I’m in the process of reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus and two questions occurred to me, one of which an understanding of would further my comprehension and enjoyment of the book:
How do you pronounce his name? I’ve heard two possible pronunciations: Cam-eau (rhymes with Cam-beau) and Cam-ooo (rhymes with taboo). I think it’s the latter; the “s” is obviously silent and I can’t think of a single French word that ends with “-us” and sounds like “eau”.
What does he exactly mean by the Absurd? The closest to an explanation I believe he’s gotten (and I’m 60 pages in so I don’t think a great definition is coming) is that the absurd is the feeling the get looking into the mirror and not recognizing yourself as you the person; seeing a stranger, more or less. While I see how that is absurd, I don’t really think he is suggesting we wrap ourselves around the idea of that sort of absurdity as an over-riding philosophy of existence.
I’ve only heard it as ca-moo’. As I understand it, “absurdity” for Camus is the existence of rational beings in a universe where nothing is rational, nothing has a reason, everything is futile.
Well, with all due respect CK, it ain’t “Cay”–it’s more like in between the a sound of "cat"and “cah”-- but definitely not “cay”; the “moo” is rather more that French “mew” sound, with a near-whistle (the sound of air passing through rounded lips) at the end. And it’s Al-“bear”; t is silent.
I wonder how absurd Camus would think it that I am taking all this effort to pin down how his name is pronounced.
Way ahead of ya. I’ve read that, in addition to “the plauge”. From “The Stranger”, I was able to pick up on the basics of his philosophy, but it did not in any way go into as much detail as “The Myth of Sisyphus”.
Also, for Xmas, I received “The Rebel”, “The Fall”, and “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death”, in addition to “The Myth…” so I will be reading Camus for quite some time.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read Sisyphus or studied Camus, but I’ve always been a fan of his writing. The Stranger is one of my favorites, and The Plague is also quite good. Both seem less often read than The Fall or Sisyphus, though.
My understanding of Camus’ notion of “the absurd” is that Camus viewed the absurd as being the relationship between two other “things”. Take, for example, man as “thing 1” and the meaninglessness of life (in the existential philospher’s view) as “thing 2”. “The absurd” is the relationship between man and the meaninglessness of life. How is man to deal with a meaningless life? Suicide? Hope? Or just accept it and live with it? IIRC, through Sisyphus Camus demonstrated that the only real alternative is to just live with it. Suicide isn’t really an option for dealing with a meaningless life, so much as a cop out or escape. Hope isn’t really an option either because man can’t understand what it is that would be hoped for; something beyond the meaninglessness of life is also beyond the knowledge of man. So Camus concluded that the only real option was for man to just accept the meaninglessness of life and live with it. He concluded that man could be happy even in the face of such meaninglessness, as he alluded to the happiness of Sisyphus in accepting his situation.
As I said, it’s been a long time so don’t take any of this as “Camus gospel” or anything. Maybe others who have more recently or more thoroughly studied Camus (rather than just casual reading) can help you further and can correct any errors I may have made.
I once considered posting a thread entitled: “Is Al Bundy the Postmodern Sisyphys?” after reading The Myth of Sisyphus for the n-th time (I almost always read it when I fly for some reason; it’s strangely comforting).
Anyway, the plane landed and I found myself distracted by other things. That, plus I couldn’t come up with an OP worthy of the thread title.
No, he was considered an existentialist by many because of his association with Sartre and the similarities between their ways of thinking, but he resented the title. Everything he wrote exemplified the Absurd.
Yes, he denied being either an existentialist or a philosopher. He said he didn’t have enough faith in reason to believe in any system or ideology.
If you read his essays and novels in the order he wrote them, you should get an idea of how his thinking changed and grew as he went along.
As you might guess,I have a special fondness for The Plague.
