Moya LONGSTAFFE, The Fiction of Albert Camus. A Complex Simplicity, Oxford / Bern / Berlin / Bruxelles / Francfort-sur-le-Main / New York / Vienne, Peter Lang (Modern French Identities), 2007, 300 p.
ISBN 978-3-03910-304-1
US-ISBN 978-0-8204-7229-4
SUMMARY
This book takes a fresh look at the novels and short stories of Albert Camus, from his early attempt at a first novel, La Mort heureuse, to the largely autobiographical Le Premier homme, unfinished at the time of his death. It seeks to see the oeuvreas a totality, coherent throughout, and examines the linkages andtransformations from one work to the next, in the context of Camus'sthought, attitudes and topoi or themes. The development of narrativetechniques is examined, ranging from laconism to lyricism, fromallegorism to realism, from humour to biting satire. The author tracesthe influence on Camus's thought of philosophers and thinkers asdiverse as Nietzsche and the pre-Socratics on the one hand, and StAugustine, Pascal, and Simone Weil on the other, and considers thecircularity of his work, from the early preoccupation with the finalityof death and the search for meaning to the return to the origin andsource in Le Premier homme. The enduring appeal of Camus's work is attributed to its humane openness and its challenges for our time.
CONTENTS
Sisyphus' Stone
The Gods of Happiness. La Mort heureuse
A Happy Life and a Happy Death. L'Étranger
Voices in a Time of Plague. La Peste
A Sojourn in the Circles of Hell. La Chute
The Landscapes of Solitude. L'Exil et le Royaume
Sailing to Ithaca. Le Premier homme
Adam's Tale Retold.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Moya Longstaffe studied in Queen's University, Belfast, and theuniversities of Montpellier and Heidelberg. She has taught in a numberof universities in England, Scotland, Ireland and France, and is atpresent an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Ulster.Previous publications include a number of articles on Camus and avolume on Corneille, Stendhal and Claudel.