Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Source of book: Borrowed from the library.

This was my selection for Banned Books Week. At 415 pages, it took longer than a week, but I did start it during Banned Books Week.

Just as a reminder, I use the week to read books which have been banned, which means that a government has outlawed sale, publication, or possession of the book. I do not count challenged books - those which citizens or parents have sought to keep out of school curricula or libraries. This isn’t because I think challenges are interesting, but because I wanted to focus my once a year project on those where the power of the state was employed in censorship. I believe that is a different level from a challenge. After all, any library has limited space and budget, and decisions must be made. (Personally, I would have preferred an extra - and local - copy of The Rest is Noise rather than one of the 20ish copies of Eat, Pray, Love.) Likewise, students can only study so many books, and the choice of which to study is a judgment call.

Here are my past selections, plus the introduction to Banned Books Week.

Thoughts on Banned Books Week

Areopagitica by John Milton (2011)

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (2012)

The Quest for Christa T. by Christa Wolf (2013)

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz (2014)

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (2015)

July’s People by Nadine Gordimer (2016)

Into the River by Ted Dawe (2017)

***

This is another book which was - believe it or not - banned by a Western democracy during my lifetime. Several states banned it during the 1970s, as did Dallas, TX (1977) and Snoqualmie, WA (1979.) Ostensibly, the book was banned for referring to women as “whores.” This seems a bit specious, since the women in question were, strictly speaking, prostitutes. While there is sexual content, it isn’t particularly graphic, and it certainly isn’t gratuitous. For the 1970s (seriously, watch a movie from that era…), it is pretty tame. I suspect that two facets of the novel were what really drove the bans: it is somewhat anti-war - and it raises uncomfortable theological questions. With the 1970s as kind of ground zero for the fundamentalist Religious Right, I suspect that a novelist who raised the still-unsolved and debated Problem of Evil was unwelcome.

What Catch-22 is, without question, is one of the most important and influential novels of the 20th Century. I am kind of surprised that I didn’t end up reading any of it in high school, honestly, because at least one chapter seems like a perfect selection. I guess they can’t have you read everything. I can see the influence of the book on our perception of military life. Written in 1961, it is ostensibly set in World War II, but was intended by the author as a commentary not on that war, but on the Cold War - and even more so on the McCarthy hearings. To that end, there are multiple references to loyalty oaths and specific incidents from the hearings.

Catch-22’s vision of military life permeates so much of what was written or filmed thereafter. As a kid, I loved the Beetle Bailey comic strips - which draw a lot from the book, although the comic is more lighthearted. My dad’s favorite TV show, M*A*S*H, reuses a number of tropes - and the idea of using a satire of one war to critique another. As others have pointed out, The Office is to a certain degree Catch-22 without the blood. I suspect that having read this book, I will see even more references in popular culture.

The book isn’t a linear narrative. Rather, the first part of the book essentially tells a portion of the story (which is really the middle of the plot) from the point of view of various characters, filling in the missing pieces. As the story then progresses, more and more is told, but again, not in chronological order. It is rather like building a jigsaw puzzle from the center out, except you can’t figure out what stuff is until near the end.

The setting is the liberation (or invasion...take your pick) of Italy during the height of World War II. At that point, D-Day was in the future, and the outcome of the war was still in doubt, even though the tide had turned. The characters are part of an airborne bomber group flying B-25s. Unline the better known B-17 (one of the best looking bombers of the era, in my view) and the B-24 (much larger, and with a longer range, this was used in the Western Europe and Pacific theaters), the B-25 was a smaller two-engined bomber. The B-25 had a good reputation as one of the most durable aircraft of the war, reliable, and versatile. Because of its roles, however, it ended up being used for lower level bombing runs, which made it vulnerable to anti-aircraft flak, even if (as was the case in the book), there was no opposition from enemy fighters.

