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الإنسان المتمرد

Albert Camus,

ألبير كامو,

نهاد رضا (Translator)

4.15 · Rating details · 12,520 ratings · 527 reviews

ثمة جرائم ترتكب بدافع الهوى .. واخرى استنادا الى محاكمات عقلية .. ان مجموعة القوانين الجزائية تميز بينهما تميزا ملائما الى حد كاف .. إستنادا الى مبدأ سبق التصور والتصميم .. وانا لفي زمان سبق التصور والتصميم .. في زمان الجريمة الكاملة .. فلم يعد مجرمونا هؤلاء الاطفال العزل يتذرعون بالحب انهم بالعكس راشدون .. ولا سبيل الى دحض ذريعتهم : الفلسفة التي تُستخدم لكل شيء ؛ حتى لتكو ...more

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Oct 06, 2010 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 20th-century, 1001-book, philosophy, non-fiction

(530 From 1001 Books) - L'Homme Révolté = The Rebel, Albert Camus

The Rebel is a 1951 book-length essay by Albert Camus, which treats both the metaphysical and the historical development of rebellion and revolution in societies, especially Western Europe.

Camus relates writers and artists as diverse as Epicurus and Lucretius, the Marquis de Sade, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Stirner, André Breton, and others in an integrated, historical portrait of m (530 From 1001 Books) - L'Homme Révolté = The Rebel, Albert Camus

The Rebel is a 1951 book-length essay by Albert Camus, which treats both the metaphysical and the historical development of rebellion and revolution in societies, especially Western Europe.

Camus relates writers and artists as diverse as Epicurus and Lucretius, the Marquis de Sade, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Stirner, André Breton, and others in an integrated, historical portrait of man in revolt.

Examining both rebellion and revolt, which may be seen as the same phenomenon in personal and social frames, Camus examines several 'counter cultural' figures and movements from the history of Western thought and art, noting the importance of each in the overall development of revolutionary thought and philosophy. This work has received ongoing interest, influencing modern philosophers and authors such as Paul Berman and others.

عنوانها: «انسان طاغی»؛ «انسان یاغی»؛ «عصیانگر»؛ نویسنده آلبر کامو، انتشاراتیها (قطره، پرسش در آبادان، نیلوفر) ادبیات؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز شانزدهم ماه آوریل سال 1996میلادی

عنوان: انسان طاغی؛ نویسنده: آلبر کامو؛ مترجم: مهبد ایرانی طلب؛ تهران، نشر قطره، 1374، در 353ص؛ چاپ دوم نشر قطره سال 1392، در 336ص؛ شابک 9789643416065؛ چاپ دیگر آبادان، پرسش، 1382؛ در 291ص؛ چاپ دوم از نشر پرسش در آبادان و 1386، در 312ص؛ شابک 9789646629707؛ موضوع انقلاب - فلسفه و روانشناسی از نویسندگان فرانسوی - سده 20م

عنوان: عصیانگر؛ نویسنده: آلبر کامو؛ مترجم: مهستی بحرینی؛ تهران، نیلوفر، 1387، در 404ص؛ شابک 9789644483837؛

گفتار و نگاره ای است از «آلبر کامو» در سال 1951میلادی؛ که به هر دو جنبه ی متافیزیکی، و تاریخی توسعه ی طغیان و انقلاب، در جوامع بشری، به ویژه در اروپای غربی، می‌پردازد؛ «کامو» نویسندگان و هنرمندانی همچون «اپیکور» و «لوکرتیوس»، «مارکی دوساد»، «گئورگ ویلهلم فریدریش هگل»، «فیودور داستایفسکی»، «فریدریش نیچه»، «ماکس اشتیرنر»، «آندره بروتون» و دیگران را، در یک دیدگاه یکپارچه ی تاریخی، به انسان در حال طغیان مربوط می‌کنند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 17/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی ...more

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Mar 20, 2016 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, nonfiction, nobels, favorites

As long as mankind has told stories, the topic of rebellion has been central.

“Man’s disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradise”, as well as Satan’s rebellion against the oppressive authority of God in Heaven are the two main strands in Milton’s classic Paradise Lost, to just name one of countless examples, summing up human experience in unforgettable drama.

