice. Yes, 'accomplice' is the word that fits, and doesn't he relish his complicity! He is happily at one with all around him, with their superstitions, their groundless panics, the susceptibilities of people whose nerves are always on the stretch; with their fixed idea of talking the least possible about plague and nevertheless talking of it all the time; with their abject terror at the slightest headache, now they know headache to be an early symptom of the disease; and, lastly, with their frayed, irritable sensibility that takes offense at trifling oversights and brings tears to their eyes over the loss of a trouser-button.' [. . .]  And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the plague was ended.  It must, however, be admitted that our fellow citizens' reactions during that...

The blind man who goes out at night between one o'clock  and four with another blind friend. Because like that they are sure of not meeting anyone in the street. If they bump into a lamppost, they can laugh in comfort. They do. Whereas by day, other people's pity prevents them from laughing. "I ought to write," says the blind man. "But no one's interested. What interests people in a book are the signs of a sorrowful existence. And our lives are never like that."   To write, one must always remain just this side of the words (rather than go beyond them). In any case, no gossip. The "real" experience of loneliness is one of the least literary there is — a thousand miles away from the idea of loneliness that you get from books. Cf. the degradation involved in all forms of suffering. One must not give in to emptiness. Try to conquer and "fulfill." Time — don't waste it. —Albert Camus

You have to encounter love before you encounter morality; otherwise, it is agony.                                                                                                —Albert Camus It is in Him that I hope, before counting my errors and my virtues. Numbers have nothing to do with this. In the relationship with Him, numbers don’t count, the weight that is measured or measurable is irrelevant, and all the evil I can possibly do in the future has no relevance either. It cannot usurp the first place that this yes of Simon, repeated by me, has before the eyes of Christ. So a kind of flood comes from the depths of our heart, like a breath that rises from the breast and pervades the whole person, making it act, making it want to act more ju...

Notebooks, 1935-1942 (Volume 1) Albert Camus Notebooks, 1942-1951 (Volume 2) Albert Camus  Notebooks, 1951-1959 (Volume 3) Albert Camus  Neither Victims nor Executioners: An Ethic Superior to Murder Albert Camus Loving the Church Raniero Cantalamessa  The World Beyond Your Head Matthew Crawford  If I Live to be 100 Neenah Ellis  Interview with History Oriana Fallaci  The Rage and the Pride Oriana Fallaci  Zibaldone Giacomo Leopadri  The Sound and the Story Thomas Looker  Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud and James Putnam an the Purpose of American Psychology George Prochnik  Pavel Florensky: A Quiet Genius Avril Pyman  The Waverley Novels: The Betrothed Sir Walter Scott  Consilience Edward Wilson    Flying Visits Clive James

The theme of comedy is also important. What saves us from our worst suffering is the feeling that we are abandoned and alone, and yet not sufficiently alone for "other people" to stop "sympathizing with us" in our unhappiness. It is in this sense that moments of happiness are often those when we are lifted up into an endless sadness by the feeling that everyone has forsaken us. Also in this sense that happiness is often only the self-pitying awareness of our unhappiness. This is very noticeable among the poor —God put self-pity by the side of despair like the cure by the side of the disease. When I was young, I expected people to give me more than they could —continuous friendship, permanent emotion. Now I have learned to expect less of them than they can give —a silent companionship. And their emotions, their friendship, and noble gestures keep their full miraculous value in my eyes; wholly the fruit of grace.

L:kLB3, H:aStb, H:dSt, H:aSt, H:cS2b The First Man Albert Camus The Plague by Albert Camus  The Stranger by Albert Camus Lyrical and Critical Essays by Albert Camus The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos Monsieur Ouine by Georges Bernanos The Impostor by Georges Bernanos Under Satan's Sky by Georges Bernanos gratis Giles Bernanos

The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov The First Man Albert Camus Cold Mountain Charles Frazier Small Change Yehudit Hendel   Canti Giacomo Leopardi    

Lyrical and Critical Essays by  Albert Camus Preface 1958 [by Albert Camus] The essays collected in this volume were written in 1935 and 1936 (I was then twenty-two) and published a year later in Algeria in a very limited edition. This edition has been unobtainable for a long time and I have always refused to have   The Wrong Side and the Right Side   reprinted. There are no mysterious reasons for my stubbornness. I reject nothing of what these writings express, but their form has always seemed clumsy to me. The prejudices on art I cherish in spite of myself (I shall explain them further on) kept me for a long time from considering their republication. A great vanity, it would seem, leading one to suppose that my other writings satisfy every standard. Need I say this isn’t so? I am only more aware of the inadequacies in   The Wrong Side and the Right Side   than of those in my other work. How can I explain this except by admitting that the...

Lyrical and Critical Essays by Albert Camus Introduction [by editor, Philip Thody] A LTHOUGH   Camus’s greatest achievements as a creative writer are undoubtedly to be found in his novels and his plays, his literary career nevertheless both began and ended with the publication of a volume of essays. Between the appearance of   L’Envers et l’Endroit   in 1937 and the publication of his Nobel Prize speeches in 1958, he developed and extended his use of the essay form to express both his personal attitude toward life and certain artistic values. He also wrote articles on political topics, and a selection of these, under the title   Actuelles , takes up three volumes of his complete works. But these articles, however perfect their style, did not really fall under Camus’s definition of the essay. For him, it was first and foremost what its etymology suggests: an attempt to express something, a trying out of ideas and forms, an experiment. It was not a polemi...

When he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, Albert Camus wrote a letter to his elementary school teacher. I have just been given far too great an honour, one I neither sought nor solicited.  But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened. I don’t make too much of this sort of honour. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.