The Fall

The Fall by Albert Camus, translated by Justin O'Brien, 147 pages

Disarmingly, the entire text of The Fall is addressed directly to the reader, screened behind an anonymous stranger a man named Clamence chances to meet in an Amsterdam bar.  The story of Clamence's life, his childhood and eventual career as a respected lawyer in Paris, his fall from grace and relocation to the slums of Amsterdam, as he tells it - with startling honesty and brutal directness - is the subject of the novel.  For Clamence has discovered his vocation as  a judge-penitent, making of his own wretchedness a magnifying mirror in which others can see themselves, their own imperfections and their own guilt.  He offers no hope of redemption or regeneration, only the mercy that comes from the recognition of our common humanity as totally depraved, the brotherhood of the fallen.

Clamence's is not so much a moral as an immoral universe, one where every crusading defender of the poor is motivated by the self-satisfaction this gives him, every lover of women driven by an urge to conquer and possess, everyone a hero until their heroism actually threatens their well-being or self-image.  It is a worldview obviously influenced by Camus' own experience of occupation and collaboration.  Yet it is also self-defeating, as Clamence's personal sacrifices in pursuit of the truth about himself contradict his own thesis.

Sickness Unto Death

The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening by Anti-Climacus (Soren Kierkegaard), edited and translated by Howard V Hong and Edna H Hong, 131 pages

The sickness which Kierkegaard is concerned with - the sickness which is unto death, but not deadly, because it is a spiritual sickness and the soul cannot die - is despair.  His analysis of despair is that it constitutes alienation - the alienation from one's own being and from absolute Being.  Despair, in this formulation, is identical with sin, or self-will in defiance of God.  Kierkegaard insists on this as the distinctive difference between the classical pagan idea of vice and the Christian concept of sin - just as the human person receives an exalted dignity from the recognition of the divine likeness, so too sin receives its essential character because it takes place apud Deum.

As might be expected in a seminal work by one of the most influential philosophers of the last two hundred years, The Sickness Unto Death is the kind of book that has doctoral dissertations lurking in every paragraph.  It is unsurprisingly difficult reading, despite its short length and the fact that Kierkegaard is a more personal and literary author than, say, Kant or Hegel.  The struggle is certainly worthwhile, especially if one begins with the knowledge that they are not going to fully understand the work.  The Hongs not only provide useful notes, but also relevant entries from Kierkegaard's journals to further explicate the text.