 B-25 operated by the Commemorative Air Force, at the Miramar USMC Station, 2018

One of the great things about this book was the realism in the airborne scenes. This is because Heller, like his anti-hero Yossarian, was a bombardier/navigator on a B-25 in Italy. In that sense, the book draws heavily from Heller’s own experiences. I’m a bit of an aviation buff - my dad was was an amateur pilot in his younger days, and was an air traffic controller before his retirement - and I grew up around aircraft. I still love flying (although airport security not so much), and my wife snickers at the way my head swivels whenever I hear or see an airplane.

However, Heller was quick to point out that while his experience in war helped him write the technical aspects of this book, he most certainly did not base his characters on his experiences. Heller said that his fellow soldiers and commanding officers were, by and large, exemplary men, and, while he suffered trauma as the result of war, he had nothing but positive feelings for those he served with. The book was therefore, not primarily a working out of his own baggage from the war, but a veiled commentary on the 1950s - specifically the McCarthy era, as noted above.

Catch-22 doesn’t have a hero in the traditional sense. There are a few more or less admirable minor characters, but for the most part, everyone is badly flawed or outright malevolent. And the central character, Yossarian, is a classic anti-hero. He is a coward, a lazy bastard, an insubordinate son-of-a-bitch, and more. (His commanding officers are certainly right to call him these things.) But, there is some mitigation. At the outset of the story, all personnel are supposed to be furloughed after a certain number of missions. That is the official policy. But Colonel Cathcart, who commands the unit, is determined to get his name into a magazine back home with a glowing story. And so he keeps raising the number of missions. So Yossarian and the others never get to go home. Here is the classic scene which explains the...well… “catch-22.”

“Daneeka was telling the truth,” ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen admitted.” Forty missions is all you have to fly as far as Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters is concerned.”

Yossarian was jubilant. “Then I can go home, right? I’ve got forty-eight.”

“No, you can’t go home,” ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen corrected him. “Are you crazy or something??”

“Why not.”

“Catch-22.”

“Catch-22?” Yossarian was stunned. “What the hell has Catch-22 got to do with it?”

“Catch-22,” Doc Daneeka answered patiently, when Hungry Joe had flown Yossarian back to Pianosa, “says you’ve always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.”

"But Twenty-seventh Air Force says I can go home with forty missions."

"But they don't say you have to go home. And regulations do say you have to obey every order. That's the catch. Even if the colonel were disobeying a Twenty-seventh Air Force order by making you fly more missions, you'd still have to fly them, or you'd be guilty of disobeying an order of his. And then Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters would really jump on you."

Yossarian slumped with disappointment. “Then I really do have to fly the fifty missions, don’t I?” he grieved.

“The fifty-five,” Doc Daneeka corrected him.

“Catch-22” is never actually stated, but its effects are explained. Here is another mention of it:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.

Every absurdity in the book comes back to “catch-22.” Yossarian eventually decides that it doesn’t actually exist - it is just the justification for the impossible situations that abound. The source of the term is fascinating. When Heller first started writing the book, he released a draft of the first chapter as “Catch-18.” His agent, however, requested that it be changed so the book wouldn’t be confused with Leon Uris’ new book, Mila 18. “Catch 11” was suggested - the repetition fit the repeated, circular conversations which abound in the book. Except that Ocean’s Eleven had just been released. (The original, Rat Pack version, not the Brad Pitt and George Clooney remake.) “Catch-17” was too close to Stalag 17, a mostly forgotten WWII movie. Finally, someone realized the obvious: “Catch-22” was the perfect number. Repetitive like 11, but even more fun to say.

And now, nobody can imagine it being anything else.

For those of us who came of age at the end of the 20th Century, it is impossible to imagine life without this idiom. But without Heller’s book, it wouldn’t even exist.

I hesitate to actually try to summarize the book beyond saying that Yossarian is determined to stop flying missions, particularly after one of his crewmates is disemboweled and dies in his arms. He finds excuses, from a vague medical issue to strategic insanity. But even though he is utterly without scruple, there is one thing he won’t do to get discharged. (I won’t spoil it.)

