A Forgotten Incomprehensible*

A few nights ago, in a fit of madness, I decided to re-attempt to read "The Fall" by Albert Camus. I didn't have to read very far to remember why I'd abandoned it last time:

"I am well aware that an addiction to silk underwear does not necessarily imply that one's feet are dirty." pg 7

(While this may be so, I believe the wearing of silk underwear is explicitly connected with an addiction to fluffy slippers.)

Yep, it's a little kooky. And rambly. It's 100 pages of "autobiographical", ponderous monologue spoken to the reader by an ex-lawyer who now refers to himself as a 'judge-penitent'. He's shagged a lot of women. It's important that the reader know this. And he's quite in love with himself; he freely admits this. He's basically a self-involved cad who likes to haul people up in bars and talk at them. If this guy hauled me up in a bar and started monologuing at me I'd have gotten THE HELL OUT OF THERE, probably by page 7. I'd have faked my own death if necessary, or not so much faked it as actualised it, right there in front of him. Jesus! Doesn't this guy know when to shut up!

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a "novel of ideas", the characters and circumstances aren't meant to be taken literally. It's meant to be all philosophical and allegorical and metaphorical and symbolic(al). But this doesn't stop me from becoming involved in the situations and wanting to, philosophically, beat this guy senseless. (And, in case the judge-penitent is reading this, it was me who was laughing behind you that time on the pier...Hah! Sucker!).


* I forgot about "The Fall" when I was writing my Incomprehensibles list