Giovanni Catelli: The Death of Camus (2020), trans. by Andrew Tanzi from Camus deve morire (2013)

 

So, a book titled The Death of Camus (originally Camus deve morire ('Camus Must Die')) with a Foreword by Paul Auster. Inviting certainly, although is there anything more to be said about Camus's death? Yes, definitely: Auster is right to call this book 'disturbing', and at the same time 'difficult not to agree with [Catelli]'.

Anyone familiar with the biography of Albert Camus (1913-1960) will be aware that he died with his friend Michel Gallimard in a Facel Vega near Villeblevin, the wrecked car hard against a plane tree. And that the passengers in the back seat, Gallimard's wife Janine and daughter Anne, escaped virtually unhurt.

Camus's monument stands very close to the Mairie in Villeblevin.  His coffin was carried out of the Mairie and taken to Lourmarin (Vaucluse), where he is buried and where many people still visit his grave.

The Death of Camus is a work of love, made by Giovanni Catelli who spent some time investigating Camus's death. A sentence from Jan Zábrana's notes, in which he says of the car Camus died in: 'They rigged the tyre with a tool that eventually pierced it when the car was travelling at hign speed'. On a straight road the car started to veer about and ended up hitting plane trees. Now why should that be?

Camus was a defender of justice, a person who didn't mince his words. A man who. having received the much feted Nobel Prize for Literature, also carried a huge power around with him in whatever he said or wrote. He was a strong opponent of Soviet 'Communism', and in particular the hanging of the Hungarian prime minister Imre Nagy by the Soviets. And he loathed the Soviet foreign secretary, Dmitri Shevilov. Obviously he was due for assassination by the KGB and The Death of Camus suggests how this could have been done: sabotaging the Faca Vega when it was parked for the night in Thoissey, where the passengers stopped for the night on their way to Paris.

Catelli's argument is convincing, his investigations thorough, and it is difficult to argue with his findings and his suggestions: Camus was much more than a typical example of people who had been erased from history by the Russians.

This is excellent detective work, although I particularly object to just one sentence: 'Sartre's cynicism, baseness and lust for personal gain masked as cultural interest have long been dismissed as a grave disappointment.' Really? I wasn't aware that cynicism was an offense, 'baseness' is both highly subjective and groundless if (as here) unsupported by examples, and the accusation of 'lust for personal gain masked as cultural interest' is stupifying: Camus bought a nice little town house for his family in Lourmarin on the proceeds of his considerable Nobel award, whereas Sartre refused to accept his award on the grounds that he didn't want to be an institution. Clearly, Catelli has accepted wholesale Michel Onfray's insistent (and shameful) potshots at Sartre in his brilliant (although marred) L'Ordre Libertaire: la vie philosophique d'Albert Camus (2012).

But The Death of Camus is a must to read, and will if not revise people's conventional acceptance of his death, at least make them strongly think twice about it. Am I convinced by this book? I think so.

Albert Camus in Villeblevin, Yonne (89)

Camus celebrated the New Year of 1960 in his house in Lourmarin (Vaucluse) with his family and friends Janine and Michel Gallimard and their daughter Anne. Camus's wife Francine and their two children left by train for Paris, whereas Camus chose (or was strongly invited) to join the Gallimards in their (faulty?) Facel Vega (FV3B), and after stopping off for the night at a hotel in Thoissey (Ain) the car (travelling at 180 km per hour (!)) hit a few plane trees near Villeblevin and the débris from the car was scattered over a wide area. Camus died instantly, Michel died six days later, but the women in the back only suffered minor injuries.

Camus's monument stands very close to the Mairie in Villeblevin.

Michel Onfray: L'Ordre libertaire: La Vie philosophique d'Albert Camus (2012)

Michel Onfray's huge book on Albert Camus's philosophy is a long read, but not at all a heavy one: Onfray's whole ethos is away from the turgid, academic style, and towards a serious but popular way of looking at the writer's work. In so doing, Onfray also sketches out a biography, shows how Camus's thinking is a reflexion of his life.

What Onfray shows us is a man who knew that his life was limited not just because all human life is, but more because he was suffering from tuberculosis. The ultimate absurdity, of course, is that he ended up in the 'dead man's seat' of a Facel Vega car driven by his friend Michel Gallimard on 4 January 1960, in the commune of Villeblevin, Yonne, at the age of 47.

Onfray's Camus is an anarchist, a 'French' (as opposed to German) Nietzschean, a lover of the sun, the Mediterranean, women, a man from a poor background who supported the oppressed and detests oppressors, nationalism, dictators (Hitlerian or Stalinian, any), in fact any kind of injustice. Onfray's Camus is a man of sensations, emotions and perceptions as opposed to words and concepts.