Pretty much all of the characters are major. (And that includes Major Major - see below.) Everyone is important in some way, and each story is developed. The characters are memorable, and you care about them - even as they are systematically killed off. At least the ones you like. The loathsome commanding officers survive, of course - they don’t have to fly missions.

The book is pretty dang dark - particularly in the last fifth. But, at the same time, it is one of the funniest books I have read. There are many lines that are indeed laugh out loud hilarious...and then you feel guilty for laughing. It is that sort of a book. On the one level, it is a mockery of politics and power. The greed of capitalistic sorts - exemplified by Milo Minderbinder’s smuggling racket (another hilarious chapter) - and the lust for power and prestige of the various commanding officers is on full and amusing display. We all know people like this.

But there is something deeper than this. Yossarian eloquently takes on the fates - God himself - for the absurdity of human suffering. This exchange occurs between Yossarian and the wife of Lt. Scheisskopf (one of several not-particularly-subtle names in this book.)

“I bet I can name two things to be miserable about for every one you can name to be thankful for.”

“Be thankful you’re healthy.”

“Be bitter you’re not going to stay that way.”

“Be glad you’re even alive.”

“Be furious you’re going to die.”

...

“And don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways,” Yossarian continued, hurtling over her objections. “There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing or else He’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about—a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did he ever create pain? … Oh, He was really being charitable to us when He gave us pain! Why couldn’t He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of blue-and-red neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead. Any jukebox manufacturer worth his salt could have done that. Why couldn’t He? … What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering. …”

This was a particularly sobering passage. I’ll admit this has been on my mind a lot lately. In particular, why God remains silent when a majority of those who claim his name continue to express hate and cruelty toward other human beings. But, really, this has been a major theme of our scripture: why the wicked prosper and are allowed to harm others, and why justice is delayed. And why God delays purging the filth from what claims to be his church.

On a somewhat related note, I was stunned to see a particularly cogent analysis of Right Wing views - and Calvinism - in this book. I mean, this is 67 years later, but it is exactly what I see going on right now.

Major Major is an, um, major character in the book. In a really hilarious way. He manages to avoid actually seeing anyone or doing anything. But his back story is also funny. His father names him, literally, “Major Major Major” when the mother is recovering from a difficult childbirth. And then, he is promoted to the rank of Major, so….Major Major Major Major. Yeah, it’s terrible. But an amusing terrible. But it isn’t this farce which is the most interesting part. Major Major’s father was a recognizable sort. Here are some excerpts of the description:

He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing freedom-loving, law abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down.

As it turns out, he is part of the racket whereby he is paid by the federal government to not grow alfalfa. I won’t quote the whole section, but it is both accurate and freaking hilarious. And also a great description of how the Right LOVES socialism...for certain white people. Oh, and it gets better:

Major Major’s father had a Calvinist’s faith in predestination and could perceive distinctly how everyone’s misfortunes but his own were expressions of God’s will.

Can I use “amen” here? Because this is so amazingly true in our own time. The resurgence of Calvinism parallels the embrace of Social Darwinism by the Religious Right. And the two are absolutely connected - as Heller notes here. (This could be an entire blog post.) Basically, the misfortunes of, say, the working poor, or brown skinned people, or those born outside of the United States - all these are God’s will - and judgment on “those” people for being wicked. But the misfortunes of Calvinist whites, well, those are due to the depredations of those dirty poor people, or the dirty brown-skinned people. Heller was right on. Socialism for certain middle or upper class white people is fine. It’s just when you extend that to the less privileged that it becomes “socialism.”

I’m going to end with a lighter note. Yossarian is hardly an admirable character. But he is such a force of chaos and divergent thinking that you can’t really hate him - unless you lack a sense of humor. There is this delightful exchange between him and Major Sanderson:

“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence?”

“Yes, sir, it has.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“To assuage my fears of sexual impotence.”

