Rabu, 08 Oktober 2008

ALBERT CAMUS

Albert Camus (dilafazkan sebagai [al'bɛr ka'my]) (Mondovi (sekarang Deraan), Aljazair, 7 November 1913– Villeblin, 5 Januari 1960) adalah seorang penulis/filsuf Perancis kelahiran Aljazair. Seringkali ia digolongkan sebagai seorang penulis eksistensialis, tetapi kemungkinan ia lebih tepat disebut sebagai seorang absurdis. Camus adalah seorang keturunan Spanyol.

Pada tahun 1957 ia dianugerahi Penghargaan Nobel dalam Sastra, tetapi ditolak. Ia teman Jean Paul Sartre, seorang sastrawan eksistensialis dan Simone de Beauvoir. Ia meninggal dunia dalam sebuah kecelakaan mobil di Villeblevin pada 5 Januari 1960.

http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus

Albert Camus (French pronunciation: [albɛʁ kamy]) (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was an Algerian-born French author, philosopher, and journalist who won the Nobel prize in 1957. He is often associated with existentialism, but Camus refused this label. On the other hand, as he wrote in his essay The Rebel, his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism. On the subject of his belief or not in God, he writes in the third volume of his notebooks: "I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist."

In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons in the Revolutionary Union Movement, according to the book Albert Camus, une vie by Olivier Todd, a group opposed to the atheist and communistic tendencies of the surrealistic movement of André Breton. Camus was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (after Rudyard Kipling) when he became the first African-born writer to receive the award, in 1957. He is also the shortest-lived of any literature laureate to date, having died in an automobile accident only three years after receiving the award.

Camus preferred to be known as a man and a thinker, rather than as a member of a school or ideology. He preferred persons over ideas. In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked…"[1]

Early years

Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in Mondovi, Algeria to a French-Algerian (pied-noir) settler family. His mother was of Spanish extraction and was half-deaf. His father, Lucien, died in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 during the First World War, while serving as a member of the Zouave infantry regiment. Camus lived in poor conditions during his childhood in the Belcourt section of Algiers. In 1923, he was accepted into the lycée and eventually to the University of Algiers. However, he contracted tuberculosis in 1930, which put an end to his football activities (he had been a goalkeeper for the university team) and forced him to make his studies a part-time pursuit. He took odd jobs including private tutor, car parts clerk and work for the Meteorological Institute. He completed his licence de philosophie (BA) in 1935; in May 1936, he successfully presented his thesis on Plotinus, Néo-Platonisme et Pensée Chrétienne, for his diplôme d'études supérieures (roughly equivalent to an M.A. by thesis).

Camus joined the French Communist Party in the Spring of 1935 seeing it as a way to "fight inequalities between Europeans and 'natives' in Algeria", he did not suggest he was a Marxist or that he had read Das Kapital, but did write that "[w]e might see communism as a springboard and asceticism that prepares the ground for more spiritual activities".[2] In 1936, the independence-minded Algerian Communist Party (PCA) was founded. Camus joined the activities of the Algerian People's Party (Le Parti du Peuple Algérien), which got him into trouble with his Communist party comrades. As a result, he was denounced as a Trotskyite and expelled from the party in 1937. Camus went on to be associated with the French anarchist movement. The anarchist Andre Prudhommeaux first introduced him at a meeting in 1948 of the Cercle des Etudiants Anarchistes (Anarchist Student Circle) as a sympathiser who was familiar with anarchist thought. Camus went on to write for anarchist publications such as Le Libertaire, La révolution Proletarienne and Solidaridad Obrera (the organ of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT). Camus also stood with the anarchists when they expressed support for the uprising of 1953 in East Germany. He again stood with the anarchists in 1956, first with the workers’ uprising in Poznan, Poland, and then later in the year with the Hungarian Revolution.

In 1934, he married Simone Hie, a morphine addict, but the marriage ended as a consequence of infidelities on both sides. In 1935, he founded Théâtre du Travail — "Worker's Theatre" — (renamed Théâtre de l'Equipe ("Team's Theatre") in 1937), which survived until 1939. From 1937 to 1939 he wrote for a socialist paper, Alger-Républicain, and his work included an account of the peasants who lived in Kabylie in poor conditions, which apparently cost him his job. From 1939 to 1940, he briefly wrote for a similar paper, Soir-Republicain. He was rejected by the French army because of his tuberculosis.

