Rating: 
Summary: Gripping and personal, if a little "schematic"
Review: Camus scholars see "The Fall" as one of the author's most personal works, because the main character is exploring his own dedication to orderly morality and questioning whether hypocrisy is preventable. One scholar (Conor Cruise O'Brien) thinks it's really about Camus coming to terms with Algeria. (Camus once said, in a famous response to Sartre, "When asked to choose between justice and my mother, I choose my mother." His mother lived in French Algeria.) Interestingly, "The Fall" is the only Camus novel set outside Africa-- in foggy Amsterdam, land of carnal lust and moral ambiguity!Very well-crafted mood of unease, very intelligent broodings. It does, however, seem contrived to specifically fit Camus' purpose of moral exploraion, and the characters seem awfully schematic. This might make it a little too didactic for some readers.
Rating: 
Summary: When Thou Art King, Will Thou Hang a Theif?
Review: This novel was not only Camus' best ever, but one of the best novels ever! I have searched for ages to find a book that discussed the human need for power and have had yet to find such a work. That is, until I came across The Fall. I found this book to touch upon the very essence of what drives human beings. A reader would have to be a self-deceptive one to deny that there are not elements of all of us in this book. Is not everyones goal in life to rise themselves above everyone else? Every act of goodwill is an act of feeding the ego. I must say that this is, by far, one of the best novels ever written!! A must-read for all!
Rating:
Summary: More like The Descent
Review: Caums's The Fall is most intriguing work; it captivates you as you listen to the sorrid life being recounted by the narrator. This book offers wonderful insight into the world of a wasted, dissipated soul. Even the narrator knows when he's given you enough for one evening, but he knows you'll be back for more. This was the first Camus I read after The Stranger (which I originally read in high school, so I didn't fully enjoy the work until I re-read it after I read The Fall, after college) and it opened my eyes to Camus's viewpoint on life, the world and everything. With all it's idiosyncracies and depravities that might or might not be Camus's, but they ring a certain amount of veracity that is charming, beguiling and at sometimes repugnant - much like life itself. It's not for all, but it's fascinating nonetheless.
Rating:
Summary: One of my ten favorite novels
Review: When Albert Camus died in 1960 in a car accident, he was only 46 years old. Of all the great writers of the 20th century, his death may have been the most tragic simply because he died at the height of his powers as a writer and as a thinker. Every indication we have is that his work was growing in complexity and depth. There is no way to guage what what he might have achieved had he lived longer. Many reviewing here have called THE FALL the great existential novel. In part because I have never really understood what "existentialism" was (despite doing my doctoral work on Kierkegaard, the so-called "father of existentialism" and having actually taught a course on existentialism [while a grad student--I needed the money]), the term has never really signified much for me. In part this is because every so-called existentialist can be better characterized in other philosophical terms. For instance, Jean-Paul Sartre is more fruitfully understood as a phenomenologist or a late Marxist than as an existentialist. But even if "existentialist" communicated more than it does, I would not describe THE FALL as an existentialist novel, say, in the way that THE STRANGER is. The latter fully communicates the meaningless of human existence and moral vacuity of individual life that we associate with existentialism. In THE FALL, however, while the pretensions and hypocrisies of one individual life are unmasked, Camus strives to go beyond utter despair to find a more authenticate and--even--hopeful mode of living. THE STRANGER was ultimately destructive in its message. THE FALL is an act of demolition, but only so that something better can be erected in its place. Camus doesn't really communicated what will take its place, but it will clearly be based upon an empathetic concern for our neighbor and a passionate concern for others. The novel, as has been noted, is presented as a conversation between a Parisian lawyer and an unnamed and unspeaking patron of an Amsterdam bar. It is written in such a way that the reader seems to be that patron. The lawyer tells a tale of his own career and moral hypocrisy in such a way, he tells us, that at a certain point it ceases to be a portrait and becomes a mirror, which he holds up and shows the other his own life. The point? During the tale he tells, he mentions a man who insisted on sleeping on the floor of his abode in order not to enjoy a luxury which a friend of his who is in prison has been denied. The lawyer confesses that perhaps his purpose is to get others to sleep on the floor for him.