I literally am laughing out loud just typing that one again. This is classic Yossarian: refusing to play the game, turning the rhetoric back on its user, and cutting to the heart of the issue. This is why he is a wonderful anti-hero. You really should hate him...but you can’t, because he is all too right. He sees through the rules of social behavior, the lies of honor and duty, and says what we think, but can’t bring ourselves to articulate. Yossarian (and Heller) tear away the mask, and show that protocol has replaced principle, “alternative facts” have replaced truth, and reason is now just a rigamarole to justify presupposition. It is largely how I feel about the sophistry that has been unmasked within my own religious tradition. Truth and human decency and the needs of real human beings are subordinated to power, culture wars, and self aggrandizement.

I probably wouldn’t have appreciated this book as a teen, and definitely appreciate it more in my 40s, with the sort of experience to make one a cynic, despite my generally sanguine tendencies. I can say for certain that this book is more humorous than I expected, even if dark and philosophical. It was definitely worth reading, and I think it earns its place as one of the best novels of the last century.

The Fall and Exile And The Kingdom by Albert Camus

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

This is my first foray into Camus. I have mentioned before that I have a lot of gaps in 20th Century literature, in part because my high school curriculum was suspicious of post-Victorian literature and thus glossed over it, and in part because I never really got into it after my school years.

Albert Camus was an author, journalist, and philosopher, born in 1913 in (then French) Algeria. He was a “Pied-Noir,” meaning of European descent, not an indigenous Algerian, and this colors his writing. His parents remained in Algeria, and the turmoil surrounding its eventual independence forms one of his themes - as does his worry that independence would lead to the expulsion or mistreatment of Europeans. This fear indeed came to pass, and most of the Pied-Noir fled in the wake of independence.

By that time, Camus had died in a car accident, cutting short a brilliant career.

Camus was Humphrey Bogart before Bogart himself.

The ever present cigarette, the laconic attitude, the whole shebang.

Camus’ works are also influenced by his philosophy, which I will address more in a footnote. He was often called an existentialist, much to his chagrin, as he did not embrace the label. He was good friends with Jean-Paul Sartre (until their falling-out), which might explain some of the confusion. Although Camus’ absurdism and Sartre’s existentialism had common roots in the writings Kierkegaard and Nietzsche (who are sometimes retroactively designated as existentialists), the differed from each other - and from the third sibling, nihilism. Camus himself said that he had devoted his life to opposing nihilism.

Sartre and Camus became friends during their mutual work in the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation, and continued for a number of years, until they parted ways over political differences. Sartre adopted an increasingly Marxist point of view, which Camus rejected, and the two never got over it. (Just to give a bit of an example, Sartre defended the terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics which killed Jewish athletes, and buddied up to Che Guevara, and supported the Maoists with his writings. Clive James wrote interesting essays on both Camus and Sartre in Cultural Amnesia, one of the best non-fiction books I have read. 

The Fall

This book actually consists of two separate works, which I will review separately. The first is The Fall, a novella-length work, Camus’ last completed work of fiction. Published in 1956, it combines philosophy with stream-of-consciousness technique.

The narrator is Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a former high-powered French defense attorney, as he describes himself. He tells his story in a series of monologues - confessions, if you will - to an unknown listener. In it, he describes his former life, his good opinion of himself - which isn’t unjustified, actually - and his crisis leading to a withdrawal from public life.

I was not at all prepared for the impact this book would have as I read it. Clamance is a hypocrite, which isn’t a surprise, but the power is in how he is a hypocrite and how he comes to realize it.

Clamance is, outwardly, a good man. He prefers to defend the helpless and the disadvantaged. To the degree he can, he tries to do what is good and right in court, and use his powers to help others. He is generous, and generally the sort of person that makes the world a better place.

There are two instances, however, that lead him to realize that he is not what he seems.

In the first case, he is walking home late at night, and sees a woman leaning over a bridge. As we walks on, he hears a splash, and then a scream, which eventually dies away downstream. He does nothing. He is unable to rouse himself to save her, and finds he doesn’t really want to.