As much as this is an enormous work of praise for Camus, it's also a work of clear hatred for Sartre, and Onfray can't resist at the slightest opportunity to pour scorn on Sartre and the 'germanopratin' world: after all, Camus bought a small house in September 1958 in Lourmarin, Vaucluse, a world away from Saint-Germain-des-Prés, from the Paris the Algeria-born writer couldn't really relate to. Sartre, as distinct from Camus, was born with a silver philosophical spoon in his mouth, in a France of learning, a library within an arm's reach. Onfray pokes away at Sartre (and by extension Beauvoir) for being part of a world Camus had never been brought up with, criticises him for perceived dubious tactics during the war, for going on a cut-price holiday for foreigners to Mussolini's Italy with Beauvoir, and on and on he goes.

One incredible sentence (my translation) reads: 'The future author of [one of his favourite expressions] Le deuxième sexe [Beauvoir of course] was born a monogamous woman; she became the opposite by becoming Sartrean'. This is, obviously, an Onfrayian take on Beauvoir's famous 'We are not born a woman, we become one', but it's not funny, although I fear that Onfray intended it as such. And Onfray continues by shrugging off Camus's infidelities, shrugging off Camus's wife's suicide attempt by suggesting that Camus was a libertine because of his wife's mental health, not the reverse: René Char, Camus's friend, had suggested this. Oh, so it's OK for Camus to screw around, but not Sartre and Beauvoir?

And this is the problem. Questioned on France 3's On n'est pas couché, Onfray revealed that he has read all of Camus's works. Reading this book, that much is obvious, as is his conviction of the greatness of Camus. This is a great book too (and not just in volume (799 pages)), but it's marred by the all-too-predictable potshots at Sartre and Beauvoir that Onfray just can't stop taking.

My Albert Camus posts:
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Michel Onfray: L'Ordre libertaire
Albert Camus in Lourmarin

André de Richaud: La Douleur (1930)

And here we have André de Richaud's La Douleur, the novel which would have such an epiphanic effect on Albert Camus as an adolescent. This book taught Camus that he could write, write about his feelings: Camus too had lost his father in World War I, like the young child 'Georget' Delombre in this book. In L'Ordre libertaire, Michel Onfray claims that the novel could make Camus's own future literature give voice to his mute mother's feelings. Camus read the book later to be disappointed and merely considered it as what today we would call a Young Adult publication, light and insignificant. I think both Camus and Onfray are wrong in their easy dismissal of the novel.

La douleur is set in World War I, when at the age of thirty-five Thérèse Delombre is left a widow after the death of her military captain husband in the village of Althen-des-Paluds, where André de Richaud lived and is buried. The locals have accepted her as she shows humility and lack of haughtiness, but trouble is to come when three German prisoners are lodged in the town. At first they assimilate easily and readily learn the foreign language.

But Thérèse is painfully sexually frustrated, as is the German prisoner Otto, and inevitably the two come together. And equally inevitably there are a number of problems which stem from the relationship: Thérèse falls in love with the ten-years-younger Otto, who can see that she will quickly age and has no plans for their future; with much jealousy and shame, the new Catholic convert Georget hates the German interloper: 'is it a sin to refuse to be kissed [goodnight] by a Kraut?', he asks at confession; and of course the relationship is discovered by the locals, who now view Thérèse with very different eyes.

As, ironically, The Merry Widow is played in the village, the German prisoners are now seen as unwelcome, and Otto has to confess he is leaving Thérèse. This is a little before the distraught Thérèse learns that she is pregnant, and a few months later the prisoners leave. Thérèse has thought of suicide, but an accident makes that task unnecessary. The innocent Georget will be able to be welcomed into the Catholic fold as an orphan.

My André de Richaud posts:
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André de Richaud: La Douleur
André de Richaud in Althen-des-Paluds

Simone de Beauvoir: Les Mandarins II (1954)

Simone de Beauvoir's Les Mandarins (a title referring to the fame and intellectual status of the characters) scooped the Goncourt in 1954, its year of publication. The second part of it here begins at Chapter VI, following on from Les Mandarins I: the first edition was published (unlike these two paperback Folio volumes (also belonging to the original publisher)) in a single Gallimard edition.

Roman à clef is an expression often used of this 1000-page book, although it's not entirely easy to fit the characters neatly into the place of real characters. On the other hand, there are clear autobiographical elements, such as Anne Dubreuilh and her husband the intellectual writer character Robert Dubreuilh resembling the (unmarried) Beauvoir and her long-term companion Jean-Paul Sartre in an apparently open relationship.

There are strong similarities between Anne's relationship with the American author Lewis Brogan from Chicago and Beauvoir's relationship with the author Nelson Algren, who fall in love, visit the States and Mexico, meet for some weeks on three occasions and then part after Lewis goes somewhat cold on Anne on her final visit to Chicago.

