Camus: Portrait of a Moralist (review)

In six short chapters, this study retraces the life and career of Albert Camus while elucidating the tumultuous period in which he lived. It features several original readings of major literary and philosophical texts, an incisive analysis of the Camus-Sartre controversy, and a thoughtful re-examination of Camus's role in the Algerian conflict. It also provides a relevant and respectful look into Camus's personal life. We see Camus as he experiences almost everything from abandonment, poverty, and writer's block to love, friendship, and stardom. Bronner's overall tone is one of measured admiration. He lauds Camus for his honesty, talent, and tolerance, but still takes him to task for his logical inconsistencies and poor political judgment. In doing so, Bronner portrays Camus with depth, subtlety, and, above all, balance.

Camus: Portrait of a Moralist begins with a concise account of Camus's formative years. Unlike most discussions of the sort, it accords significant attention to Camus's religiosity. After a succinct consideration of the frequently overlooked dissertation Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism, Bronner concludes that Camus was neither a "closet Catholic" (13) nor a purely secular thinker, but an exemplar of "religious atheism" (13)—the current of thought whose secularism is defined by the very religious belief it rejects. In positing the nonexistence of God and the fundamental human yearning for an absolute, Camus formed the paradox that would inform all of his work: the absurd nature of existence.

While Bronner's analysis of Camus's early, experimental writings provides little that is new, his interpretations, in chapter two, of Camus's first three major works are fresh and bold. The Stranger appears as a modern bildungsroman in which Meursault moves progressively from the depths of the absurd—exemplified by his passivity and indifference—to a new appreciation of life. For Bronner, the keys to this "education" are memory and honesty. Through memory, Meursault attributes significance to his actions and through honesty, he learns to take responsibility for himself. Bronner stresses the novel's refusal to provide a code of ethics and suggests that it is precisely this "antiphilosophical" (38) property that accounts for its continuing success as a work of literature. When discussing The Myth of Sisyphus, Bronner astutely observes that, despite recent claims to the contrary, Camus's position is hardly original. He may have wanted to be independent of existentialism, but the vocabulary he uses to articulate his conception of the absurd is clearly that of the existentialists. Bronner also reveals how the Myth of Sisyphus assumes what it sets out to prove: the need, after encountering the absurd, to choose life over suicide. Still, he praises the essay as a representation of "what is best and courageous about humanity" (47). This mixed assessment is made of Caligula as well. Bronner qualifies the play's impact as "genuine" (53), but questions its thesis that revolt against the totalitarianism of fascism and communism should be associated with "the refusal to resign oneself to the absurdity of existence" (53). Such a linkage, he argues, is problematic for two reasons. First, "fascism and communism also sought to combat the prevailing sense of meaninglessness and relativism" (53) and second, one does not need "to take the absurd seriously as a condition of life in order to revolt against intolerance and the dictatorial use of power" (53). In short, Bronner finds Camus's philosophical proposition superfluous.

Aside from Caligula, Camus's writings before the German invasion of France in May of 1940 dealt primarily with the individual's experience of the absurd. The ensuing occupation, however, brought Camus to concentrate on the question of solidarity. Bronner lucidly illustrates this shift in chapter three by characterizing the play The Misunderstanding as a somewhat successful attempt to call attention to the value of language and communication in the face of despotism. Camus's preoccupation with unity and cooperation becomes even more apparent in the reading of The Plague. To realist-minded critics who accuse the novel of misrepresenting fascism and disregarding...