Is he an absurdist?
“This word “Absurd” has had an unhappy history and I confess that now it rather annoys me. When I analyzed the feeling of the Absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus, I was looking was looking for a method and not a doctrine. I was practicing methodical doubt. I was trying to make a “tabula rasa,” on the basis of which it would then be possible to construct something. If we assume that nothing has any meaning, then we must conclude that the world is absurd. But does nothing have any meaning? I have never believed we could remain at this point.”
From An interview with Gabriel d’Aubarède, in Les Nouvelles Littéraires, (1951). Cited in Albert Camus: Lyrical and Critical Essays, Vintage (1970) |
Does he like to be labelled?
“A writer writes to a great extend to be read (let’s admire those who say they don’t, but not believe them). Yet more and more, in France, he writes in order to obtain that final consecration which consists of not being read. In fact, from the moment he can provide the material for a feature for a feature article in the popular press, there is every possibility that he will be known to a fairly large number of people who will never reach his because they will be content to know his name and to read what other people write about him. From this point on he will be known (and forgotten) not for what he is, but according to the image a hurried journalist has given of him.”
From ‘The Enigma’, included in the collection ‘Summer’ (1954). Cited in Albert Camus: Lyrical and Critical Essays, Vintage (1970) |
Camus tired of being labelled ‘a philosopher of the absurd’ and he tired of being labelled in general. He claims to have written The Myth of Sisyphus as a challenge to existentialists. It’s worth noting that at the end of the interview with Delpech he is asked about his future projects, he answers: “…perhaps I ought to make up my mind to study existentialism…”
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