In 1940, Camus married Francine Faure, a pianist and mathematician. Although he loved Francine, he had argued passionately against the institution of marriage, dismissing it as unnatural. Even after Francine gave birth to twins, Catherine and Jean, on 5 September 1945, he continued to joke wearily to friends that he was not cut out for marriage. Camus conducted numerous affairs, particularly an irregular and eventually public affair with the Spanish-born actress Maria Casares. In the same year Camus began to work for Paris-Soir magazine. In the first stage of World War II, the so-called Phony War stage, Camus was a pacifist. However, he was in Paris to witness how the Wehrmacht took over. On 15 December 1941, Camus witnessed the execution of Gabriel Péri, an event that Camus later said crystallized his revolt against the Germans. Afterwards he moved to Bordeaux alongside the rest of the staff of Paris-Soir. In the same year he finished his first books, The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus. He returned briefly to Oran, Algeria in 1942.

Literary career

During the war Camus joined the French Resistance cell Combat, which published an underground newspaper of the same name. This group worked against the Nazis, and in it Camus assumed the nom de guerre "Beauchard". Camus became the paper's editor in 1943, and when the Allies liberated Paris, Camus reported on the last of the fighting. He was, however, one of the few French editors to publicly express opposition to the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima soon after the event on 8 August 1945. He eventually resigned from Combat in 1947, when it became a commercial paper. It was then that Camus became acquainted with Jean-Paul Sartre.

After the war, Camus began frequenting the Café de Flore on the Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris with Sartre and others. Camus also toured the United States to lecture about French thinking. Although he leaned left politically, his strong criticisms of Communist doctrine did not win him any friends in the Communist parties and eventually also alienated Sartre.

In 1949 his tuberculosis returned and he lived in seclusion for two years. In 1951 he published The Rebel, a philosophical analysis of rebellion and revolution which made clear his rejection of communism. The book upset many of his colleagues and contemporaries in France and led to the final split with Sartre. The dour reception depressed him and he began instead to translate plays.

Camus' first significant contribution to philosophy was his idea of the absurd, the result of our desire for clarity and meaning within a world and condition that offers neither, which he explained in The Myth of Sisyphus and incorporated into many of his other works, such as The Stranger and The Plague. Despite the split from his "study partner," Sartre, some still argue that Camus falls into the existentialist camp. However, he rejected that label himself in his essay Enigma and elsewhere (see: The Lyrical and Critical Essays of Albert Camus). The current confusion may still arise as many recent applications of existentialism have much in common with many of Camus' practical ideas (see: Resistance, Rebellion, and Death). However, the personal understanding he had of the world (e.g. "a benign indifference", in The Stranger), and every vision he had for its progress (i.e. vanquishing the "adolescent furies" of history and society, in The Rebel) undoubtedly sets him apart.

In the 1950s Camus devoted his efforts to human rights. In 1952 he resigned from his work for UNESCO when the UN accepted Spain as a member under the leadership of General Franco. In 1953 he criticized Soviet methods to crush a workers' strike in East Berlin. In 1956 he protested against similar methods in Poland (protests in Poznań) and the Soviet repression of the Hungarian revolution in October.

The monument to Camus built in the small town of Villeblevin, France where he died in an automobile accident on 4 January 1960

He maintained his pacifism and resistance to capital punishment anywhere in the world. One of his most significant contributions to the movement against capital punishment was an essay collaboration with Arthur Koestler, the writer, intellectual and founder of the League Against Capital Punishment.

When the Algerian War began in 1954 it presented a moral dilemma for Camus. He identified with pied-noirs, and defended the French government on the grounds that the revolt in Algeria was really an integral part of the 'new Arab imperialism' led by Egypt and an 'anti-Western' offensive orchestrated by Russia to 'encircle Europe' and 'isolate the United States'.[3] Although favouring greater Algerian autonomy or even federation, though not full-scale independence, he believed that the pied-noirs and Arabs could co-exist. During the war he advocated civil truce that would spare the civilians, which was rejected by both sides who regarded it as foolish. Behind the scenes, he began to work for imprisoned Algerians who faced the death penalty.

From 1955 to 1956 Camus wrote for L'Express. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.", officially not for his novel The Fall, published the previous year, but for his writings against capital punishment in the essay Réflexions sur la Guillotine. When he spoke to students at the University of Stockholm, he defended his apparent inactivity in the Algerian question and stated that he was worried about what might happen to his mother, who still lived in Algeria. This led to further ostracism by French left-wing intellectuals.

