Albert Camus just makes you realise the absurdity of life, as well as being able to appreciate art with disregard for the artist.

I love Albert Camus. I found something in him that I could not find in any other place.

The inner conflict, the absurdity.

However, Camus never claimed to be anything other than he is. He didn’t have a moral compass that he later betrayed. In fact, I think he understood absurdity more than any of us is able to.

In his book The Fall (La Chute), Camus explained everything. How he separately looks down on individuality, how he himself contradicts his own moral standards. The name “Jean Baptiste” is a reflection of that higher standard looking down on humanity.

Nevertheless, that same person watches someone jump off a bridge and does nothing about it, which shows us that his moral compass was more of a superiority complex rather than virtue.

Not to mention, that part was taken from his wife’s attempt while being in a psychiatric clinic. His deep feelings of guilt that his wife had entered a deep depression because of his inability to be faithful. However, he continued to send letters to Maria Casarès at the same time his wife had the attempt and was going under electroshock treatment.

Last but not least, the motive of the book is our biggest insight into Camus’s inner conflict.

Albert Camus had an intense argument with his friend “Jean Paul Sartre”.

That’s when things became juicy. Camus refused the idea of independent Algeria, though he allegedly defended Algerian citizens’ rights of being equal with the French colonisers. Algérie indépendante was unacceptable to him.

Jean Paul Sartre disagreed with him. He called him somewhat irrational, as well as criticising his book The Rebel, which ultimately led to Camus’s sense of inferiority, resulting in his book La Chute.

La Chute is a one-sided dialogue where the speaker directly confesses his wretchedness, yet slowly leads you in, as you are part of it. He says near the end: “We are not of the same race, but we are of the same stamp. We both have varnish, we both have a past, and yet we are two distinct types.”

As if telling Jean Paul Sartre that you are just as wretched as me, calling him out for his alleged arrogance, as Camus perceived it.

This isn’t hate against Albert Camus. I love Camus and his exceptional work. And I am a firm believer that we ought to simply appreciate the art given to us, regardless of the artist’s virtue. After all, they are all dead.

Nevertheless, what I find quite interesting is that there are no rules for life or art. Each individual has a unique life from which they are able to produce art, shaped by the way they perceive the world. Contradiction, conflict, virtue, and cultural appropriation do not exist as something definite, but rather as subjective truths.

Camus’s writings offer us insight into our own conflicts as we examine his.