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j0guelas 's review for:
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
by Albert Camus
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I tried to read this book as I normally do (pretentiously on the bus, at work, under a tree, in between sets at the gym, at the racetrack, etc. etc. etc.) but I couldn’t for the life of me remember or understand what the fuck I was reading.
Camus made me do what I have not done when reading for pleasure before: I took notes. Highlighter and all.
As someone who hasn’t studied philosophy since high school, I can tell you I did not understand most of it. Like sorry, I’m not an expert of Jaspers or Kierkegaard, and I haven’t read Nietszche since I was 17.
Maybe I’m just simple minded. Maybe I’ll just deflect on my lack of knowledge and blame it on the translation. I will say, the last chapter (which is about Sisyphus and only about two and a half pages long) is straight up FIRE.
If anyone was curious about this work by Camus, I would just recommend the first section in the Absurd Reasoning chapter before ‘Philosophical Suicide’ then the final chapter on Sisyphus. The in between chapters on the Absurd Man and Absurd Creation are fun but like, not necessary to the heart of Camus’ philosophy of the absurd. ‘Philosophical Suicide’ is key, but I hated reading it.
Anyway, all in all, a better philosophy than nihilism and Camus is sometimes funny. Like, why did he dig at Kierkegaard’s love life in a chapter about Kafka.
Camus made me do what I have not done when reading for pleasure before: I took notes. Highlighter and all.
As someone who hasn’t studied philosophy since high school, I can tell you I did not understand most of it. Like sorry, I’m not an expert of Jaspers or Kierkegaard, and I haven’t read Nietszche since I was 17.
Maybe I’m just simple minded. Maybe I’ll just deflect on my lack of knowledge and blame it on the translation. I will say, the last chapter (which is about Sisyphus and only about two and a half pages long) is straight up FIRE.
If anyone was curious about this work by Camus, I would just recommend the first section in the Absurd Reasoning chapter before ‘Philosophical Suicide’ then the final chapter on Sisyphus. The in between chapters on the Absurd Man and Absurd Creation are fun but like, not necessary to the heart of Camus’ philosophy of the absurd. ‘Philosophical Suicide’ is key, but I hated reading it.
Anyway, all in all, a better philosophy than nihilism and Camus is sometimes funny. Like, why did he dig at Kierkegaard’s love life in a chapter about Kafka.