The Absurdity of Albert Camus
For Albert Camus understanding the past and predicting the future may hinge on one fact: history is absurd.
In August 1944, as the French Resistance fought to liberate Paris, Albert Camus went to see Jean-Paul Sartre at the Comédie-Française. It was a perilous moment. Now that the German forces were on the back foot, Hitler had ordered his troops to inflict as much damage on the capital as possible. Sartre had been sent to defend the Comédie-Française – Paris’ oldest and most prestigious theatre – from sabotage. But the journey across the city had worn Sartre out and by the time Camus arrived he had fallen asleep in the stalls. Camus couldn’t help being amused. Waking Sartre, he quipped: ‘You have turned your seat in the direction of history.’
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