In the words which close the novel, "Pronounce to yourself the words that years later haven't ceased to resound through my nights, and which I will speak at last through your mouth: "O young girl, throw yourself again into the water so that I might have a second time the chance to save the two of us!" A second time, eh, what imprudence! Suppose, dear sir, someone actually took our word for it? It would have to be fulfilled. Brr...! the water is so cold! But let's reassure ourselves. It's too late now, it will always be too late. Fortunately!"

He puts this memory out of his mind for a while, but he is later haunted by it.

The second instance occurs later, when a man stalls his motorcycle in front of him, and blocks the road for some time. Clamance asks him to move the motorcycle, but instead of doing so, the rider threatens him with violence. Clamance exits his vehicle to take things into his own hands, but instead is struck in the face by the rider, who then speeds off.

Clamance is non-plussed, and does nothing. Which is actually the smartest alternative, and he knows it. But in his heart, he burns for revenge, thinking he should have hit back, or chased him down and run him off the road. This look at his inner self reveals that his altruism is merely skin deep. What he mistakes for goodness is really self-seeking. He wants attention, approval, and power. His self-image as one who lives for virtue’s sake alone has been shattered, and he cannot continue.

After this realization, he throws himself into debauchery and exaggerated contempt for others in an attempt to hide from the crisis. He eventually withdraws, and becomes a “judge-penitent,” living to tell his story (a nod to the Ancient Mariner, perhaps), and make other realize they are no better than he.

So much about this book is effective, but particularly the way that Camus exposes the will to power inherent in much piety.

“When I was concerned with others, I was so out of pure condescension, in utter freedom, and all the credit went to me: my self esteem would go up a degree.”

There is much more that I won’t quote here. It builds, gradually, out of the germ from the beginning of the story. Goodness led to much good - he did good things - but it contributed to an increasing belief that he was above and superior to all others. His very kindness was condescension.

The Fall has a number of clear allusions to Dante’s Inferno, both in the name and in the use of the concentric rings of Amsterdam (the setting of the story) as a metaphor for hell. One can also see Camus’ working knowledge of the Bible through a number of well-placed parallels. In many ways, it can be read as an extended treatment of the Pharisees and their need to gain approval of men.

The narrator’s musings on the need to dominate were also disconcerting. On the one hand, I recognize what he is saying all too readily in my own worse self. On the other, he describes chillingly the totalitarian instinct that became apparent in the Nazi and Soviet experiences. It also is at the root of authoritarian cults, and I found myself seeing just a bit too much of Bill Gothard’s teachings for comfort.

I am well aware that one can't get along without domineering or being served. Every man needs slaves as he needs fresh air. Commanding is breathing - you agree with me? And even the most destitute manage to breathe. The lowest man in the social scale still has his wife or his child. If he’s unmarried, a dog. The essential thing, after all, is being able to get angry with someone who has no right to talk back. “One doesn’t talk back to one’s father” - you know the expression? In one way it is very odd. To whom should one talk back in this world if not to what one loves? In another way, it is convincing. Somebody has to have the last word. Otherwise, every reason can be answered with another one and there would never be an end to it. Power, on the other hand, settles everything. It took time, but we finally realized that. For instance, you must have noticed that our old Europe at last philosophizes in the right way. We no longer say as in simple times: “This is the way I think. What are your objections?” We have become lucid. For the dialogue we have substituted the communique: “This is the truth,” we say. “You can discuss it as much as you want; we aren’t interested. But in a few years there’ll be the police who will show you we are right.”

And this, soon afterward:

Just take me, to change examples if not subjects, I have always wanted to be served with a smile. If the maid looked sad, she poisoned my days. She had a right not to be cheerful, to be sure. But I told myself that it was better for her to perform her service with a laugh than with tears. In fact, it was better for me. Yet, without boasting, my reasoning was not altogether idiotic...Just between us, slavery, preferably with a smile is inevitable then.