Camus analyses the topic from a philosophical and historical viewpoint, and gives a perfect example for his thesis on revolution and t ...more

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Oct 30, 2016 William2 marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: france, essays, nonfiction, 20-ce, translation

. . .As soon as a man, through lack of character, takes refuge in doctrine, as soon as crime reasons about itself, it multiplies like reason itself and assumes all the aspects of the syllogism. . . . The purpose of this essay is once again to face the reality of the present, which is logical crime, and examine meticulously the arguments by which it is justified.(p. 3)

This can be very interesting if, like me, you abhor historical Sovietism and all that it has wrought. I found that Sarah Bakewell'

. . .As soon as a man, through lack of character, takes refuge in doctrine, as soon as crime reasons about itself, it multiplies like reason itself and assumes all the aspects of the syllogism. . . . The purpose of this essay is once again to face the reality of the present, which is logical crime, and examine meticulously the arguments by which it is justified.(p. 3)

This can be very interesting if, like me, you abhor historical Sovietism and all that it has wrought. I found that Sarah Bakewell's excellent new book At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails provided just the background I needed to start this. Published in French in 1951, what I especially like so far is Camus's refusal to embrace the concept of the worker's collective. He writes only about the individual and his or her need for rebellion. A very brave book. For example:

Man's solidarity is founded upon rebellion, and rebellion, in its turn, can only find its justification in this solidarity. We have, then, the right to say that any rebellion which claims the right to deny or destroy this solidarity loses simultaneously its right to be called a rebellion and becomes in reality an acquiescence in murder. (p. 22)

How they must have hated him. The section on the lunatic Marquis de Sade is breathtaking. My disgust always prevented me from reading him for subtext. But Camus shows us how...

Two centuries ahead of his time and on a reduced scale, Sade extolled totalitarian societies in the name of unbridled freedom. . . . The history and the tragedy of our times really begin with him. . . . Our times have limited themselves to blending, in a curious manner, his dream of a universal republic and his technique of degradation. Finally, what he hated most, legal murder, has availed itself of the discoveries that he wanted to put to the service of instinctive murder. Crime, which he wanted to be the exotic and delicious fruit of unbridled vice, is no more today than the dismal habit of a police-controlled morality. Such are the surprises of literature. (p. 46)

Lucretius is touched upon, Valentinus and some of the other Gnostics, Milton's Paradise Lost, Dandyism, the Romantics, Ivan Karamazov's moral position on crime—particularly patricide—in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and Nietzsche, of whom Camus said, "he recognized nihilism for what it was and examined it like a clinical fact." (p. 66)

"When the ends are great," Nietzsche wrote to his own detriment, "humanity employs other standards and no longer judges crimes as such even if it resorts to the most frightful means." He died in 1900, at the beginning of the century in which that pretension was to become fatal.(p. 77)

Rimbaud is "...the poet of rebellion—the greatest of all." His decision to stop writing being perhaps the ultimate act of rebellion. "He illustrates the struggle between the will to be and the desire for annihilation, between the yes and the no, which we have discovered again and again at every stage of rebellion." (p.91) ...more

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Jan 17, 2008 Eric rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: childhood, essays

Although I've always been temperamentally skeptical of Utopias, I'm thankful to Camus for completely inoculating me, as a 15-year-old, against the various postures of chic revolt so common among the teenagers of bored, affluent nations. There was no silk-screened Che across my bosom. Revolutions aren't secular versions of the Rapture, in which the "bad" government disappears, to be replaced by a new, "good" one. Revolution is generally a social calamity, a nightmare of inhumanity: one regime dis ...more

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May 12, 2012 Rakhi Dalal marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: manny, rebel, take-up-again

Camus makes me think. He is the author who has the power to steer my thoughts, along the line of his beliefs. He is dead. If he were alive, I am sure he would have supported the readers' movement against the irrational outlook of GR administration as regarding the freedom of readers to express their views. He would have hailed their rebellion and joined in to support, because I am sure he understood that all readers have their own opinions. He wouldn't be bothered by criticism.

As the choreograph Camus makes me think. He is the author who has the power to steer my thoughts, along the line of his beliefs. He is dead. If he were alive, I am sure he would have supported the readers' movement against the irrational outlook of GR administration as regarding the freedom of readers to express their views. He would have hailed their rebellion and joined in to support, because I am sure he understood that all readers have their own opinions. He wouldn't be bothered by criticism.

As the choreographer, Mark Morris (http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/20...) says :

“You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to like my work, but you have to be able to say something about it. I love a vicious review, really ripping something apart, there’s nothing better than that! But it has to be done really courageously and accurately.”

I think Manny is one reviewer who has stood for what he feels is right and I join in to add my support by deciding not to review this work, which, as I read, I know will influence me for times to come.

Posted with Manny's permission, his deleted review:

HYDRA

In the shower just now, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this current censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessless. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's one concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls.

