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franciscats's review against another edition
3.0
3,5
“Though speeches delivered decades back but on issues that have again resurfaced due to our inability to learn from history, Camus proves he is a voice beyond his age by his prescient assessment of crucial matters and passionate but well-reasoned arguments.” - Hindustan Times
“Though speeches delivered decades back but on issues that have again resurfaced due to our inability to learn from history, Camus proves he is a voice beyond his age by his prescient assessment of crucial matters and passionate but well-reasoned arguments.” - Hindustan Times
gijs's review against another edition
4.0
Camus, as ever, carries the torch for freedom and expression in this short essay; a few of my favorite quotes:
- To create today means to create dangerously. Every publication is a deliberate act, and that act makes us vulnerable to the passions of a century that forgives nothing. And so, the question is not to know whether taking action is or is not damaging to art. The question, to everyone who cannot live without art and all it signifies, is simply to know—given the strict controls of countless ideologies (so many cults, such solitude!)—how the enigmatic freedom of creation remains possible.
- We resemble each other through what we see together, the things we suffer through together. Dreams change according to the person, but the reality of the world is our common ground. The goal of realism is thus legitimate, for it is inextricably linked to the artistic experience.
- To create today means to create dangerously. Every publication is a deliberate act, and that act makes us vulnerable to the passions of a century that forgives nothing. And so, the question is not to know whether taking action is or is not damaging to art. The question, to everyone who cannot live without art and all it signifies, is simply to know—given the strict controls of countless ideologies (so many cults, such solitude!)—how the enigmatic freedom of creation remains possible.
- We resemble each other through what we see together, the things we suffer through together. Dreams change according to the person, but the reality of the world is our common ground. The goal of realism is thus legitimate, for it is inextricably linked to the artistic experience.
bibliorey's review against another edition
4.0
how do one even begin to describe camus and his brilliant mind?
emmacdaye's review against another edition
5.0
Lovely read for all creatives. I am a huge Camus fan and he always knows exactly what to say and how to say it. Quick read!!!
asia_b's review against another edition
2.0
2.5
The essay about art was enlightening, but, dare I say, a bit ineffective for its objective. And this is especially valid for the other two essays because -as Camus himself says- art is a product of the times, and his times are very different from ours: they are a product of the post-war, post-socialism, and Europe failure; therefore he is so focused in freedom, dictators, political parties and intellectual wars that nowadays it results old and sounds detached from our reality if not a little bit fanatic or idealist (I lost count of the times he talks about concentration camps or Russia).
But what he says it's true and valid: I see how helpful it still is to remember the importance of freedom and the obligation of intellectuals to not bend to power; but it needs a new way of being said because now we are in a new era where, even if the evil is the same, the means are extremely different.
The essay about art was enlightening, but, dare I say, a bit ineffective for its objective. And this is especially valid for the other two essays because -as Camus himself says- art is a product of the times, and his times are very different from ours: they are a product of the post-war, post-socialism, and Europe failure; therefore he is so focused in freedom, dictators, political parties and intellectual wars that nowadays it results old and sounds detached from our reality if not a little bit fanatic or idealist (I lost count of the times he talks about concentration camps or Russia).
But what he says it's true and valid: I see how helpful it still is to remember the importance of freedom and the obligation of intellectuals to not bend to power; but it needs a new way of being said because now we are in a new era where, even if the evil is the same, the means are extremely different.