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Absurdism

and Albert Camus

Metamorphosis (by Kafka, Franz)
The Trial (by Kafka, Franz)
The Idiot (by Dostoevsky, Fyodor)
Waiting for Godot (by Beckett, Samuel)
The Book of Ecclesiastes;
Bouvard et Pcuchet : Oeuvre Posthume (by Gustave Flaubert)
The Tragic Finale an Essay on the Philos... (by Jean)

Albert Camus, the French Algerian writer and philosopher born on November 7th, 1913, made his mark on philosophy with his ideas of absurdity. Absurdity speaks of humanity’s quest for clarity in a world where there is none. The idea pervades all writing and is the crux of his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, which compares existence to Sisyphus’ plight of eternally rolling a stone up a hill.

For Albert Camus' birthday, we take a look at absurdist fiction. Absurdism--a brand of existentialism--deals with the contradictions that arise from the human mind acting within the context of the universe. In particular, absurdist texts discusses humanity's constant search for meaning in a meaningless existence.

Although much of comedy finds its roots in the absurd, absurdist fiction rarely dabbles in comedic form on purpose. Rather, it tends to pit characters against droll and pointlessly bureaucratic societal barriers or morally complicated situations, and attempts to objectively watch the situation play out. Author Paul Auster said of his existential detective books New York Trilogy, "In the end, each life is no more than the sum of contingent facts, a chronicle of chance intersections, of ﬂukes, of random events that divulge nothing but their own lack of purpose."

Absurdism might begin with what some find to be an absolutely depressing admission, but authors like Camus went to great lengths to distinguish absurdism from its neighbor, nihilism. Nihilism lingers in the void of meaninglessness and amorality. Absurdism begins there, but takes under consideration every situational context, and through them aims to create relative answers and reasoning.

In the story of Sisyphus, he is condemned to eternally push a rock to the top of a hill, only to see it roll back to the bottom. Classic interpretations state that Sisyphus is trapped and spiritually destroyed by a task that accomplishes nothing. Camus says that we should "imagine Sisyphus happy," that each time he pushes the boulder up the hill it's because he wants to, and he enjoys the process.

For more absurdist books, check out The Metamorphosis or The Trial by Franz Kafka, The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, The Book of Ecclesiastes from the Bible, Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert, and The Tragic Finale by Jean Paul Sartre.

By Thad Higa