The Fall (Penguin Modern Classics) [Paperback]

"This, alas is what I am...but at the same time I hold out to my contemporaries a mirror."

You meet a man in a bar in Amsterdam and he tells you his life philosophy on slavery, freedom, religion, morality and love. Only it isn't you, but himself that he's talking to. Over five days and 100 pages, he goes over his thoughts and contemplates the guilt of seeing a girl jump into the Seine and not jump in after her.

This book is full of memorable lines and reminded me somewhat of Kierkegaard's 'Johannes Climacus' in that it's mostly just philosophical meanderings told through the thoughts of a fictional character. I once heard a Rabbi on transworld sport say "the best example is a living example." In contrast with that statement this book really doesn't stand for anything. But that's not the point.

Camus is a personal favourite and while I don't hold this work in as high a regard as The Plague or The Outsider, The Fall is still a good read.

As a dedicated 'Absurdist' I purchased numerous Albert Camus books. The Rebel and The Outsider (also called The Stranger) left me cold. I lost interest in the first few pages due to boredom. The Myth of Sisyphus is fascinating, although the first half is heavy going.
The Fall is outstanding. It was Camus's final work and his crowning achievement. Like Thomas Mann's brilliant Death in Venice, The Fall is short novella and not a word is wasted. In fact I would suggest that no novel need exceed 100 pages. I read the entire book in a day and it was wonderful. I intend reading it many times because it is truly multi-layered and the work of a brilliant mind. On two occasions I found myself laughing out loud at Camus's observations on life's absurdity.
I am unsure if The Fall was written as a play, but it is ideal for the stage because the entire narrative is delivered by its single character, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, who describes himself as a 'Judge-pentitent'. You might notice that Jean-Baptiste is a thinly disguised nom de guerre for John the Baptist. Camus has of course chosen this name for good reason as you will discover. Indeed everything in The Fall has deep and insightful meaning - including the name of the novel.
Clamence is a post-Lapsian (or is it Lapsarian) Parisian lawyer (a fallen angel) living out his days in Amsterdam where he defends criminals in order to sustain his love of gin at his favourite watering hole, a seedy bar called Mexico City. There he meets a visitor to whom he tells his story. And what a story it is!
A central theme of The Fall is Judgement and how quick we are all to judge others, but how we hate to be judged. Camus asks who has the right to judge anyone: inside and outside the law. Religion is also a theme and Camus reminds us that the founder of Christianity was actively non-jugemental but his followers, or at least those who claim to be, have severely judged others to the point of torture and mass murder.
The Fall is packed with metaphor and our Judge-penitent prefers at all times to be physically elevated, looking down on the human 'ants'. A metaphor for the moral high ground of the preacher or courtroom magistrate.
I hope you get the picture. Please read this work of genius. I am off to read it again!
JP (Lapsus) ;)

This powerful philosophical and psychological novel follows the story of one man's judicial dissection of his own motives and virtues revealing a shocking hypocrisy and ultimately causing a crisis of existence - a fall. As a way of finding some response to the absurdity of life and a need for confession to that which is greater than ourselves, the narrator of the story reveals his ultimate way of coping - as a judge penitent -giving up his freedom and drawing judgements of others through the confession of his own failings and accepting the meaninglessness of existence and the impossibility of truth and innocence. Not one for the "fun" section of your library.