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discokill 's review for:
The First Man
by Albert Camus
The First Man is a novel I first read and fell in love with more than 20 years ago so I came back to it to see if it still felt the same to me (spoiler: it does). Camus’ mostly autobiographical story tells the story of a young boy growing up in Algiers in a poor family and absent a father who died early in his life. In both writing style and richness of detail, Camus is a wonderful writer and the novel is a pleasure to read. The fondness Camus had for his childhood and family spills out onto the page creating scenes that are both interesting and heartwarming. In its unfinished nature, it’s a bittersweet read. There’s quite a few tonal shifts and parts that would have been cleaned up in editing that give the novel some rough edges but that adds rather than detracts from the charm. The notes included in the end only give the slightest indication of where Camus was intending to go but hint at its eventual epic scope. However even as a partial novel there’s enough richness and love to be one of my favorites.