Robert Dubreuilh's relationship with Henri Perron, particularly their ideological split, very clearly recalls Camus's split with Sartre, and there are several other characters in the book who can be said to share similarities with people who existed. A settling of accounts? A kind of guessing game? Maybe both, but also a highly rivetting novel about those whose peopled Beauvoir's life during the immediate post-war years.

Albert Camus in Lourmarin, including Lourmarin Cemetery #3

A view of Lourmarin from near the cemetery where Albert Camus is buried.

The Rue Albert Camus is in the centre of  the village.

Camus's house, bought on the proceeds of his Nobel prize, although he died a mere one year and two months afterwards in a car crash in Villeblevin in Michel Gallimard's flash (and as it happened, dangerous) Facel-Vega: the creation of Jean Daninos, the writer Pierre's brother. Camus's daughter Catherine lives here and has apparently been plagued by enthusiasts.

The Café de l'Ormeau, where Camus used to drink.

Next door is the Ollier hôtel-restaurant, where Camus used to eat, and in fact where he ate with his wife Francine and Michel Gallimard on 2 January 1960, the day before Gallimard and Albert Camus died.

The plaque translates as 'The author of "The Plague" settled in Lourmarin in 1958. He has lain here since 1960.

The graves of Albert Camus and his wife Francine in the cemetery in Lourmarin.

'ALBERT CAMUS

1913 – 1960'

'MADAME

ALBERT CAMUS

NÉE

FRANCINE FAURE

1914 – 1979'

My Albert Camus posts:
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Michel Onfray: L'Ordre libertaire
Albert Camus in Lourmarin

Simone de Beauvoir: Les Mandarins I (1954)

The dazzling lights that were Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Jean Sartre haven't gone out, and will continue to blaze, I'm sure, long after more recent writers in France and the rest of the world – many still living – have long been forgotten. But I have no intention just yet of saying much about this, Simone de Beauvoir's huge Goncourt-winning novel, which the Folio version here divides into two separate books, both more than 500 pages in length. I've just ordered Les Mandarins II and shall be making a longer comment in due course on the full 1000-page book.

Beauvoir wanted readers to take her book as 'neither autobiography nor reporting, but evocation'. Not too sure about the meaning of that last word for her, although clearly she didn't intend it to be seen as a roman à clef, which it certainly isn't, although a number of the characters in it have a number of resemblances to actual characters within Beauvoir's world: Beauvoir herself is a little like Anne Dubreuilh, the writer Robert's wife; Scriassine recalls Arthur Koestler in a number of ways, etc, etc. But the other principal player in the novel is Henri Perron, who has a great deal of similarities to Albert Camus, notably with his paper L'Espoir, which sounds a little like Combat: Beauvoir even lays the analogies on thicker with a wink to the main character in L'Étranger by celebrating Henri's return with...a bottle of meursault!

As I said above, more comments when I've read the whole work, but it seems great so far.

Les Deux Magots, St Germain des Près, 6th arrondissement, Paris, France: Literary Île-de-France #35

'"Histoire de Paris

Les Deux Magots

Ouvert en 1813, "Les Deux Magots" a connu très tôt les faveurs du monde littéraire : à l'origine magasin de nouveautés, l'un des premiers à Paris, il est cité par Balzac et Anatole France. Un café lui succède en 1881, bientôt fréquenté par Verlaine, Mallarmé et Wilde. En 1914, l'établissement prend l'aspect qu'on lui connaît aujourd'hui, et devient l'un des rendez-vous de l'élite intellectuelle. Les surréalistes en font leur quartier général : Jean Giraudoux, Paul Morand et Jacques Chardonne s'y croisent, ainsi que Joyce et Hemingway. En 1933, quelques habitués, dont Bataille, Leiris et Philippon, fondent le Prix des Deux Magots, pour la première fois décerné à Raymond Queneau. Les intellectuels d'avant guerre, les plus grands noms des Lettres, des Arts et du Spectacle fréquentent ses célèbres terraces : Camus, Genet, Giacometti sont présents, Jean-Paul Sartre et Simone de Beauvoir s'y installent chaque jour pour écrire.'

'"History of Paris

Les Deux Magots

Opening in 1813, "Les Deux Magots" experienced the favors of the literary world from very early on : originally a novelty shop — one of the first in Paris — it is mentioned by Balzac and Anatole France. A café followed it in 1881, soon to be patronized by Verlaine, Mallarmé and Wilde. In 1914 it took on the appearance that we know today, and became one of the meeting places of the intellectual élite. The surrealists made it their general quarters: Jean Giraudoux, Paul Morand and Jacques Chardonne crossed paths here, as well as Joyce and Hemingway. In 1933 some regulars, such as Bataille, Leiris and Philippon, established the Prix des Deux Magots, which in the first year went to Raymond Queneau. The pre-war intellectuals, the greatest names in letters, arts and spectacle : Camus, Genet, Giacometti were here, and Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir sat down here every day to write.'