"The Fall" by Albert Camus *****

• French author
• Originally published in 1956
• Camus, a post-WWII existentialist
• Epigraph:  :"Some were dreadfully insulted, and quite seriously, to have held up as a model such an immoral character as "A Hero of Our Time"; others shrewdly noticed that the author had portrayed himself and his acquaintances...."A Hero Of Our Times", gentlemen, is in fact a portrait, but not of an individual; it is the aggregate of the vices of our whole generation in their fullest expression."......Lermontov
• Vocabulary:
• Sadducee:  a member of a Palestinian sect, consisting mainly of priests and aristocrats, that flourished from the 1st century b.c. to the 1st century a.d. and differed from the Pharisees chiefly in its literal interpretation of the Bible, rejection of oral laws and traditions, and denial of an afterlife and the coming of the Messiah. 

•  Quotes:  
• p.11..."When one has no character one has to have a method."
• p.32..."You see, I've heard of a man whose friend had been imprisoned and who slept on the floor of his room every night in order not to enjoy a comfort of which his friend had been deprived.  Who, cher monsieur, will sleep on the floor for us?"
• p.65..."The act of love, for instance, is a confession.  Selfishness screams aloud, vanity shows off, or else true generosity reveals itself."
• p.94..."In order to reveal to all eyes what I was made of, I wanted to break open the handsome wax-figure I presented everywhere."
• p.114..."But too many people now climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance, even if they have to trample somewhat on the one who has been there so long."
• p.140..."But at the same time the portrait I hold out to my contemporaries becomes a mirror."
• p.140..."The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you.  Even better, I provoke you into judging yourself, and this relieves me of that much of the burden."
• p.141..."The essential is being able to permit oneself everything, even if, from time to time, one has to profess vociferously one's own infamy."

• Review:   It is humbling to read anything by Camus.  In this novella, set up as a monologue by the narrator with an audience of a man he met in a bar, Camus, as usual, evokes self-examination.  The narrator has set himself up as a "judge-penitent" whose mission is to teach the truth that all people are responsible....guilty...and can only be set free by acknowledging this.  If you choose to read the novella, you will learn how the narrator "fell" from his prior life into his current one, and how civilization also "fell".  A powerful treatise of judgement, truth, and just being human.