Rating: 
Summary: Falls with a thud
Review: This "novel", if you want to call it that, consists of an ex-lawyer who calls himself a "judge-penitent" prattling on to a presumably interested (though I can't figure out why) fellow he meets at a bar about his life. I suppose he is confessing, in a way, yet I found his confessions to be full of arrogance and pride even from the beginning, especially concerning his sexual conquests. If I were the listener, I'd try to get away from this blowhard as soon as I could. As a reader, I did manage to finish the book, after all it is fairly short and not particularly difficult. Many people who read this believe that it describes the human condition well, and can see glimpses of themselves in this man. Well, if they look hard enough, most people could see glimpses of themselves in the Unabomber, too. I found this book to be a total waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: FILE UNDER DIDACTIC
Review: Having read The Stranger a couple of weeks back, I came to this novel with high expectations. Or at least in the hope of equal quality with the earlier work. The narrator of the novel is an ex-lawyer. In fact, he was a great lawyer, who stood up for the oppressed whenever he could. He says his specialty was "noble cases", by which he meant defending widows and orphans. He believes that he is a "superman" who is superior to other people. This superiority doesn't cause him to do evil to others. Ironically, it motivates him to do good. He seems to be a God, who through acts of goodness, gains the worship and respect of the community. By all rights, he is one of the greatest men of Paris. One night while he is meditating on his greatness he hears a disembodied laugh behind him. This is where the fall begins as though some Greek god was punishing him for his hubris. His world turns upside down and he becomes just as adept in committing evil as before he was at good. I found half of the book good and the other half dull. Especially towards the end it becomes a didactic school lesson as the narrator tries to express his motivations. The character to me just isn't interesting enough to keep me focused on his 147 page sililoquy. The Stranger was a much more succesful work in that it illustrated ideas through characterization and plot. This novel could have been entititled a philosophical tract and that would have been appropriate. This is not one of his best works.
Rating:
Summary: Love's labor lost...
Review: I'm sad to say I couldn't read this book in the original French. It's already sharp and deprecating tone would have even more of an edge as Camus embarks on a slash and burn campaign at himself and the human condition. Readers are certain to find their own favorite memorable lines in the tightly knit confessional novel which speaks directly to YOU! "What will future generations say of modern man?" Camus asks. "He fornicates and reads the newspapers" is the answer, of course. Another way of saying we're a world of piddly-assed dwarfs. If you think Camus is being harsh or judging mankind too harshly, you will be happy to discover that he dissects himself with the same icy assiduity. Lawyer Clamence undergoes a transformation from a man who enjoys comfort and public adulation to a person who lives in the psychological equivalent of the little-ease, a medieval torture chamber in which a person can neither sit nor stand. Constantly mindful of his discomfiture, Clamence admits his hypocrisy, his selfishness, and his phony defense of a mankind he actually despises. He is not as brave as he'd like to be, and is tormented by his cowardice in failing to act when a young woman dives from one of Paris' bridges in a suicide attempt. He uses women for sexual gratification simply because he can. But his main contribution to art and life is his invention of the "judge-penitent", a concept we find at once humorous, truthful, and patently absurd. Lawyer Clamence is most of us, full of judgment for others ensnared in the human struggle and yet he wants himself to be safe from judgement so he repents the inherent cruelty in judging others. People judge whatever and whomever they see and shut themselves off from their own insincerity. There's no way out of it except to simultaneously fillet onself at the same time one is vivisecting others. One might possibly arrive at some sort of authenticity in doing that. In any case, I would be surprised if Camus cared whether one did or not. He was more concerned with getting at the truth at the bottom of himself. What I liked best about this novel was its thorough demolition of pretense. Though it was sometimes difficult to experience, I made the effort and find that it still resonates, dragging me out into deeper water than I would otherwise prefer to swim in.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed, but Entrancing Camus
Review: I didn't think this book rose to the achievement of The Stranger in terms of the nuances and all the things contained in every passage of The Stranger. However, the prose is just as excellent. This book is essentially the confession of a Parisian lawyer who, like many existential heroes, experiences a transformation out of self-reflection and adopts an unconventional attitude towards society. In this case, he becomes a "judge-penitent" (read the book to understand this concept), a man who absolves and convicts people. He twists our perception of human guilt and innocent before one another and the whole human race. While I found some of his long-winded speeches too gratuitious and abstract for a novel, it fits the philosophical mold of the novel. This is a keen psychological dig into human conscience and the despair rising out of the modern spiritual need.
Rating:
Summary: Only Slightly Better Than Average
Review: I recently read The Stranger after surprising myself by how long I managed to go without ever reading it. I was so enthusiastic about The Stranger and Camus in general that I went out and picked up The Fall. As it turns out, I was a little too enthusiastic. This was a very difficult book to get through for me - and I read just about everything out there. This is basically one side of a conversation in which the protagonist explains himself and his past to a stranger. The one redeemable thing about The Fall is that there is a certain striking and scary truth in the protagonist. I believe we can all see parts of ourselves in the character and the character is not very appealing. But there are certain truths revealed by The Fall that are universal. While we can all gain some insight into ourselves, this is not an enjoyable read. Frankly, it was a struggle. Sometimes these literary struggles have a big payoff. This, however, did not. Consider it a 150 page character study. While very well executed, it lacked substance.
Rating:
Summary: Everyone must read this book.
Review: i read this book in my AP engilsh class and it has changed my life. i find myself going back to read it over and over again. Camus' honesty and insight about the human condition is amazing. if you have read this book you should also read The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy (part of the Border Trilogy), The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky (very, very long, but worth every minute you put into to after you've finished) and The Light Inside The Dark by a guy named John who's last name i dont know. All equally amazing.
|