...more

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Dec 01, 2015 Rakhi Dalal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: rebel, albert-camus, philosophy, powerful-stuff, forever-on-the-shelf, favorites, compelling, nobel-prized-author, classics, must-read

Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.

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Feb 22, 2016 Elham rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Elham by: Wars

Shelves: france, camus, essay

The Rebel is the longest and at some points most difficult essay I’ve ever read. I think the title of the book itself is enough attractive for both Camus fans and other readers to choose this book.

But who is a rebel?!

A rebel is someone who says no – to a master. He was a slave, a labor, perhaps a mechanical iron man built by bolts and nuts who did whatever he was said to do. But the moment he rises and rebels he feels the stream of blood in his veins. He feels he’s alive. Despite this alive and ...more

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Nov 21, 2008 Manny rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: french, life-is-camus, linguistics-and-philosophy

Interesting book, though I also found it challenging to read. I don't know nearly enough about French literature or philosophy. But the basic question he asks is extremely relevant. We hate injustice, and intuitively it seems clearly right to revolt against unjust authority. So why does it nearly always go so wrong when we do so, and end up with an even worse injustice? ...more

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Jul 18, 2019 Steven Godin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: essays, existentialism, france, non-fiction

There was a time a few years ago when I read a lot of Camus, there was a big binge on him in fact, as I was deeply interested in his work, both fiction and non-fiction. But that interest slowly started to wear down and he was eventually nudged aside, because, dare I say it, I'd had enough of him. Not because he wasn't a brilliant writer, of course he was, but because I simply read too much of him. Well, I really should have read this back then, when his books really fascinated me more. Camus her ...more

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May 28, 2007 Renée rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: those who like to think

Shelves: philosophy, favourites

Although Camus is remembered more as a literary author than a philosopher, I think this work is fantastic. It's influenced me and my thinking more than any other author (apart from perhaps Nietzsche and George Steiner). Because Camus is such a wonderful author it is also not a particularely difficult read, as opposed to, say, Sartre's philosophical works (I do like Being and Nothingness, but he's really overdoing it), which makes it accessible for those who have not been educated in philosophy a ...more

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May 11, 2007 Javier rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: under-grad-extra-curriculars, anarchism, europe

I must confess that I didn't find much that was especially insightful in Camus' account of rebellion, revolution, and nihilism here while reading it, but now that I look back on it, I see that he actually has much to say--and that much of it is worthwhile.

Camus begins by defining the rebel as one who affirms by negating, who says yes in saying no--one who decries absolute freedom in establishing limits to acceptable behavior. He thus immediately counterposes the rebel with the nihilist, who, in I must confess that I didn't find much that was especially insightful in Camus' account of rebellion, revolution, and nihilism here while reading it, but now that I look back on it, I see that he actually has much to say--and that much of it is worthwhile.

Camus begins by defining the rebel as one who affirms by negating, who says yes in saying no--one who decries absolute freedom in establishing limits to acceptable behavior. He thus immediately counterposes the rebel with the nihilist, who, in denying that anything has meaning, valorizes a conception of life which is dominated by mere facts--power. He takes issue with revolutionary movements as they have existed in the twentieth century, claiming most of them to have betrayed the origins of rebellion by replacing it with an absolutist--even, totalitarian--ethic. He sees much to be respected in the efforts of the Russian 'revolutionaries' of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (a group from which he of course excludes Lenin), who rebelled against tsarism and tyranny often violently. Camus finds their nobility partly in the fact (which he posits) that these revolutionaries, unlike many of their counterparts of the twentieth century, were often quite consumed by doubt and engaged in murder and assassination only with much reluctance and much moderation. He laments, then, the disappearance of such doubt and moderation in the nihilism that gripped much of the twentieth century, nihilism that gave rise to the uncompromising ideology of Marxism-Leninism and, not unrelatedly, Nazism, and denounces its consequences.

Camus also roundly criticizes many of his intellectual contemporaries for their undying faith in Marxism, claiming, for one, that Marxism reproduces some of the central problems of religious faith (ie, in relegating justice, etc., to the "Later On," as he puts it--that is, post-capitalist society) and entails the negation of much that is defensible and good in humanity by reducing human obligation to the promotion of revolution. I think he's certainly on to something here, but I think his reading of Marx is also somewhat flawed, in that Camus seems to disregard Marx's concern with emancipation and free conscious activity in his efforts to discredit the approach of the "prophet of justice." Camus posits a different approach to social change, claiming that rebels/revolutionaries, in their efforts to combat injustice, should never lose sight of the importance of beauty within the conception of human dignity.