There are so many things there, from the need for a power hierarchy, to the insistence that everything be done with a “good attitude,” if the authority insists on it. The Soviet cult certainly insisted on keeping up appearances in that manner. And Gothard, like all cult leaders, insisted on a constant smile.

One final idea that intrigued me in this book. Camus (or at least his narrator) makes the claim that judgmentalism does not require religion. In fact, his point is that atheism actually feeds judgmentalism, because the impulse doesn’t arise as a result of a moral code. Even moralism itself comes from judgmentalism, rather than the other way around.

In Camus’ view - which I find supported by my observations - we judge because we want to be exonerated ourselves. We feel somewhere deep down, that we are innocent, or at least justified, and engage in mental gymnastics to prove that to ourselves, in spite of the evidence. Because we also know that we are not innocent, and that we are not ultimately okay. We have that seed of selfishness that Clamance recognizes with horror.

So what do we do? We condemn and accuse the rest of the human race. We look down on others so that we feel better about ourselves. “People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.” And so we find or invent rules that we can follow, and set these up as our standards, and feel better about our own failings.

Thus, regardless of the religion, philosophy, or creed; regardless of the specific rules we cling to; regardless of time or place; judgmentalism and hypocrisy are inseparable. They are means to power and a way to deny our own selfishness.

However that may be, after prolonged research on myself, I brought out the fundamental duplicity of the human being. Then I realized, as a result of delving in my memory, that modesty helped me shine, humility to conquer, and virtue to oppress.

In the end, though, the narrator hasn’t really risen above what he is. Instead, he has appointed himself as a “judge-penitent,” intent on convicting the rest of the world along with himself.

Musical note:

Phil Collins claims that he spontaneously thought of the lyrics to “In the Air Tonight,” inspired by the disintegration of his marriage. While some have tried to claim that there was a factual incident behind the song, Collins denies it.

I haven’t seen anyone theorize about a connection to Camus’ book, though. Why not? Does nobody read it anymore? I have no proof Collins (perhaps unconsciously) borrowed the idea, but I do wonder.

Exile and The Kingdom

In contrast to The Fall, this book is a collection of six short stories. These vary widely in both subject matter and tone, as well as in setting. I haven’t done so since my discussion of some shorter Henry James works, but I think these stories are long enough to warrant individual treatment.

“The Adulterous Woman”

The setting for this one is Algeria, and the central character is a middle aged woman who married an older, unexciting man for the stability he promised. She is experiencing a bit of a midlife crises, perhaps one might say.

If one judged by the title, one might think this ended with a fling with one of the raw, virile, native Algerians. At least, if this were Bridges of Madison County, or its ilk, that is how it would go.

Instead, the closest this story comes to actual adultery in the normal sense is that she thinks she is being flirted with by a soldier, and finds she likes it. That’s it. At least as far as an affair with a human. And it takes place early in the story, and it gets less than a paragraph.

The real happening in the story is that she sneaks out of the hotel room after her husband is asleep, and returns to an old fort they toured earlier in the day. She runs around in the starlight, and finally ends up on her back under the vast sky in what can only be described as an orgasmic moment. An ecstasy of the universe, perhaps, some longing fulfilled, but that her husband cannot understand.

Camus writes delicious descriptions throughout his works, but I particularly love the way he portrays the surprising cold of the high desert in the winter. California has plenty of desert, hot and otherwise, but it is easy to forget just how sharp the cold can be.

She had feared the heat, the swarms of flies, the filthy hotels reeking of aniseed. She had not thought of the cold, of the biting wind, of these semi-polar plateaus cluttered with moraines. She had dreamed too of palm trees and soft sand. Now she saw that the desert was not that at all, but merely stone, stone everywhere, in the sky full of nothing but stone-dust, rasping and cold, as on the ground, where nothing grew among the stones except dry grasses.

