Albert Camus: The Fall A Review
July 19, 2007
A Review Of
The Fall
by
Albert Camus
by R.E. Prindle
This novel goes to show that you can fool all the people all the time.
The cover blurb of my edition has the New York Times yodeling: ‘An irresistably brilliant examination of the modern conscience.’ which is complete and total nonsense. This isn’t even the examination of anyone’s conscience.
Camus was a French Jew from Algeria then living in France. He was not an Algerian Jew as the Jews of Algeria were made French citizens in the revolution of 1830. This distinction is important.
The Fall Camus is talking about is the post-Enlightenment destruction of the religious basis for considering the Jews as a Chosen People, or rather, The Chosen People. In Jewish mythology the world is organized God>Jews>the rest of humanity>the animal kingdom. As Camus was not unintelligent he realized that without God the Jews had no special status. HIs purpose here is to reestablish a reason for Jewish superiority over the rest of mankind. Thus he creates Jean-Baptiste Clamence as his spokesman to represent Jewry originating the role of judge-penitent for him and them.
Clamence is not an admirable person. Never was, never can be. His extreme arrogance before the Fall is characteristic of the Jewish people. The Fall was undoubtedly the extermination of Jews during WWII. While Hitler is given sole credit for the dirty work, in the Jewish mind they were rejected by the whole world. One should not underestimate the effect on the Jewish mind of the turning back of the St. Louis from Cuba. These facts were devastating.
Camus’ Clamence thus felt degraded by the Fall from confidence. He becomes libertine, criminal, degenerate, taking up his abode in the criminal quarter of Amsterdam which he seems to equate with the most criminal place in the world. He is a penitent. There in sackcloth and ashes. It is precisely because he knows extreme degradation, having once been of God’s Chosen People, that he has appointed himself a judge over all the peoples of the world.
He- the Jews- have regained their imagined position of the Chosen People through extreme debasement and degradation.
That is why they have made the Holocaust the central feature of their new identity. Their God rejected them, once again, allowing the Nazis to destroy them. Thus the Holocaust replaces God. If the Holocaust is not sacred to them and honored by the rest of the world, as their God once was, then they not only lose their place as the Chosen People but have no chance of regaining it.
That is the import of Camus’ The Fall. The book has nothing to do with an examination of the ‘modern conscience’, which is to say my conscience. I reject Camus. I reject his book. I reject his situation. He and it have nothing in common with me. His problem is not a universal problem as the NY Times states. Camus’ book is merely a tedious rendition of someone else’s angst that has nothing to do with me or mine.
End Of Review
http://idynamo.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/part-i-the-deconstruction-of-edgar-rice-burroughsamerica/
May 8, 2008 at 3:22 pm
a) Camus was not Jewish.
b) Are you making this up as you go?
May 8, 2008 at 3:42 pm
You have no name so I can’t take you seriously.
a. Camus was Jewish.
b. Are you making this up as you go is not a criticism. Be specific. I can’t respond to a mere insult.
July 21, 2008 at 9:52 pm
This is one of the worst attempts to understand camus’ works I have read, and no he is not Jewish.
July 21, 2008 at 11:11 pm
It’s not the worst I’ve read by a long shot lolubad. I wrote it a long time ago and would rewrite it today except for the fact that it is my most popular piece and rolls right along. So, whether it’s good or bad it’s popular.
August 4, 2008 at 7:20 am
“I reject Camus. I reject his book. I reject his situation. He and it have nothing in common with me. His problem is not a universal problem as the NY Times states. Camus’ book is merely a tedious rendition of someone else’s angst that has nothing to do with me or mine.”
A crappy conclusion for a terrible review.
—–
If only you had understood the book, the review could have been better.
Honestly, the book has nothing AT ALL to do with Jewish people in particular. More than that, many of your comments on Jewish people are offensive/false.
Your review is popular in the same way as the fattest girl in school – and no, she does not need to be Jewish.
——
Taken from the web:
“It is essential to note that Camus was raised in the Catholic tradition, however widely he distanced himself from it in later life; he was not Jewish as some have thought, perhaps confusing Camus with Elie Wiesel.
In all his work, Camus deals with the dilemma posed by the injustices suffered by all humanity. Believing himself faced with the choice between an all-powerful God who allows man’s inhumanity to man and a benevolent God who seems powerless to prevent injustice, Camus chose no God at all.” (Sonia Wolfe)
August 4, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Pequod: Fat girls are some of my best friends and I won’t have them defamed. An apology is in order.