The Revolutionary Union Movement and the European Union

In 1949 Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons in the Revolutionary Union Movement.[2] With George Orwell, he opposed totalitarian regimes in the East and the West.

As he wrote in L'Homme révolté (in the chapter about "The Thought on Midday") he was a follower of the ancient Greek 'Solar Tradition' (la pensée solaire). So, not only he was the leader of the French resistance movement "Combat" but he also set up in 1947-8 the Revolutionary Union Movement (Groupes de liaison internationale - GLI) which was formed in 1949 and can be described as a trade union movement in the context of revolutionary syndicalism (Syndicalisme révolutionnaire). For more, see the book : Alfred Rosmer et le mouvement révolutionnaire internationale by Christian Gras).

His colleagues were Nicolas Lazarévitch, Louis Mercier, Roger Lapeyre, Paul Chauvet, Auguste Largentier, Jean de Boë (see the article: "Nicolas Lazarévitch, Itinéraire d'un syndicaliste révolutionnaire" by Sylvain Boulouque in the review Communisme, n° 61, 2000). His main aim was to express the positive side of Surrealism and Existentialism, rejecting the negativity and the nihilism of André Breton and Jean-Paul Sartre.

In 1944 Camus founded the "French Committee for the European Federation" (Comité Français pour la Féderation Européene -CFFE) declaring that Europe "can only evolve along the path of economic progress, democracy and peace if the nation states become a federation".

From 1943, Albert Camus had correspondence with Altiero Spinelli who founded the European Federalist Movement in Milan (see Ventotene Manifesto and the book "Unire l'Europa, superare gli stati", Altiero Spinelli nel Partito d'Azione del Nord Italia e in Francia dal 1944 al 1945-annexed a letter by Altiero Spinelli to Albert Camus).

In 22-25 March 1945, the first conference of the European Federalist Movement was organised in Paris with the participation of Albert Camus, George Orwell, Emmanuel Mounier, Lewis Mumford, André Philip, Daniel Mayer, François Bondy and Altiero Spinelli (see the book "The Biography of Europe" by Pan Drakopoulos). This specific branch of the European Federalist Movement disintegrated in 1957 after the domination of Winston Churchill's ideas about the European integration.

Camus and Orwell

Three essays by Dr. Miho Takashima in the International Journal of Humanities ("Revolt and Equilibrium: A Comparative Study of Nineteen Eighty-Four and L'Homme Révolté, the Views and Struggles of Orwell and Camus", "Art and Representation: A Comparative Study of George Orwell and Albert Camus on their Literary Works", and "George Orwell and Albert Camus: A Comparative Study – Their Views and Dilemmas in the Politics of the 1930s and 40s") explore the relation between the work of the French writer Albert Camus and the English writer George Orwell.

Takashima argues that Orwell—perhaps intentionally, in order to warn the intellectual elite—compromised with "Big Brother", while Camus confronted with The Plague. This is observed not only in the comparison between Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Rebel but, especially, in Camus' play The State of Siege.[citation needed] This theatrical play was written together with the novel The Plague and the essay The Rebel. It is the work which—according to Camus himself[citation needed]—represents him best and is a response to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The hero, Diego, opposes the totalitarian dictator named Plague, and dies in order to set a Spanish town free from the Inquisition.

The State of Siege is a work against totalitarianism, written in the same epoch when Camus' idol,[citation needed] George Orwell, wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four. The play includes an allegorical reference to the end of Orwell's novel.

The original title of The State of Siege was The Holy Inquisition in Cadix.[citation needed] In the French edition of the book, Camus has included an essay under the title "Why Spain?". In this polemical text, he answers his Catholic friend Gabriel Marcel who criticized him for setting the plot in Spain. Here Camus expresses his opposition to the totalitarian regimes of the West, and to the behavior of the Vatican and the Pope during World War II. The most important phrase of this essay is "Why Guernica, Gabriel Marcel?".

Albert Camus' Death

Camus died on 4 January 1960 in an automobile accident near Sens, in a place named "Le Grand Fossard" in the small town of Villeblevin. In his coat pocket lay an unused train ticket. It is possible that he had planned to travel by train, but decided to go by car instead.[4]

The driver of the Facel Vega car, Michel Gallimard — his publisher and close friend — also perished in the accident. Camus was interred in the Lourmarin Cemetery, Lourmarin, Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.

