I recently read The Plague by Camus about an epidemic happening in colonial Oran, Algeria. I sometimes smiled at how underwhelming it was in comparison to what the COVID pandemic revealed about society and human nature in times of total catastrophe.
Camus's New York Diary (1946)
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Re: Camus's New York Diary (1946)
#12Re: Camus's New York Diary (1946)
#13Happy guy for an existentialist of that period; most were dour and fatalist. I like him!
Re: Camus's New York Diary (1946)
#14I recently read The Plague by Camus about an epidemic happening in colonial Oran, Algeria. I sometimes smiled at how underwhelming it was in comparison to what the COVID pandemic revealed about society and human nature in times of total catastrophe.
Had to read it in school. Iirc it was a direct response and commentary/allegory of ww2.
Re: Camus's New York Diary (1946)
#15Re: Camus's New York Diary (1946)
#16"A stroll to Staten Island" Pardon me? Like, through New Jersey? Hell of a stroll!
Re: Camus's New York Diary (1946)
#17Did he step through a door to Narnia or something? New York used to be wild!
Great apes, giraffe, gazelles!?
Re: Camus's New York Diary (1946)
#18> Their fondness for animals. A multistory pet shop: canaries on the second floor, great apes at the top. A couple of years ago, a man was arrested on Fifth Avenue for driving a giraffe around in his truck. He explained that his giraffe didn’t get enough air out in the suburbs where he kept it and that he’d found this to be a good way to get it some air. In Central Park, a lady brought a gazelle to graze. To the cour…
Re: Camus's New York Diary (1946)
#19Re: Camus's New York Diary (1946)
#20Happy guy for an existentialist of that period; most were dour and fatalist. I like him!
He always rebuked the "existentialist" moniker for that reason. Most would call him an absurdist for his insistence towards finding happiness amidst the absurd indifference of life towards ones aspirations.