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Product Description
Product Description
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
Inspired by the myth of a man condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain and watch it roll back to the valley below, The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.
About the Author
Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French writer and philosopher. Among his works are The Stranger (1942), The Plague (1947), The Fall (1956), and Exile and the Kingdom (1957). He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957.
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First Sentence
The pages that follow deal with an absurd sensitivity that can be found widespread in the age - and not with an absurd philosophy which our time, properly speaking, has not known. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The pages that follow deal with an absurd sensitivity that can be found widespread in the age - and not with an absurd philosophy which our time, properly speaking, has not known. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Let the hell of the present be your kingdom,
By josephllewellyn (Bristol, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Myth of Sisyphus (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
Albert Camus, who will not call himself a philosopher, who will not "sit on a judge's bench" here, in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, describes an "absurd sensitivity" he feels prevalent in this age. He is concerned with the principle that "for a man who does not cheat, what he believes to be true must determine his action." Consequently, how should someone, in finding the world absurd, find resource to continue in that world. Indeed, for Camus, "there is but one truly philosophical problem and that is suicide."
He clubs philosophers, scientists and religious acolytes together for their leap into construction and the world of their belief; "the leap does not represent an extreme danger, as Kierkegaard would have it. The danger, on the contrary, lies in the subtle instant that precedes the leap. Being able to remain in that dizzying crest - that is integrity and the rest is subterfuge." Aware of the dangers of ignorance and enthusiasm, Camus propounds a life of self-exhaustion and permanent revolution, concerned not only with the quality of life, but with its quantity; "a man's rule of conduct and his scale of values have no meaning except through the quantity and variety of experiences he has been able to accumulate." But this is not a blank cheque for violence, "one must not be a dupe", it is the means for art to realise its ultimate importance; "the great work of art has less significance in itself than the ordeal that it demands of the man and the opportunity which it provides him of overcoming his phantoms and approaching a little closer to his naked reality." Absurdity provides us with a justification for authentic creative effort. Technically, Camus does not impress, as Sartre's or Heidegger's analyses do. But we have to appreciate him on his own terms, he even asks for our "indulgence" in his preface. He is not concerned with drawing up irreproachable ontological walls, building closed systems or universes, but with providing some light by which to see how everything we do is already contained within walls which we only have to create within to be free. Less impressive than his fiction, yes, but still immensely influential. The five other essays in this collection, especially Summer in Algiers and The Minotaur, both lyrical eulogies to the cities and the country in Africa, provide counterweight to the main essay; uneasy as a philosopher, here Camus shows his true colours, simply those of a great writer.
39 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Camus' philosphy,
This review is from: The Myth of Sisyphus (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)
If you are at all interested in Camus' philosophy you must read these thoughts on the Human Condition based around the story of Sysiphus who was condemned to pushing a great boulder to the top of a mountain only to see it rolling back to the bottom again. Camus' thoughts are not as bleak as pessimists might first imagine. Essential reading for insights into 20th century takes on the absurdity of out condition.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Absurd, but in a positive way!,
By Justice Peace "JP" (Braemar) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Myth of Sisyphus (Penguin Great Ideas) (Paperback)
This is a lovely little thesis on the meaning (or lack of meaning) of life. Camus (pronounced Kamoo) is clearly an intellectual giant and the first half of this work will be far too difficult for most readers (including me) because it is written in the technical language that only philosophers seem to understand. Parts are akin to trying to run through a lake of treacle. It can be as opaque as the infamous ginger beer bottle that hid the decaying remnants of a snail in the Donoghue legal case. Only Schopenhauer's prize winning essay on free will was harder to read.
Happily, Camus's essay gets simpler half way through where he adopts normal prose rather than complex logical arguments. Sisyphus is my favourite metaphor for modern life: endless repetition and back-breaking drudgery with occasional tragic moments of self realisation that all this striving will end in tears - decrepit old age and then death! Camus concludes that all we can do is enjoy the fleeting moments of happiness and live life as fully as possible. He suggests that quantity of life is as important as quality. I suppose the overused 'carpe diem' is what he is saying. It's great to read such an intelligent dissertation and in keeping with the tragedy of Sisyphus it is a similar tragedy that Albert Camus died in a car crash at just 47 years old. A great loss to mankind. JP.
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