Michel wrote:
Probably not as it brought a Nobel Prize to his author eventually, but it aged a lot I would say. First of all, it's antichristian and deals with morality, who cares today except believers that are disappearing from the surface of the Earth at a speed never seen before in History? We're no longer in the 1940's, that crap is too old, especially in French culture or for any advanced element in societies of today, no matter from which culture you're from. Second, it's an allusion to the German Nazi occupation of France in the daily lives of people. This period has been long forgotten (I mean at the daily life level), so it's hard for modern readers to see it and connect to it. Anyway, personally, even with that in mind, I feel it's still an extremely weak "denounciation" of fascism.
For the Nobel Prize issue that I talked about earlier, I must defend in a way Camus, although I'll pinch my nose at the same time. Camus was more a petty bourgeois radical anarchist than an anticommunist as he obviously never understood what Stalinism was. Actually Simone De Beauvoir even wrote that he was so out of touch with Marxism that he decided not to sacrifice any time to study it seriously. That kind of "intellectual" is well recognized and applauded by the powers in place. And during the Cold War, just a few years after thousands of Communist partisans wage a guerilla war against Germany and Italy plus their local fascist bourgeoisie all over Europe, this was even more true than ever. He's to be put in the same group as Orwell, Malraux and Koestler, although strangely he's associated by people who obviously know nothing about Existentialism with this last current. Big mistake as Existentalism embrace Stalinism, then Maoism that they associated falsely to Marxism, but of course never Trotskyism, which is revolutionary Marxism. It's possible that all these people would have arise themselves politically to some temporary levels reached by Maxim Gorky or Diego Rivera at the most in another era where the Left wouldn't have been suffocated by Stalinism, but probably never more, and especially not Camus, by far the weakest politically speaking of them all. This help a lot to get a Nobel prize in such times. This help actually so much that when Sartre was nominated for the Nobel at his turn, he just refused it, as he was not happy at all that the bourgeoisie try to recuperated his works. Let's say that traumatized him so much that he began selling Maoist newspapers on the street as to purify himself and prove to the world that he was not "one of them" lol To the merit of Sartre however, he actually wrote an equivalent to La Peste called Les Mouches (the Flies). It's a theater play denouncing the nazi occupation of France too. And contrary to Camus who wrote about these events after the war, Sartre presented it in Paris during the Nazi occupation. This play is so weak that even the German officers assisting the play never understood it was antinazi ah ah ! Poor Sartre...
For people outside of French culture, I think all these people are probably called "Existentialists" because they are all French speaking, antireligious, antifascist and "left" leaning in one way or another, and all from the same era and from the same class. But Camus was actually an absurdist, just like Kafka. You can't really get excited with that, as there's no point to get excited about the absurdity of our life. But of course this is "mandatory religious reading" in all universities of the world as it sound "profound intellectual wouh scary" and yet it's totally inofensive to the rule of society. Maybe a conservative priest from last mid century would found La Peste shocking, but I ain't no priest.
Let's say it might have been a good book but it aged a lot and it's kept alive by a crummy intelligentsia, which in turn is nurtured by regiments of pedantic university students generations after generations who just parrot about it to prove they have [span style="color: rgb(185, 185, 185); font-style: italic;"]bourgeois[/span] culture? Anyway, what can you oppose to La Peste today? Da Vinci Code ? John Le Carré or whatever crap is sold at Chapters? La Peste will survived for decades to come if nothing culturally change as [span style="background-color: rgb(185, 185, 185); font-style: italic;"][/span]a[span style="color: rgb(185, 185, 185); font-style: italic;"][/span] [span style="color: rgb(185, 185, 185); font-style: italic;"]weak (my personal opinion here) [/span]witness of an Era, but that doesn't mean it deserve to be praise by readers of today anymore.
OK, that was a fun procrastinating episode. I have work to do. [img style="font-style: italic;" src="/forums/richedit/smileys/Happy/4.gif[/img]
Wow that was a response. LOL.
thanks Michel.. intersting.
