Product Description

In this profound and moving philosophical statement, Camus poses the fundamental question: Is life worth living? If human existence holds no significance, what can keep us from suicide? As Camus argues, if there is no God to give meaning to our lives, humans must take on that purpose themselves. This is our ‘absurd’ task, like Sisyphus forever rolling his rock up a hill, as the inevitability of death constantly overshadows us. Written during the bleakest days of the Second World War, The Myth of Sisyphus argues for an acceptance of reality that encompasses revolt, passion and, above all, liberty. This volume contains several other essays, including lyrical evocations of the sunlit cities of Algiers and Oran, the settings of his great novels The Outsider and The Plague.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #67032 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-06
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

About the Author
Albert Camus is the author of a number of best-selling and highly influential works, all of which are published by Penguin. They include THE FALL, THE OUTSIDER and THE FIRST MAN. He is remembered as one of the few writers to have shaped the intellectual climate of post-war France, but beyond that, his fame has been international. Translated by Justin O’Brien With an Introduction by James Wood

Customer Reviews

Let the hell of the present be your kingdom
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.

Camus' philosphy
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.

The Paradox of Life: Meaningful or Absurd?
The myth of Sisyphus is an ancient Greek myth - the
book of the same name by Camus is about the
philosophy of suicide, or rather the absurdity of
life. He believed suicide to be the only proper
subject of philosophy. Albert Camus, like Jean Paul Sartre (e.g., in Sartre's _Age of Reason_), is brilliant at
conveying his [existentialist] philosophy through his
novels and plays.

Sisyphus was a Greek hero, i.e., less than a god
but higher than a man and consequently is doomed to
never die. As you know, the ancient Greeks and Romans
believed the heavens above are occupied by Heroes
and Villains slugging it out eternally: the age-old
belief in the never-ending fight between good and
evil (cf. St George vs the dragon] even as we speak.

Sisyphus's task is to forever roll a massive boulder
up a mountain, for each step forward, the boulder
rolls two steps back, so of course he never reaches
the top for all his toils as he has to forever begin again from the bottom.

Camus takes as his premise, the dualistic nature of life: we strive to make life meaningful, and yet the end result is death. English intellectuals tend to be quite pusillanimous on a topic whose logical conclusion is that the only meaningful solution to the absurdity of life and the dearth of religion is suicide (Camus is atheist), for it follows the dualistism of existence (light/dark, male/female, day/night, etc).