It seems that many so-called revolutionaries, though (probably more of the socialist-Marxist bent), would reject Camus' analysis as sentimental and, in fact, supportive of the status quo. Does Camus then break with the predominance of Marxist thought in his day and accept something close to anarchism? He certainly seems to reject revolutionary society (at least, the revolutions demonstrated thus far by history), but he remains highly critical of bourgeois society as well. Contemplating these tensions is crucially important, and Camus's The Rebel certainly represents an important contribution to this debate. ...more

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Jul 04, 2009 Jim Coughenour rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: thinkingcap, essaysforautodidacts

I admit – when I first picked up The Rebel in this artful Penguin edition, I was picturing beatniks with berets and cigarettes contesting over existentialist espressos about the absurdity of man and the imperative to resist. Instead I found myself pounding through pages of difficult, beautifully-phrased polemic, never quite sure what was being argued for or against. It's not so much that Camus meanders as that he seems to take a very long, philosophical-historical route to reach the most obvious ...more

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Jan 27, 2009 Al Bità rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is the sort of book that gives intellectuals a bad name. I approached it with some expectation as a book which looked seriously at the idea of the Rebel, but found out that in his 'history' of 'rebellious' events Camus quite deliberately defines the word to represent only what he wants it to mean, and conveniently dismisses any other views as either immaterial to his thesis, or as a subject for some other work.

I found myself disagreeing with just about ever second statement he makes. Camus This is the sort of book that gives intellectuals a bad name. I approached it with some expectation as a book which looked seriously at the idea of the Rebel, but found out that in his 'history' of 'rebellious' events Camus quite deliberately defines the word to represent only what he wants it to mean, and conveniently dismisses any other views as either immaterial to his thesis, or as a subject for some other work.

I found myself disagreeing with just about ever second statement he makes. Camus pontificates. He 'philosophises' his subject to within an inch of its life. He is presumptuous. And in the end I find him pretentious.

By calling this book an 'essay' (can a book of 270 pages really be called an 'essay'?) he can avoid the normal scholarly approach which would require appropriate references which one might follow up for oneself (or use them to 'check' whether Camus is interpreting them correctly) and he also doesn't need to provide an index (try to find out where in his 'essay' Camus' thoughts on a particular subject might be!)

The central argument appears to be that rebels and rebellions are always undertaken in order to improve or provide a more perfect world, but end up providing more of the same, sometimes even worse than before. One would think that this fits in with the general philosophy of nihilism with which Camus is associated. On the one hand Camus seems to be saying that rebels don't improve anything; and on the other hand, he seems to be saying that we really have no choice: a kind of 'rebellion for its own sake', so long as we don't make the 'mistake' of thinking that we will improve things when we do. One can't be more nihilistic than that... And in so doing, Camus gives succour, in my opinion, not so much to the rebels among us, as to those who dismiss rebels as mere trouble-makers, preferably to be contained and controlled as much as possible. This is probably one of the reasons that fundamentalist Christians, for example, might enjoy his 'demolition' of those 'rebels' he chooses to demolish, starting with the Enlightenment.

To be fair, perhaps Camus is responding in the only way possible to him to the sheer havoc and devastation of the two World Wars that effectively destroyed 'Europe' and pointed out the depravity that that civilisation, which considered itself to be the best and most superior the world had even seen, had descended to; and that somehow, that was a 'consequence' of the Enlightenment and the liberal thinkers it engendered. Be that as it may, my objection to this conclusion is that it is examined only by limiting his discourse to specific instances of 'rebellion', and by suggesting that such 'rebellions' are based on a desire to 'improve' the world.

It should be pointed out that 'rebellions' which set out to 'improve' anything are based, not so much on the Enlightenment, but on the promises made by Christianity that there is such a better world ('heaven') to which we might aspire, but which we might only achieve only after we are dead. This 'desire' for the Second Coming' of Jesus to usher in the New Millennium, where everything will be 'perfect' is the true cause for dissatisfaction in the people, especially those used and abused by the hierarchy of the Middle Ages. The 'promise' of the Enlightenment period merely posited that the old way of a dominant hierarchical theocratic society was NOT the only way one could live, and that something could be done OUTSIDE the constraints Mediaeval Society could offer.

Camus is useful is pointing out that revolutions based on such utopian dreams are bound to failure in the real world; but that does not mean that the benefits of reason, knowledge, science and technology (some of the children of the Englightenment) have, indeed, improved our way of life in ways which would be appreciated immensely by someone from the Middle Ages. One can argue about the extent of such 'progress', or indeed whether such things as radio, television, the automobile, education, medicine, surgery, etc etc are 'really' progress or not (after all, anything, anywhere, had both good and bad elements) but one cannot argue successfully that these things merely reiterate the evils they are supposed to replace.