That you don’t like the review is no problem to me, I didn’t expect it to be liked although it must strike a chord in the The Fall’s readers because the response is terrific.
The genesis of the review is that I was involved in Arthur Miller studies. Miller was heavily influenced by Camus, who if I remember correctly accepted Camus as a fellow Jew, so I felt obligated to read The Fall. Needless to say I found the book contemptible.
I bought my copy from Amazon where I ran through the numerous customer reviews. I couldn’t believe we had all been reading the same piece of garbage. What trash. I don’t like Camus anyway although the only other thing I’ve read is The Plague.
Anyway, I wrote my review to set them straight. The reaction on Amazon was almost electric. I had about fifty responses in short order that were running five to one unhelpful vs. helpful. A review was shortly written that abjured people to not pay attention to my review.
I knew there was behind the scenes activity and sure enough one day my review disappeared and that without any notice from Amazon. Needless to say Amazon and I are no longer friends. So your side, Pequod, are merely sourpusses who censor whatever critcizes them. I’m sure that you can see that the opinions of such people have no relevance to me.
Whether my comments concerning the Jewish aspect of the book are offensive, they are not false. They merely contradict your own opionions so you wish them censored. As I say, I would rewrite the review differently today dealing with the content of the book in more detail and more effectively.
If you wish to make some specific criticisms of the review unrelated to ‘fat girls’ or ad hominem arguments I’d be happy to answer them.
May 25, 2009 at 2:47 am
It doesn’t matter if Camus was a jew- it’s about them (the jews). It’s also about fat girls and whoever else you want it to be about. You won’t agree with me because clearly you believe in some sort of objective reality (even if it is limited to the volume of the book). My personal outlook on the subject allows me to accept your position without agreeing with it, in fact I think that he wrote this book about you.
It “struck a chord” in the minds of readers because you are giving them insight to which they can understand the book in a context- although what define’s good literature is that it can be interprated in many different ways. (remember being good is different from being liked).
Hannah Montana is popular.
May 25, 2009 at 2:58 am
haha- sorry about my english- if you care that is
May 25, 2009 at 4:12 am
This is an international site, I care nothing about spelling or correct English. It’s what you’ve got to say.
You’re right. I do believe in objective reality. I don’t know whether I agree with you or not as I can’t find an expressed opinion.
A missed point in the book and the review is the woman who attempted to drown herself. That was the Anima of Clemence and in allowing her to drown he gave up his Anima and became a sterile Animus. That’s the problem with the Semitic religions, they don’t allow the Anima to exist. Suppressing the Anima is a great mistake as well as a crime against oneself.
Whether Camus wrote the book about me or not, I certainly reacted intensely when I read it. I reject his stance and find it foreign. If that says something about me then it does.
If my review made people react within themselves and perhaps view the attitude differently as you suggest then I suppose I have been successful to that extent. Certainly the reaction has been quite violent. I used to have this review on Amazon but readers reacted so violently that they made Amazon remove it. Obviously I challenged certain cherished beliefs about themselves. Why they want to embrace a crappy outlook like Camus’ is beyond me. I can’t stand anything he wrote.
Thanks for your comment.
May 25, 2009 at 5:02 am
Anima and Animus can only exist in relation to one another just as all other opposites and equals, such as a good and bad outlook on life. Each one is the other meaning Camus starts with bad to find good- the opposite of what I assume you believe. There is equal amounts of good and bad in the world thus it is easy to misunderstand the opposite method. Although no matter the side you start from if there was an absolute truth it would be found either way, no?
as for a previous comment i think it was unfair to call this a bad review, because if the person thought so the review obviously sparked an intellectual response of some kind, which in the same way as an outlook on life does leads one step closer to an “absoute truth”. In such case, opinions are partial truths and therefore if an absolute truth existed there would be nothing to say about it.
of course I’m still using negative to highlight itself…
May 26, 2009 at 1:34 am
Babin: Hard to tell who I’m talking to, Babin might be French, not American or English since you think your English is off a little. Seems alright though. You seem to speak in a philosophical mode so I assume you read Philosophy. I don’t have any use for philosophy myself. Avoid it whenever I can but you have to deal with a concept from time to time. I prefer the historical and psychological approach. You have two concepts in your reply: …there is equal amounts of good and evil in the world…and…if there was an absolute truth it would be found….
You may take this as semi- humorous but still serious. In the sixties agitators used the argument that nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. As Jews control the direction of American society we may assume that Jews originated the slogan to change the mores of the majority. Let’s take a little historical journey.