He was survived by his twin children, Catherine and Jean, who hold the copyrights to his work.

After his death, two of Camus' works were published posthumously. The first, entitled A Happy Death published in 1970, featured a character named Meursault, as in The Stranger, but there is some debate as to the relationship between the two stories. The second posthumous publication was an unfinished novel, The First Man, that Camus was writing before he died. The novel was an autobiographical work about his childhood in Algeria and was published in 1995.

Summary of Absurdism

Many writers have written on the Absurd, each with his or her own interpretation of what the Absurd actually is and their own ideas on the importance of the Absurd. For example, Sartre recognizes the absurdity of individual experience, while Kierkegaard explains that the absurdity of certain religious truths prevent us from reaching God rationally. Camus was not the originator of Absurdism and regretted the continued reference to him as a philosopher of the absurd. He shows less and less interest in the Absurd shortly after publishing Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus). To distinguish Camus' ideas of the Absurd from those of other philosophers, people sometimes refer to the Paradox of the Absurd, when referring to Camus' Absurd.

His early thoughts on the Absurd appeared in his first collection of essays, L'Envers et l'endroit (The Two Sides Of The Coin) in 1937. Absurd themes appeared with more sophistication in his second collection of essays, Noces (Nuptials), in 1938. In these essays Camus does not offer a philosophical account of the Absurd, or even a definition; rather he reflects on the experience of the Absurd. In 1942 he published the story of a man living an Absurd life as L'Étranger (The Stranger), and in the same year released Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), a literary essay on the Absurd. He had also written a play about a Roman Emperor, Caligula, pursuing an Absurd logic. However, the play was not performed until 1945. The turning point in Camus' attitude to the Absurd occurs in a collection of four letters to an anonymous German friend, written between July 1943 and July 1944. The first was published in the Revue Libre in 1943, the second in the Cahiers de Libération in 1944, and the third in the newspaper Libertés, in 1945. All four letters have been published as Lettres à un ami allemand (Letters to a German Friend) in 1945, and have appeared in the collection Resistance, Rebellion, and Death.

Camus' ideas on the Absurd

In his essays Camus presented the reader with dualisms: happiness and sadness, dark and light, life and death, etc. His aim was to emphasize the fact that happiness is fleeting and that the human condition is one of mortality. He did this not to be morbid, but to reflect a greater appreciation for life and happiness. In Le Mythe, this dualism becomes a paradox: We value our lives and existence so greatly, but at the same time we know we will eventually die, and ultimately our endeavours are meaningless. While we can live with a dualism (I can accept periods of unhappiness, because I know I will also experience happiness to come), we cannot live with the paradox (I think my life is of great importance, but I also think it is meaningless). In Le Mythe, Camus was interested in how we experience the Absurd and how we live with it. Our life must have meaning for us to value it. If we accept that life has no meaning and therefore no value, should we kill ourselves?

Meursault, the Absurdist hero of L'Étranger, is a murderer who is executed for his crime. Caligula ends up admitting his Absurd logic was wrong and is killed by an assassination he has deliberately brought about. However, while Camus possibly suggests that Caligula's Absurd reasoning is wrong, the play's anti-hero does get the last word, as the author similarly exalts Meursault's final moments.

Camus' understanding of the Absurd promotes public debate; his various offerings entice us to think about the Absurd and offer our own contribution. Concepts such as cooperation, joint effort and solidarity are of key importance to Camus.

Camus made a significant contribution to a viewpoint of the Absurd, and always rejected nihilism as a valid response.

"If nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning." Second Letter to a German Friend, December 1943.

What still had meaning for Camus is that despite humans being subjects in an indifferent and "absurd" universe, in which meaning is challenged by the fact that we all die, meaning can be created, however provisionally and unstably, by our own decisions and interpretations.