All 'rebellions' which attempt to 'improve' things derive their impetus from religious sentiments based on the imagined reward proffered to the 'perfect' and the elite. It may even be 'true' that such rebellions, in searching for their perfection, end up being 'just as bad': but from the perspective of the rebels, in general, the people who are suffering are not the same as the ones who were suffering before. They may end up being just as immoral, and just as cruel and murderous, but they are doing it to someone else; it is not happening just to them. And it is here that I believe Camus misses the point. Rebels rebel to relieve themselves from an intolerable situation. They may well replace it with another type of intolerable situation, but it is in THEIR control, not the other way around. Further, they may well ultimately 'fail' in the 'other' objective of providing for a better world for themselves, but in reality, things after the rebellion HAVE changed. The world moves on to another phase.

Thus I believe the role of the rebel and of rebellion is just as much, if not primarily, motivated by the desire to remove pain and misery. It 'follows' that as a result, there is the hope that things will improve, but to say that rebels are motivated only to 'improve' the situation is simplistic to say the least. Certainly, Camus has 'shown' us that such 'objectives' may result only in 'failure', but that failure is a relative concept.

While ever there is injustice, unfairness, abuse, poverty, etc then whenever these things become unbearable, rebels will arise whose first concern is to minimise that unbearability, whether or not the result is overall 'better' than before.

...more

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Feb 18, 2008 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-crit, social-crit

You know those kinds of books which you read amid the din of everyday life and you eventually finish while the whole time you realize that so much has gone past, gone by, that you can only feel the whoosh of wisdom, ideas and reflections going right over your head?

That's sort of how I feel about this book.

It's the sort of feeling when you are reading more or less the way you usually do- a lot of attention here, too little attention there- and all the while you just know in your bones that you'r ...more

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Mar 02, 2013 A.J. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: religion-philosophy

On page 303 of Albert Camus's windy, long-form essay on the nature of rebellion, the failures of religion, Nihilism and Marxism, he approaches the point:

"Man can master in himself everything that should be mastered. He should rectify in creation everything that can be rectified. And after he has done so, children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort man can only propose to diminish arithmetically the sufferings of the world. But the injustice and the su On page 303 of Albert Camus's windy, long-form essay on the nature of rebellion, the failures of religion, Nihilism and Marxism, he approaches the point:

"Man can master in himself everything that should be mastered. He should rectify in creation everything that can be rectified. And after he has done so, children will still die unjustly even in a perfect society. Even by his greatest effort man can only propose to diminish arithmetically the sufferings of the world. But the injustice and the suffering of the world will remain and, no matter how limited they are, they will not cease to be an outrage. Dimitri Karamazov's cry of 'Why?' will continue to resound; art and rebellion will die only with the last man."

My gripe with this book has less to do with any specific disagreement with its content than an inability to justify why Camus needed three hundred pages to state the obvious. I'm aware the danger of this critique lurks in anachronism or an under appreciation for philosophy in general. For me, the mark of genius is not only the possession of knowledge, though that's a part of it. It's the ability to transmit that knowledge in a way that illuminates something about the universe––and to do it in a coherent, timely fashion (i.e. utility). I'll bet students working on an MA in philosophy might get some miles out of this. For the rest of us, try a Kindle Single.

As I waded section to section, it usually felt like I understood the basic point. How the sprawling asides fit together is anyone's guess; Camus has much love for the trees but very little for the forest. He will rarely if ever reiterate a point, or demonstrate how it in conjunction with a previous subject advances his thesis. This kind of obfuscation is typical of academic writing, a mutated subset of Standard English someone (I think it might have been David Foster Wallace, or if not, it should have been) called Academicese. You'll be hanging on to the bloated prose by your fingernails when all of the sudden you'll hit a sinkhole like:

"A revolutionary action which wishes to be coherent in terms of its origins should be embodied in an active consent to the relative. It would express fidelity to the human condition. Uncompromising as to its means, it would accept an approximation as far as its ends are concerned and, so that the approximation should become more and more accurately defined, it would allow absolute freedom of speech. Thus it would preserve the common existence that justifies its insurrection." -The Rebel 290

What, if anything, the above passage is meant to convey is, as before, anyone's guess. And if there is some enlightened soul out there who can offer a simple explanation, please do, but expect my ready reply: "Why didn't Camus say that?"

