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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
DAS Buch von Camus, ich wünschte, es wäre länger und fertig gestellt. Trotzdem unglaublich interessant, auch einen Einblick in seinen Schreibprozess zu bekommen durch die Fußnoten und den extra Anhang. Ich liebe so semi autobiographische Werke und das hier hat absolut nicht enttäuscht.
Perhaps not his best, but still a moving novel that is also most autobiographical. The characters in this unfinished novel resemble his own family and his trajectory while growing up in a poor family in Algeria. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the beautiful meditations are also drawn from his own life. The most remarkable truth that comes out is that poverty looks the same everywhere. The experience and realizations of the characters in this novel, living in an impoverished corner of Algeria, is not all that different from the experience of poor people in India, where I grew up.
Memories and nostalgia are things that only the privileged can cherish. The greyness of poverty makes every day the same, just a struggle for survival, and memories get lost in the sameness.
Memories and nostalgia are things that only the privileged can cherish. The greyness of poverty makes every day the same, just a struggle for survival, and memories get lost in the sameness.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Beautifully written, but it just didn't grab me. It took half of the book to really have any kind of narrative point to grab on to.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Somehow, while I was reading, without noticing—I became a part of Jacques' world, or maybe he became a part of mine—I'm not sure. And I guess, by extension, Camus became a part of me, and I completely hadn't realized this until I flipped to the last page and the weight of the raw, unfiltered beauty of his life and his words and his being came crashing down on me and knocked the tears from my eyes and they haven't stopped coming. They come from a place that lets itself be innocently taken in by those marvelously and destructively real characters and stories and places and is shaken and broken anew every time they are ripped away. Jacques' desire to live, his combat with death, his growing up—it all feels so relevant even though it would probably feel the same way no matter when I read The First Man. Camus writes so beautifully that I killed a highlighter just to make sure that when I looked back I could find those precious little shards of his heart more easily. Absolutely floored by this book. While annotating there were places where I just didn't have the words to describe everything I was feeling and everything that I wanted to think but couldn't articulate... I can see why this was my great-grandmother's favorite book. I think reading this helped me connect to her in a way that would be impossible otherwise.
This book came with me to so many places—the park, under a great dome of a tree with a friend; hiding from the sun under a young tree while waiting for classes to be over; my room, the classical greats playing quietly in the background. It was stunning and captivating and no matter where I was I was suddenly lost in Algiers, in Jacques' childhood. I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here.
Incredible. Ineffable. Beautiful. Played my heartstrings like a harp. Make sure you're ready when you pick this up, but please do. <3 <3 <3
This book came with me to so many places—the park, under a great dome of a tree with a friend; hiding from the sun under a young tree while waiting for classes to be over; my room, the classical greats playing quietly in the background. It was stunning and captivating and no matter where I was I was suddenly lost in Algiers, in Jacques' childhood. I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here.
Incredible. Ineffable. Beautiful. Played my heartstrings like a harp. Make sure you're ready when you pick this up, but please do. <3 <3 <3
In awe of Camus's writing. This is his last (and unfinished) novel, and very clearly an autobiographical account of his own life and childhood. There is a certain uniqueness to how he portrays the world and the characters, and intricate sentences which left me marveling at how good it must have been in the original French. I was moved by his account of his poverty-stricken childhood, and yet it doesn't come across as a just a sob story, but a deeply personal coming-of-age tale as he switches between his present and the past. His growing up without a father, in the scorching heat of Algiers, his love for his semi-deaf mother, how the war affected all those poor people who died for a country which was not even their own... even though it is so starkly different from my own, it did make me reminisce about my own childhood and how things change as we grow up.
The writing is very well-crafted in certain chapters, excellently describing the environment and the characters and sets the scene of how it must be like to live in the country, without being too verbose. I would not have believed that such a seemingly "boring" account of a man and his childhood would be such an interesting read. 4/5
The writing is very well-crafted in certain chapters, excellently describing the environment and the characters and sets the scene of how it must be like to live in the country, without being too verbose. I would not have believed that such a seemingly "boring" account of a man and his childhood would be such an interesting read. 4/5
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes