
Albert Camus
A Very Short Introduction
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $11.17
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Graham Halstead
-
By:
-
Oliver Gloag
Few would question that Albert Camus (1913-1960), novelist, playwright, philosopher and journalist, is a major cultural icon. His widely quoted works have led to countless movie adaptions, graphic novels, pop songs, and even t-shirts.
In this Very Short Introduction, Oliver Gloag chronicles the inspiring story of Camus' life. From a poor fatherless settler in French-Algeria to the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gloag offers a comprehensive view of Camus' major works and interventions, including his notion of the absurd and revolt, as well as his highly original concept of pure happiness through unity with nature called "bonheur". This original introduction also addresses debates on coloniality, which have arisen around Camus' work.
Gloag presents Camus in all his complexity a staunch defender of many progressive causes, fiercely attached to his French-Algerian roots, a writer of enormous talent and social awareness plagued by self-doubt, and a crucially relevant author whose major works continue to significantly impact our views on contemporary issues and events.
©2020 Oliver Gloag (P)2020 TantorListeners also enjoyed...




















People who viewed this also viewed...









Good summary
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the end, Camus was a magnificent writer of poetic prose and gorgeous essays. His lyricism was in many cases, without peer. But as a human being, he failed miserably to consider the plight of anyone other than himself and his beloved settler/invader class. Just like Mersault in The Stranger, he imagined that the nameless others, the original inhabitants of Algeria, could be disregarded and erased from history with a few pulls of the trigger.
Camus: Great poet but not a good man.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The other half is the author incessantly announcing their contempt for Camus for not being a communist.
That's all well and good, but unfortunately the two halves alternate with each sentence, so every fact you're given about Camus or his work, is followed by a breathless analysis of how it relates to his nihilism, his cowardice, and his love of imperialism,
I came away from this book with a sense that a good author could have taken the same source material and written a good book on the topic of Camus's weakness and irrelevance.
I wouldn't have read it, because I wanted to read a very short introduction to Albert Camus.
But if you want a bad introduction and a bad critique, this book is for you.
And I mean it, I can't think of anyone else this book is for.
The narration is terrific.
Tedious and uninformative
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Too much biography, not enough philosophy
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.