I have a soft spot for absurdism but a very limited understanding of Camus, which in spite of everything I hope to fix. In fairness, there are some very profound moments in this work, mostly when Al lets himself go a little and serves his philosophizing with a side of the transcendent. These occasional moments of illumination are almost worth the slog.

"The world is divine because the world is inconsequential. That is why art alone, by being equally inconsequential, is capable of grasping it. It is impossible to give a clear account of the world, but art can teach us to reproduce it––just as the world reproduces itself in the course of its eternal gyrations. The primordial sea indefatigably repeats the same words and casts up the same astonished beings on the same seashore. But at least he who consents to his own return and to the return of all things, who becomes and echo and an exalted echo, participates in the divinity of the world." -The Rebel 73

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Nov 27, 2012 Leonard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

In The Rebel, Albert Camus, the master of existentialism, analyzed the spirit of rebellion from the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution. The Jacobins, rebelled against King and God and by making their principles divine, introduced the Reign of Terror.
Nihilism went further and eliminated absolute principles and its rise during the second half of the nineteenth century created terrorists who renounced virtue and principles and who rebelled against reality and history by destroying them. F ...more

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Feb 08, 2018 عماد العتيلي rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: literatrue-criticism, 2018-reads, best-of-2018, favorites

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“If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance.”.

Another AMAZING book!
I can’t describe the happiness I experienced while reading this masterpiece. MINDBLOWING!

description

When I read Camus, I feel that he knows exactly what he’s talking about. He doesn’t miss a thing. The reader starts with an essential question: Who is the rebel? And ends with an incredibly perfect understanding.
Camus is n ...more

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Aug 19, 2020 Ellinor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-2006, 1001-books, 1001-books-core-list

I usually don't read philosophical texts. Whenever I read one I have already forgotten what was said on a page once I've reached its bottom. Camus is completely different. He explains the world and other philosopher's work as no one else does and in a way that makes you understand everything he and others said.
The Rebel is an utterly brilliant work which explains you half of all the classics ever written, from Dostoevsky to Sade or Lautréamont and lots of philosopher's works like Hegel, Nietzsc ...more

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Oct 01, 2020 Marija Andreeva rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nobel-prize-writers, philosophy, non-fiction-biography, classics, favorite-authors

As usual, Camus is brilliant. I have read most of his fiction and now I am slowly moving towards his nonfiction and philosophy books. I enjoy his insights, I enjoy how he analyses different theories and his critical thinking and I usually agree with most of his points. If you like philosophy, you will like this one for sure.

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Sep 15, 2020 Anthony Ruta rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, nonfiction, classics, essays, literature, politics, nobel, translated, history

Reading this book was very challenging but in the end it's well worth the effort.
The message and core ideas of this book are so poignant and raw that it vastly outshines what I would consider to be its overly dense and confusing prose.
Camus takes the reader on a journey to the history of philosophy and historical revolutions. In concise anecdotes, covering the French Revolution to the Russian Revolutions, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Nietzsche, The Marquis de Sade and Surrealism; easily moving ...more

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Nov 09, 2013 Andrew rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy-science, favorites

Whew. This is one book that I will unabashedly confirm my pride in having read. It was that difficult. In the past I probably would have given up on it. But I picked it up in honor of Camus' 100th birthday and it would have been disrespectful to his memory to leave it unfinished.

What's more, it was damn compelling and thought-provoking for a good chunk of the time. Not uniformly -- there was a ton of stuff that just flew over my head -- but all of the "Historical Rebellion" (Part III), for inst Whew. This is one book that I will unabashedly confirm my pride in having read. It was that difficult. In the past I probably would have given up on it. But I picked it up in honor of Camus' 100th birthday and it would have been disrespectful to his memory to leave it unfinished.

What's more, it was damn compelling and thought-provoking for a good chunk of the time. Not uniformly -- there was a ton of stuff that just flew over my head -- but all of the "Historical Rebellion" (Part III), for instance, was fascinating. "Metaphysical Rebellion" (Part II) was much more difficult, and whole sections of it (specifically "Dandies' Rebellion" and "Poets' Rebellion") were inaccessible to me.

So what's he saying? These are the highlights as I understand them: To rebel is to affirm a collective humanity -- "I rebel, therefore we exist." But it is also a negation, a defining of a limit -- "Beyond this point you cannot go" -- and Rebellion has always been inextricably linked with Revolution. But Revolution authorizes killing, so one of the biggest questions for proponents of Rebellion is whether or not murder is acceptable. If it is, you are on the road to "Totality," as Camus calls it, but which I think of as Despotism. If murder is not acceptable, you're pretty much screwed anyway because the State will silence you.