“The Renegade”

It is hard to even figure out what to say about this one. It is the story of an erstwhile missionary captured and abused by the residents of the now abandoned city of Taghaza. It reminded me a bit of Edgar Allan Poe’s darkest stories, but a bit less coherent. Camus writes from the point of view of the victim, and everything is as confused in the story as in the mind of the narrator. It is a really unrelentingly dark story, and Camus seems to be intentionally portraying despair that even evil will succeed in triumphing. (This might fit with his philosophy, however, which I will discuss a bit below.)

A bit about Taghaza might be in order. Salt has been an important commodity for millennia, and northern Africa has long been an important source. Taghaza was located in what is now Mali, although it has been part of Algeria, and before that the Egyptian and Roman empires. Its mines served as a major source of salt up until the 16th Century, when operations moved to another site. The city was constructed of salt bricks - which worked fine considering the exceedingly low precipitation.

Another great description is given in this story: “Under the blows of the iron sun the sky resounded at length.”

Ruins of the city

The salt pans

“The Silent Men”

This story is about the aftermath of a failed strike in a shrinking industry. The art of barrel making was once vibrant, but is starting to fade, and the workers, tired of seeing the real purchasing power of their wage decrease, strike, but fail. Unfortunately, this event also ruins the sense of camaraderie between the owner and the workers. It seems to be a bit of an uncomfortable parallel to the last few decades, where wages - particularly for manual labor and manufacturing - have declined in real terms, and solutions seem unlikely.

“The Guest”

I already mentioned that Camus was torn between sides in the Algerian conflict. This story illustrates the impossibility of staying neutral, and the lose-lose nature of the dilemma.

A school teacher is asked to convey a prisoner to the next town, some miles away. He tries to refuse, but is left with his charge anyway. He tries to give the prisoner his own choice, but fails to make any real difference, and is blamed anyway.

The characterization was good, and the moral dilemma was nuanced because of the subtle humanity of all the players.

Another interesting bit about this one is that the title, in the original French, is “L'Hôte,” which can either mean “guest” or “host.” I’m a sucker for a good play on words.

“The Artist at Work”

While the other stories are all deadly serious, this one is humor. It has a bit of a sharp edge, but it still is very much tongue in cheek. Jonas, the artist of the title, goes from obscurity to fame, and receives a pension allowing him to devote himself to his art.

To his chagrin, however, all these “friends” and other hangers-on keep bothering him and hanging around day and night, until he cannot work. He is unable to say no, partially because of his good nature, and partially because of his belief in fate.

Any introvert can readily sympathize with this plight.

“The Growing Stone”

Set in Brazil, this story tells of an engineer called to a remote town to design a levee. While there, he becomes intrigued by the poorer (and darker skinned) native population. He makes friends with a sailor who is torn between Catholicism and the native faith.

I’m not sure what to make of this one. The descriptions of the drive through the jungle and of the confrontation in the bar by the ludicrous police chief are compelling. Likewise, the author makes the pagan dance come alive. However, beyond the idea of empathy, I felt that Camus’ point is unclear at best. The story both ends and peters out. Maybe if I read it again while in a different mood it would strike me differently.

I do like Camus’ writing style, particularly the unexpected way he describes things, making them come alive in a way that a more conventional metaphor would not. A general air of pessimism pervades, but not really despair. This is a common mood for the time, and it is easy to see why European writers in particular would feel this way in the aftermath of two devastating and senseless wars. I hope to read some of his better known works in the future.

Note on Absurdism:

I’m not even going to try to discuss existentialism and all its branches in this post, but will attempt to give the central ideas of Absurdism at least.

Although Kierkegaard also discussed the basics, it was Camus that reduced it to a (relatively) simple set of ideas.

As Camus saw it, there are two opposed ideas that are in a mortal conflict:

1. Humans desire to find inherent value, meaning, and purpose in life.

2. The human inability to find any such value, meaning, or purpose.

Or, put another way, the conflict between the search for meaning and the meaningless world that is discovered.

To cope with these ideas, humans have three options (in Camus’ opinion.)

