French poetry 101 – Albert Camus

[foudebassan]

Albert Camus (1913-1960) is born in the Algerian countryside. His father dies in the great war, and his semi-illiterate mother moves to Algiers soon afterwards. His elementary school teacher sees his potential and gets a scholarship for him. He discovers philosophy, and moves to the “métropole” after secondary school to study it further. He supports himself and his wife by doing odd jobs, briefly adheres to the Communist party, divorces and marries again.

It is during this early period that he writes Noces, from which today’s poem is taken, a nostalgic tribute to his native Algeria. The dominant themes are those of sensuality, of plenitude, of the marriage between sun and sea.


(…)

Maintenant les arbres s'étaient peuplés d'oiseaux. La terre soupirait lentement avant d'entrer dans l'ombre. Tout à l'heure, avec la première étoile, la nuit tombera sur la scène du monde. Les dieux éclatants du jour retourneront à leur mort quotidienne. Mais d'autres dieux viendront. Et pour être plus sombres, leurs faces ravagées seront nées cependant dans le cœur de la terre.

A présent du moins, l'incessante éclosion des vagues sur le sable me parvenait à travers tout un espace ou dansait un pollen doré. Mer, campagne, silence, parfums de cette terre, je m'emplissais d'une vie odorante et je mordais dans le fruit déjà doré du monde, bouleversé de sentir son jus sucré et fort couler le long de mes lèvres. Non, ce n'était pas moi qui comptais, ni le monde, mais seulement l'accord et le silence qui de lui à moi faisait naître l'amour. Amour que je n'avais pas la faiblesse de revendiquer pour moi seul, conscient et orgueilleux de le partager avec toute une race, née du soleil et de la mer, vivante et savoureuse, qui puise sa grandeur dans la simplicité et debout sur les plages, adresse son sourire complice au sourire éclatant de ses ciels.

(…)



(Now the trees were populated by birds. The earth sighed slowly before entering the shade. In a moment, with the first star, night will fall on the world's scene. The sparkling gods of day will go back to their daily death. But other gods will come. And, darker as they may be, their devastated faces will still have been born in the heart of the earth.

For now at least, the incessant blooming of the waves on the sand reached me through an entire space where golden pollen danced. Sea, country, silence, perfumes of this earth, I filled myself with an odorant life and I bit into the already ripened fruit of the world, overwhelmed as I felt its sweet and strong juice dripping along my lips. No, I was not important, nor was the world, but only the understanding and the silence that, from it to me, gave birth to love. A love that I was not weak enough to claim as mine alone, aware and proud of sharing it with a whole race, born of the sun and of the sea, alive and luscious, who draws its greatness from simplicity and stands on the beaches, addressing its conniving smile to the sparkling smile of their skies.)



If you are familiar with Camus’ later (post-war) works, the contrast might have surprised you. But Camus does indeed forsake this poetic, wordy streak for an extremely austere style. The pleasure of youth, of being, of feeling part of nature gave way to an extremely cynical view of the world.

He never comes back over his love for Algeria, though. His best-known novel, L’Etranger, is set in Algiers, even if the background is wildly unrealistic (a French citizen would never have been condemned to death for such a trivial thing as shooting down an Arab). When he obtains the Nobel price for literature, his inaugural speech is a tribute to the schoolmaster who first put him in secondary school. And when the “unrests” in his native land turn to a fully-fledged bloodbath, he goes to Algiers to preach peace and reconciliation (Algerian freedom fighters fought for independence by bombing the colonists, the French authorities sent draftees to keep Algeria French by torturing the insurgents, their families, their friends and their native villages to crack down on that nasty civil disobedience, and the guerrilleros predictably replied by creeping up on the French soldiers at night and cutting their throats, until both sides ran out of canon fodder). He fails, Algeria becomes independent two years after his death, and the colonists have to sail back in shame to a metropolitan France neither they nor most of their ancestors have ever set foot in.

Camus is best-known for his novel-writing and his philosophy. He believes in Fate, and in man’s inability to counter it, a belief that finds a morbid confirmation when he dies in a car accident, in 1960. He thought he’d take the train – a ticket was found in his pocket – but a friend lend him a car for convenience, and, well.

What’s most remarkable about Camus probably is that he is better known abroad than at home. His “later” austere style might have helped – it translates better than some of his contemporaries’ more refined prose – but the main culprits remain the Parisian literary and philosophic circles of his time. They did not understand his fond nostalgia for the Algerian countryside, nor his first-hand experience of poverty, nor his distances from Communism, nor indeed what made him one of the finer intellectuals of his time.

More fools them.



Coming soon: guess :)

Comments

[zafania.livejournal.com]

sometimes its hard to see the tresures under your feet - you need a bit fo distacne

did you talk to mr pretty hair?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

No :(

I did see him today, but he wasn't reading, he was iPoding away with a blank stare. Never mind though, with his looks he must have a girlfriend already, this kind of bloke just isn't allowed to roam free and unattached.

[zafania.livejournal.com]

he might not, you might be the right girls that he waiting for - for all you know he could be dreaming of someone just like you as he stares at the ipod

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Yeah right.

[zafania.livejournal.com]

you never know until you try

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Perhaps.

[zafania.livejournal.com]

if you dont do something soon you will have to cahnge that icon to a big yellow chicken bird

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Don't my present icons correspond to me pretty well already?

[zafania.livejournal.com]

indeed

[dacian-goddess.livejournal.com]

I've found that to be an erroneous perception quite often, actually. I would see this nice-looking guy, and assume he was in a relationship, and when we started talking it would turn out he was actually single.

You never know until you give it a try. ~pokes you before you let the opportunity pass you by~

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

You think everyone would think him off limits and he's thus condemned to a lifetime of solitude... hence his reading choices...?

[lillithj.livejournal.com]

I love The Stranger. Its whole legal set up is fabulous.

Coming next guess: Huis Clos?

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Good guess, but I'm sticking to poetry, so that isn't it.

[lillithj.livejournal.com]

My knowledge of Sartre's poetry is nil, if it's Sartre next.

I'll just have to wait with all due anticipation.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

If he's written any poetry at all, I don't know about it :(

so it's Prévert next.

[lillithj.livejournal.com]

Oooh, a hint!

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Subtlety is indeed one of my finest qualities!

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Good grief, I had no idea that Camus did lyrical!

(Incidentally, I think you mean 'colonist' not 'colon'. The colon is, I believe, at the end of the intestinal tract, and unless the colonisation of Algeria was more surreal than I remember it, there were no colons involved. Although you might make a case for arseholes. I hope you don't mind the correction - your English is so extremely good that I find it hard to resist correcting the few mistakes you make.)

Catherine

PS - I second the remarks about attractive males not necessarily being taken. After all, they have to start off single at some point, or they couldn't reach the phase of being taken. And I would think you would be worth waiting for.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected. It's too bad, though - all the jokes on fortuitous metonymies go down the drain!

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

True - but at least there is room for bad puns. I take that to be a hopeful sign.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Bad puns are necessary to life, much like groceries and toilet paper.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

And books.

Don't forget the books.

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Oh yes right, and the books can even be used as toilet paper should the need arise.

(The contingencies of moving might be addling my brain)

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was sorry to hear about your appalling landlord. Isn't there any way to take legal action against him? It sounds like some of the stuff he has pulled must surely be illegal...

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

He's blacklisted at work, which means he's going to have quite a rough time finding new tenants.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

That's somethiing, at least, but I wish it was more helpful to you!