My absolute favorite section in the book (and indeed, it appears to be Camus' favorite as well) is titled "The Fastidious Assassins" in the "Historical Rebellion" Part III. It concerns the Russian terrorists of the Socialist-Republican party in the early 20th century. These people, for Camus, were the perfect manifestation of rebellion in that they judiciously selected their targets, avoided incidental casualties, and voluntarily sacrificed their own lives in the wake of the murders they committed.

For Camus, voluntary self-sacrifice is the only conceivable justification for murder. Through death on both sides of the struggle, a new value can be given life.

Camus then proceeds to convincingly dismantle Marxism, specifically its pretentions toward science and rationality. And he returns again to the idea of limits, which is somewhat obscure the way he talks about it, but which actually makes sense the more you think about it. In this way he argues against Absolute Freedom, since that includes the freedom to kill and the freedom to reign over everyone else. Absolute Justice tramples upon freedom, since the common man is denied the freedom of determining what is just. The ideal road lies in both of them being limited and working together within those limits.

This is one of those books that makes your brain hurt. It was not a pleasurable read, but it was an important one, and occasionally an inspiring one. Whereas before I liked Camus a lot, now I love him. I will now have to re-read The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays.

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Sep 30, 2013 Brittany Binowski rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Skip the 150 pages in the middle of the book. Just read the beginning and the end. The background and history is long-winded and irrelevant, but the takeaways are golden.

Here's what I got from it:

-The next great war is that between the artists and the conquerors. We don't know who will win, we just know that one of them will win.

-The problem with conquerors is that they can destroy, but they can't create. The problem with artists is that they can create, but they can't destroy. The victor, or th ...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Ramblin' Man rated it liked it · review of another edition

Jesus, I have never read someone who contradicts himself so much. The rebel actually is the one who wants to be enslaved the most??? What the fuck is this dude talking about?? I get tid bits here and there of this shit, but clearly I am not trained in the art of philosophy; Im trained in the art of being a lazy asshole who bitches about famous books and is jealous because he knows deep down in his dark, withered heart, he will never amount to anything. With this said, I cant stop reading this fu ...more

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Sep 15, 2007 Brendan rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: existentialist philosophy, revolution

i think camus' ambitions far outdistanced his abilities in this work. he's a great novelist, but not really a philosopher. this book seems to be an attempt to place himself alongide of sartre in french philosophy of his time. camus attempts to create a coherent philosophical system to address revolution and it just comes across as ramblings. the book doesn't make much sense and isn't really any good. camus addresses the human condition much more effectively in his novels and the myth of sysyphus ...more

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Feb 14, 2018 Christos Markou rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Unfortunately, very boring book. I literally forced myself to read it for 40 days thinking it will improve (I could not read more than 5 pages per day), because there were some (very few) good quotes and it was not a political propaganda. But at the end I was so upset I gave up at the last 20 pages!

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Jun 21, 2012 Feliks rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy-general, international

Too many young or neophyte readers come to Camus really seeking someone like Herman Hesse. Camus seems exotic and rogue-ish; an outsider; his 'existentialism' (in itself a mistaken label) is so often mistaken for a tacit 'approval' of aloofness, remoteness; iconoclasm; emotional detachment and alieninity. All of these postures appeal strongly to teen readers; adolescents; and intellectual dilettantes. Thus, everyone casually associates Camus with 'The Stranger' and other works of stylish abstrac ...more

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May 26, 2020 Ronan Johnson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: lefties

This is probably Camus' masterpiece, and the finest, most mature, and controlled take on his very accessible and, above all, humane philosophy. You could even read it in isolation, or before any of his other works; it's reflective as well as a development of the ideas thrown about in The Outsider and The Plague that didn't always make the transfer to The Myth of Sisyphus so easily, however stunning that essay is alone. I find myself comparing him to Dostoevsky a lot in terms of the ideas he play ...more

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Mar 26, 2018 Jackson Cyril rated it really liked it · review of another edition

'Rebellion, in its most radical sense, leads to tyranny' so argues Camus in this extended essay which begins, as these things tend to, with the Greeks, and includes a significant discussion on the ideas of French thinkers from the Marquis de Sade down regarding rebellion. A fantastic introduction to the works of many thinkers unknown outside the Francophone world, and a stimulating discussion on those-- i.e. Milton and Blake, more familiar to us in the English-speaking world. ...more

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Mar 19, 2019 Faris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book has been one of the hardest essays I've ever had to read. I've had to put it down several times. Certainly not because it is not engaging but merely because I had to go look up many of the concepts Camus was referencing. So as a heads up, this is not an easy read but certainly worthwhile.

