The Fall

Amazing!!

Albert Camus' The Fall is simply amazing! I was, by default, hesitant to pick it up having just read Hunger by Knut Hamsun (also a disturbing, yet profound stream-of-consciousness novel), but I couldn't put it down!!

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Inexpressibly Impressive

Having just read this book for the second time I am even more staggered as to how impressive it is. Camus is uncannily insightful, and even though the subject matter leads the reader to question his own motives and ethics on an elemental level, it is an exhilarating experience to be sure. Whether you want to or not, you will relate to the protagonist...

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A Wrenching Descent from Innocence to Experiance

These are the confessions of a modern man, an everyman starting out as a 'nice person,' productive, well liked. Then he slowly, agonized, finds out, or reasons, or surmises somehow, how loathsome he and everyone else really is. Camus writes like Hemingway and the book is hard to stop reading. I read it in one sitting. His fall into depression is so logical, so left brained: the hero takes you to a mind hell with him. Unforgetable. It is easy to see why Albert Camus, although famous during his lifetime more as an existentialist philosopher, will no doubt be thought formost as novelist and short story writer.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A Burst of Reality!

This novel, The Fall, has really caused me to think of the person I am, and the person I want to be. It has changed my outlook on people in general.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Amazing stuff in existentialism

After picking up Albert Camus for the first time I was thrown aback by his witty style. He was able to capture my mind and understanding of the world of existentialism. The book the Fall is not only a literary classic but it is also one of the most interesting reads that I have ever read.

An unapologetically dialogue-driven novel.

Wow, this book has alot to say and so does the character in it. Even though sometimes I hard a time understanding what the character was saying, it was just interesting to hear him pour himself and his story to a stranger. The strength of this book definitely lies in the sincerity and intelligence of the character and the language, Camus has packed a philosophical outlook that could fill 10 books into one. Even if your not interested in books that offer some food for thought, pick up this book just because its entertaining to hear the character talk.

a francophile's perspective

I can only imagine what Camus would think of some online reviewer's trying to draw inspiration from this book. He might approve, but with as much opprobrium as approbation. The text is a constant, but subtle, play with irony -- all as neither build nor descent (catch my irony?) to the ultimate point (which the 'Meconfort' teaches us) that no pole at a spectrum's end is a reflection of reality (only a reflection of mankind's artificial hierarchization, one must instead 'vivre en diagonale.'). Thus (to complete the syllogism), although inspiration drawn from despair would be ironic, such a message completely misses the point of the book. I will not expound further upon this, but suffice it to say that common misconceptions about existentialism, the 'existentialist crisis' (which does not in fact exist in true existentialism), and existentialist 'redemption' set back the American reader confronting any of Camus' works. As a final aside, while I can't vouch for the translation, Camus does not write like Hemingway.

Incredible.

Since it was the first i have read of Camus's work i was completely take back by his writing. At fist i had thought it would be just another existentialist novel, but once i had read it the depth and reality that was brought to the character i was taken back. Not to mention the way that Camus describes Clamences feelings and visions especially when he keeps refering the the woman on the bridge. i would recomend this novel to anyone willing to take another look on life and ready to read one of the best existentialist books of all time.

Falling

An outstanding work: reads more like an extended commentary, rather than a novel. Camus forces the reader to check his/her own conscience through the actions of the narrator. Existential, but very understandable: it's difficult not to empathize with the narrator, despite his failings.

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