The first is suicide. Camus rejected this “solution,” because he believed it didn’t solve the absurdity, but rather added to it. Ceasing to exist didn’t cause existence to have meaning, but made it even less meaningful.

The second solution, according to Camus, was to take a “leap of faith,” and find meaning in something beyond experience. A transcendance, if you will, but something inherently unprovable, intangible, and non-rational. For Camus, this was equivalent to “philosophical suicide.” In essence, to take that “leap of faith” was, to him, to kill the rational part of his being. It was denial, claiming to see a meaning where there was no evidence of one.

Camus chose what he viewed as the third solution, to embrace the inherent paradox, and create meaning in spite of its impossibility. To “Keep calm and muddle on,” if you will. Kierkegaard regarded this particular solution as madness, but was unable to formulate an alternative. (I’m not a philosophy major, and haven’t read through Kierkegaard, so I may be missing something here, but it appears he never came to an answer, just a question.)

Now, before my Christian (and particularly Calvinist) friends jump in with some platitudes, let me just add a little food for thought.

All too often, we tend to read into scripture what we have been told it means, and miss what it actually might mean. A great example of this is the book of Ecclesiastes. Whether one knows it primarily from the Byrd’s version of Pete Seeger’s “Turn, Turn, Turn,” or as the source of “Meaningless, everything is meaningless,” it is easy to misremember a nice tidy ending. One in which the writer remembers some “God” idea, and that gives life meaning.

That’s not how it actually reads. I cannot help but think that Ecclesiastes is a bit of an Absurdist book. The meaninglessness of life - its “absurdity,” if you will - is the theme of the book. Things don’t work out like they should. Virtue is not rewarded. Everyone dies, regardless. It is a chasing after the wind.

Even the tacked-on “conclusion” about the duty of man toward God feels a bit like Camus’ own “solution.” The writer has viewed the paradox of absurdity, and decides to muddle on in spite of it. Many will read it as being that “leap of faith,” of course, but I think that is too easy. The rest of the book is too compelling, and the conclusion doesn’t actually address the absurdity. And I think that is okay! We do not see in full now, and the attempts to impose a meaning on events are hopeless.

I see this particularly in the way that all too often we jump in with platitudes in the face of tragedy. At best, this is shallow. At worst, it is cruel. To try to impose meaning on the senseless death of a child, for example, is either to make God into a monster, slaughtering innocents as an object lesson (as Calvinists are all too quick to do), or to gloss over the terrible reality - the absurdity, unfairness, and meaninglessness of it all.

I’ve discussed the book of Job before too - particularly in regards to C. S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces. (You might enjoy the discussion between me and Mackenzie Mulligan in the comments.)

I believe that Job also demonstrates the absurdity. In fact, I think Camus’ three “solutions” can be seen here. Job’s wife advises suicide. Job’s friends are in denial of the absurdity, and attempt to impose their own beliefs about meaning - namely that Job deserves this, and if he will simply repent, all will be well with him. It is a “leap of faith,” at least for poor Job. Again, Job’s epiphany isn’t that the absurdity disappears. He never gets an explanation. Rather than transcend by a leap of faith, the transcendent comes to him. He gets, not an explanation, but a glimpse of the Divine. I’m not going to pretend to understand all of that, but I can say that we all want the neat explanation given by Job’s friends. We want to be able to see meaning in all things, at all times, and if we don’t, we try desperately to impose it. I think one of the beauties of Ecclesiastes and Job is that the paradox isn’t forced into a resolution. Job’s friends are ultimately wrong. It takes the initiative of the Divine to give meaning, not a “leap of faith.” In the end, meaning itself become “meaningless,” subsumed in the restoration of all things.

Note on the translation:

I borrowed the Modern Library edition, translated by Justin O’Brien. Although all works lose something in translation, I have nothing but positive things to say about the translation. The language is so natural, it seems to have always been in English, the flow of the words is delightful, and I had a great time reading it. Between Camus and O’Brien, the writing is beautiful. I recommend reading this version, although it is possible others are good as well.