In this legendary essay, he describes rebellion and revolution historically, metaphysically and even through art, rebellion against creation, the human condition, for order, slave against master and m This book has been one of the hardest essays I've ever had to read. I've had to put it down several times. Certainly not because it is not engaging but merely because I had to go look up many of the concepts Camus was referencing. So as a heads up, this is not an easy read but certainly worthwhile.

In this legendary essay, he describes rebellion and revolution historically, metaphysically and even through art, rebellion against creation, the human condition, for order, slave against master and merge them in modern times from the nihilistic Russian revolution to the Hitler regime. Studying why rebellions and revolutions in history have all led to tyranny, genocide and why the oppressed eventually become the oppressors.

This passage (one of my favorites) for example:

"Man's solidarity is founded upon rebellion, and rebellion, in its turn, can only find its justification in this solidarity. We have, then, the right to say that any rebellion which claims the right to deny or destroy this solidarity loses simultaneously its right to be called a rebellion and becomes in reality an acquiescence in murder."

Shows the crisp and logical thinking of a very decent man, not afraid of his ambiguities and contradictions. Camus alluded to the catastrophic power of justice without liberty of individuals or liberty without justice to keep it in check. He scathingly criticizes the notion of a utopia and those who would revolt and go to any means to make it happen. Extremism in the name of some higher calling will never be a just revolution, no utopia justifies violence and terror. Such words written at that time now seem almost prophetic.

Another passage was his connection of art and rebellion, something most revolutionary movements have frowned upon, was a highlight of mine:

"Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of the world. But it rejects the world on account of what it lacks and in the name of what it sometimes is. Rebellion can be observed here in its pure state and in its original complexities. Thus art should give us a final perspective on the content of rebellion."

His passionate call to a balanced world should be heeded, a man much ahead of his time. And as he so eloquently said "Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present."
...more

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Sep 01, 2015 Jacob van Berkel rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: tribune

Like a woolly mammoth, sans the mammoth.

Some thoughts in this book are alright, of course, but it takes a wrong turn right from the start. Because when an homme revolts, that doesn't necessarily mean he revolts for *all* of mankind, including the masters he is revolting against, nor does it mean he has unearthed some human value to which the homme in question is appealing.

Why Camus leaves out the possibility that the homme in question simply revolts for himself, for his own dignity and wellbei ...more

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About Albert Camus

Albert Camus

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Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a representative of non-metropolitan French literature. His origin in Algeria and his experiences there in the thirties were dominating influences in his thought and work. Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectual circles of strongly revolutionary tendencies, with a deep interest in philosophy (only chance prevented him from pursuing a university care Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a representative of non-metropolitan French literature. His origin in Algeria and his experiences there in the thirties were dominating influences in his thought and work. Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectual circles of strongly revolutionary tendencies, with a deep interest in philosophy (only chance prevented him from pursuing a university career in that field), he came to France at the age of twenty-five. The man and the times met: Camus joined the resistance movement during the occupation and after the liberation was a columnist for the newspaper Combat. But his journalistic activities had been chiefly a response to the demands of the time; in 1947 Camus retired from political journalism and, besides writing his fiction and essays, was very active in the theatre as producer and playwright (e.g., Caligula, 1944). He also adapted plays by Calderon, Lope de Vega, Dino Buzzati, and Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun. His love for the theatre may be traced back to his membership in L'Equipe, an Algerian theatre group, whose "collective creation" Révolte dans les Asturies (1934) was banned for political reasons.

The essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), 1942, expounds Camus's notion of the absurd and of its acceptance with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction". Meursault, central character of L'Étranger (The Stranger), 1942, illustrates much of this essay: man as the nauseated victim of the absurd orthodoxy of habit, later - when the young killer faces execution - tempted by despair, hope, and salvation. Dr. Rieux of La Peste (The Plague), 1947, who tirelessly attends the plague-stricken citizens of Oran, enacts the revolt against a world of the absurd and of injustice, and confirms Camus's words: "We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them". Other well-known works of Camus are La Chute (The Fall), 1956, and L'Exil et le royaume (Exile and the Kingdom), 1957. His austere search for moral order found its aesthetic correlative in the classicism of his art. He was a stylist of great purity and intense concentration and rationality.

Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1959.

Camus died on 4 January 1960 at the age of 46, in a car accident near Sens, in Le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin.

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