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A review by realadhdoug
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus
5.0
Okay, so I am admittedly basing my rating for this short collection of essays on the 1500 or so words somewhere near the middle—the “Myth of Sisyphus” part.
There is some good stuff in the parts proceeding it where Camus explains from the perspectives of different kinds of people what the absurd is and how we respond to it. There’s a lot of philosophical inquiry that sort of takes the form of literary criticism as he talks about Kafka, Dostoevsky, etc. All of that, as much as I can understand, is okay.
The essays following the Myth of Sisyphus are sort of random and not all that intelligible to me. Camus talks about places he’s been and what the people are like there. The last little piece seems to be about his response to how he sees the responsibility of artists to society. That was interesting.
The Myth of Sisyphus itself, though, is the single-most powerful framing of the meaninglessness of life and how to cope with it that I’ve ever encountered. Every time I reread this, it gives me chills, and I feel like climbing Everest or something. If you haven’t read it, you should totally do it. You can find it online for free in a million different places. Check it out…
There is some good stuff in the parts proceeding it where Camus explains from the perspectives of different kinds of people what the absurd is and how we respond to it. There’s a lot of philosophical inquiry that sort of takes the form of literary criticism as he talks about Kafka, Dostoevsky, etc. All of that, as much as I can understand, is okay.
The essays following the Myth of Sisyphus are sort of random and not all that intelligible to me. Camus talks about places he’s been and what the people are like there. The last little piece seems to be about his response to how he sees the responsibility of artists to society. That was interesting.
The Myth of Sisyphus itself, though, is the single-most powerful framing of the meaninglessness of life and how to cope with it that I’ve ever encountered. Every time I reread this, it gives me chills, and I feel like climbing Everest or something. If you haven’t read it, you should totally do it. You can find it online for free in a million different places. Check it out…