The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus

'The Myth of Sisyphus' had come up in a discussion I was having with a dear friend of mine (one of the many we had had). She had suggested me this book when I had told her that I had read Camus's 'The Outsider'. The topic, as she had described it to be, did interest me. So I got hold of a copy but I was not expecting an essay. Not having the appetite for it back then and feeling myself rather lost in Camus's reasoning, I had put the book back on the shelf using the excuse that his arguments were rather difficult to follow because I had no idea about the references that he was making My friend did assure me that the references did not matter, and that if I persisted it would all be lucid in a bit. But I shelfed the book anyway. It was only when I recently read Sartre's 'Nausea' that I thought of getting back to this book.

I would like to believe that I now had the required existentialist knowledge to follow Camus. He builds up on the theory of Absurdism and looks at the possible options that an absurd man has for himself. He tries to argue the futility of suicide as an answer to the existentialist question. Camus recognises the absurd and advocates the acceptance of the absurd as the only reasonable option to counter it. He uses the works of other philosophers and writers, like Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Kafka, etc., to make his case against suicide as a viable option. He argues that ending one's life serves only to reinforce the absurd. He even dismisses the leap of faith as shown in the works of Dostoyevsky and Kafka as a philosophical suicide and suggests that it does nothing to defy the absurd. His solution is acceptance and rebellion; to live out the absurd as an act of defiance. Camus does make a convincing case of it. Though I think that he (and probably others) disregards other options that are present to the "absurd man". Sisyphus, who has been condemned by the Gods to the task of pushing a boulder up a hill and watching it roll back down as he sets to repeat his effort again, strikes Camus as the quintessential of absurd. The acceptance of his fate by Sisyphus, says Camus, is his true freedom; his rebellion against the absurd that he has been condemned to.

The other essays in the book were pieces on his Algerian travels. These were far easier to assimilate than the main one. They were also far more personal and engaging. Camus describes, not so much in events than the emotions stirred in him, a summer spent in Algiers, his travel to Oran and a nostalgic return to Tipasa. Any travel writer could look for inspiration in these short works.

Camus was as brilliant as I remember him to be. I think it is the personal touch that he lends to his works that make them even more endearing; more real. I am not sure whether I which of his works I will pick up next, fiction or non-fiction; but I surely will read more of him.