In 1830 France attacked the Barbary Pirates of Algeria ending Moslem depredations on the European side of the Med, annexing the country at the same time. In Paris at a time of revolutionary unrest a Jew by the name of Adolphe Crecmieux made sure that the Jews of Algeria were made Franch citizens on the date of the annexation. Thus a despised minority in a Moslem land leap-frogged over their previous persecutors giving themselves a dominant position over their former oppressors. At the same time becoming as French as the conquerors.
France should have expelled the entire Moslem population but instead they attempted to appropriate land while attempting to live in amity with the conquered Moslems. An absolutely inmpossible situation as things proved when France was weakened by two world wars. God only knows what provocations the Jews gave under the protection of their French citizenship.
The Fall was published in 1956 having a profound effect on the writer Arthur Miller. I didn’t become intellectually involved with either Miller or the Fall for a few decades. As we all know the holocaust occurred during WWII which is the background of The Fall.
The holocaust had a tremendous effect on the Jews. Self-centeredly while ignoring the tens of millions of others who died and the tremendous suffering by Europeans the Jews concentrated on the few million Jews who died considering this fraction of world wide suffering the greatest crime in the history of the world.
They wanted everyone to be aware of their suffering that they apparently considered unique. So, in 1958 they pre-empted the same time spot on the same day on all three networks so that anyone in front of a TV had to watch bulldozers pushing small mountains of Jewish bodies around. It was quite a sight. There was no turning it off. The people whose house I watched never turned their set off ever so rather than look at a blank screen we watched the degradation of the Jews.
Why the Jews thought everyone would react as they did is beyond me. I’m sure there were a fair number who actually enjoyed the show. I was offended at the manner in which my attention was extorted. Bear a slight grudge.
Next we go to the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley which is where I was at the time. The Free Speech Movement was obviously Jewish although as always to speak the truth was considered anti-Semitic. It was then the cadres were running around spouting ‘nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.’ The contradiction in the slogan is readily apparent but the implication is that the world is neutral having neither good nor bad in it. Good or bad exists only in the mind of the beholder or actor.
It therefore follows that the holocaust that prompted Camus’ novel by the Jews own admission was neutral becoming good or bad only in the mind of the thinker. Thus Hitler could have done nothing bad as he thought what he was doing was good. The holocaust was only bad in the mind of the Jews because they thought it was bad not because it was inherently bad. It was right because Hitler thought it was right, bad because they thought it was bad. A mere difference of opinion.
Thinking back to the TV show in 1958 on all three channels the obvious conclusion I came to was that the holocaust was neutral being either good or bad depending on the thinking of the beholder, ergo, no crime had been committed unless you thought it had. But that was relative and not absolute. So the Jews at Berkeley in ‘64 who believed the holocaust was absolute evil could not have believed that nothing was good or bad but thinking made it so. Liars and hypocrites.
So now, decades later after much study and thining, this essay give an idea of my current thinking: http://idynamo.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/part-i-the-deconstruction-of-edgar-rice-burroughsamerica/
at the time I read The Fall. So here you have Clamence wallowing in an absurd self-pity claiming he has the sole right to adjudicate as a ‘judge-penitent.’
What bushwa. What an offence to intellectual decency. He claims the right to absoluteness as a judge and relativity as a penitent.
You can see my outrage. Why my readers on Amazon were so offended that they compelled the removal of my review is beyond me. Perhaps one of them can explain.
November 4, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Your review simply gave us a summary of the book, and completely disregard any implications that the book might have suggested(maybe you didn’t understand the book at all from what I can tell, try it again?). Needless to say that I think your review is awful, and you claim that it is “popular”? Or should we say, infamous? I’m not going to bother to come back and see what you have to say since a mere college student like me can point out all the grammatical errors that you made in your replies, let’s just say that I’m appalled after reading this “review”, and felt the need to let you know that I simply think that you’re full of shit.
November 4, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Ya did good, College boy or girl, until you got to your conclusion which is simply crude, although perhaps grammatical.
November 8, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Camus is definitely not Jewish, but he was French and grew up in Algers. You definitely have a chip on your shoulder about Jews and Judaism.
November 9, 2009 at 1:10 am
Thanks for the reply Lisabeth.
http://www.israelshamir.net/English/Hang.htm
No chip. I’m a historian. I merely point out the obvious. The country gets robbed blind and no cares but we few. Inexplicable, but there you have it. If I dared mention a certain word the free speech boys down at the ADL or SPLC would be down on me in a minute screaming something about ‘hate’.
What can I say?