Reading Camus reminds me an awful lot of Hemingway. They write in the same short, clipped, almost angry or resigned voice, veering away from detailed descriptions to terse facts. And in the same magical way, they both manage to hint at something hidden beneath the surface. Their characters too are strikingly similar. Jake Barnes, a crippled war veteran, is a stoic, silent, and ultimately dependable guy. Monsieur Meursault is a stoic, awkward, and caring person whose mother has just died. The two heros are both incredibly honest. Jake, when speaking, always says what is on his mind - for example, when Robert Cohn asks him about Brett, Jake gives him a complete rundown of her history including a warning to not get involved. While this act does seem selfish of Jake, who is also in love with Brett, it can also be viewed as an earnest attempt to prevent Cohn from getting hurt. In reflection, Cohn ignores the advice and loses all his friends in the process.
Monsieur Meursault has a comparable tendency to speak openly. When asked by Marie, his girlfriend, if he loved her, he replied with a negative, and was puzzled by why she seemed sad. When Marie asked him if he wanted to get marry, he didn't have any particular reason against it, so he said sure. Some people tend to view his veracity as an autistic inability to lie, but it appears to me like his own brand of personal charm. He has no reason to lie and thus he does not. Sometimes, this tendencies to tell the truth conflicts with social conformity, and Meursault is understandably not particularly popular. So why is he the hero of this story? It's hard to grasp all the reasons given that I have read only a limited number of chapters, so I will reserve judgement for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment