Well The Plague at least is pretty straightforward if you want to go for the most obvious interpretation. The plague itself is a symbol for the absurd--the conflict between humanity's inherent search for meaning and the knowledge that there is none--and each of the characters respond to it in a different way. Some are freed by it, some numbed, some horrified, and some completely unaffected. It is primarily a book about the psychological implications of a philosophical idea. That's my reading of it, in any case.
The Plague really touched me. More so than The Stranger. All these characters are pursuing their own ways of dealing with the situation they're in but whatever they do they're still trapped in this self-contained situation, so from the perspective of someone looking in it's all just pointless. The selfless and the selfish are all trapped together. In a sense nothing they say or do matters, but our protagonist continues to "fight the good fight." Anyone please tell me if I'm wrong but I feel that sums up what absurdism really is.
I think you're absolutely on the right track. I took a class that thoroughly covered this book. The main idea was that the plague was a thought experiment for Camus to display the different ways in which people can justify their lives. As you said, each character responds to the plague in a different way and therefore they each display a different way that someone can justify their existence in what is essentially and inevitable and meaningless death.
I don't believe so, no. Why would it? The book is, in a sense, a challenge to the reader. Is Dr. Rieux any less a hero because his struggle against the plague is completely ineffectual, or is the act of trying to help, rebelling, heroic and meaningful in and of itself?
Not that I find absurdism implausible in the first place. To my mind it is pretty obvious that an objective meaning of life doesn't exist, and I find the whole "meaning is whatever you want it to be" argument a bit of a cop-out that doesn't actually answer the question that was asked.
The conflict between humanity's inherent search for meaning and the knowledge that there is none.
This is why I haven't continued to pursue Camus. Materialistic Nihilism. I realize its different from everyone's different points of view, but as a humanist I found it to be a self-destroying world view.
Well, avoiding him is easy to explain: I prefer to read things that make me happy. I'm aware that this is deliberately putting blinders on myself. I'm O.k. with that.
As to why a humanist perspective makes Nihilism self defeating; Nihilism, holds that there is no such thing as meaning - an 'endless void' as it were. At the bare minimum - in humanism, or most other viewpoints - perception has value. I concede that meaning is a human construct. The only reason something has meaning is that its meaningful to me or you. However rather than the lack of external meaning supporting Nihilism, the implication is that meaning is something Humans can create. I can decide to give meaning to something, and so can you. The TLDR is that I only have my eyes to see the Universe and I've chosen to see it with meaning...which is enough to make it have meaning.
Camus wasn't a full-blown nihilist. He believed that meaning doesn't exist insofar as it doesn't exist objectively. The act of struggling against this knowledge and living anyway creates personal meaning for the individual, but one should never mistake this meaning for true, objective meaning. This is described in the book. Rieux's struggle against the plague solves nothing. He doesn't actually manage to save anyone (that we know of), and his efforts actually end up causing more suffering, but in fighting against the plague he creates a personal duty and meaning for himself, which is important despite not actually mattering at all from an impartial perspective.
Interesting. I suppose that's what I get for not reading him. Of course, to me personal meaning is objective meaning, but again, that's just an issue of background.
Camus is the OPPOSITE of a nihilist. He is repulsed by nihilism. He arrives at the point of accepting life's absurdity and then tries to honestly find meaning and purpose to fit the human urges for justice and truth within a framework of ethics that does not then undermine the meaning/purpose/justice/truth. Not nihilist at all. I recommend another look, or a read through The Rebel, his manifesto.
Sisyphus has committed the ultimate rebellion - he chooses to be happy when the gods have condemned him to a fate worse than death. His repeated journey to the top of the mountain and the absurdity of the task is representative of the human condition. If life has no intrinsic meaning, then it has whatever meaning you choose to assign to it. He chooses to struggle against the temptation of despair, and through this rebellion Sisyphus maintains his happiness - not only despite, but IN spite. Basically, no matter your situation, if you can still throw up your middle fingers and say "fuck you", you will always be the master of your own condition.
"And he knew, also, what the old man was thinking as his tears flowed, and he Rieux, thought it too; that a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart": I have a poster of this, kept it since college.
I can sorta see why. I've never heard anyone really talk about A Happy Death without comparing it to The Stranger which is a pretty 'heavy' read. By heavy I mean, after reading it, I didn't feel the desire to read something considered similar for some time. It stays with you for awhile. The Fall feels like a pretty difficult read, not in the language, but in its depth and tone. I can see it feeling like a chore to read if you're not in the right mindset though I personally felt most satisfied by it compared to his other works (excluding The Rebel).
If you want fiction The Plague is a good follow up. I would read The Myth of Sisyphus though which is his exploration on the absurd and how to live with it. It is non fiction, however i found his writing so much more enjoyable in this book.
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u/prairieschooner Dec 07 '14
ANYTHING by Camus. Crucial to my life as well.