Opposition to totalitarianism

Throughout his life, Camus spoke out against and actively opposed totalitarianism in its many forms.[5] Early on, Camus was active within the French Resistance to the German occupation of France during World War II, even directing the famous Resistance journal, Combat. On the French collaboration with Nazi occupiers he wrote:

Now the only moral value is courage, which is useful here for judging the puppets and chatterboxes who pretend to speak in the name of the people [6]

Camus' well-known falling out with Sartre is linked to this opposition to totalitarianism. Camus detected a reflexive totalitarianism in the mass politics espoused by Sartre in the name of radical Marxism. This was apparent in his work L'Homme Révolté (The Rebel) which not only was an assault on the Soviet police state, but also questioned the very nature of mass revolutionary politics. Camus continued to speak out against the atrocities of the Soviet Union, a sentiment captured in his 1957 speech, The Blood of the Hungarians, commemorating the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, an uprising crushed in a bloody assault by the Red Army.

Camus and solidarity

Solidarity in The Stranger

In The Stranger, Albert Camus characterizes his justification of the absurd through the experiences of a protagonist who simply does not conform to the system. His inherent honesty disturbs the status quo; Meursault's inability to lie cannot seamlessly integrate him within society and in turn threatens the simple fabrics of human mannerisms expected of a structurally ordered society. Consequently, the punishment for his crime is not decided on the basis of murder, but rather for the startling indifference towards his mother's recent death. Even after a conflicting spiritual discussion with a pastor inciting Meursault to consider a possible path towards redemption, the latter still refuses to take upon salvation and symbolizes his ultimatum by embracing the "gentle indifference of the world"; an act which only furthers his solidarity with a society incapable of realizing his seemingly inhumane and misanthropic behavior.

Solidarity in The Plague

The plague is an undeniable part of life. As posited in The Plague, it is omnipresent, just like death was always an impeding factor in The Stranger. Albert Camus once again questions the meaning of the moral concepts justifying humanity and human suffering within a religious framework. For Camus, the rationale behind Christian doctrine is useless; as mortal beings, we cannot successfully rationalize the impending and inescapable death sentence forced upon every human. The plague, which befalls upon Oran, is a concrete and tangible facilitator of death. Ultimately, the plague enables people to understand that their individual suffering is meaningless. As the epidemic "evolves" within the seasons, so do the citizens of Oran, who instead of willfully giving up to a disease they have no control over, decide to fight against their impending death, thus unwillingly creating optimism in the midst of hopelessness. This is where Camus channels his thoughts behind the importance of solidarity: although the plague is still primarily an agent of death, it provides the uncanny opportunity for people to realize that individual suffering is absurd. In the midst of complete suffering, the challenging response adopted by the majority of the citizens of Oran demonstrates an inexplicable humanistic connection between distraught and distant characters. Only by taking the choice to fight an irreversible epidemic are people able to create the ever-lacking meaning to a life destined for execution the moment of its creation.

Camus and football

Camus was once asked by his friend Charles Poncet which he preferred, football or the theatre. Camus is said to have replied, "Football, without hesitation."[7]

Camus played as goalkeeper for Racing Universitaire Algerios (RUA won both the North African Champions Cup and the North African Cup twice each in the 1930s) junior team from 1928–30.[8] The sense of team spirit, fraternity, and common purpose appealed to Camus enormously.[9] In match reports Camus would often attract positive comment for playing with passion and courage. Any aspirations in football disappeared at age 17, upon contracting tuberculosis—then incurable, Camus was bedridden for long and painful periods.

When Camus was asked in the 1950s by an alumni sports magazine for a few words regarding his time with the RUA, his response included the following:

After many years during which I saw many things, what I know most surely about morality and the duty of man I owe to sport and learned it in the RUA. [7]

Camus was referring to a sort of simplistic morality he wrote about in his early essays, the principle of sticking up for your friends, of valuing bravery and fair-play. Camus' belief was that political and religious authorities try to confuse us with over-complicated moral systems to make things appear more complex than they really are, potentially to serve their own needs.

Bibliography

Novels

Short stories

Non-fiction

Essays

Plays

Collections

  • Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (1961) - a collection of essays selected by the author.
  • Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970)
  • Youthful Writings (1976)
  • Between Hell and Reason: Essays from the Resistance Newspaper "Combat", 1944-1947 (1991)
  • Camus at "Combat": Writing 1944-1947 (2005

Cultural influences

Film

Several of Camus' works have been adapted into movies. The Stranger has been adapted into an Italian 1967 movie by Luchino Visconti, and also to a 2001 Turkish adaptation titled Yazgi (Fate) by Zeki Demirkubuz. The Plague was adapted to a 1992 film titled La Peste by Luis Puenzo and set in modern day America

Music

Quite a few musical artists refer to Camus and his work in their music. The post-punk band The Fall took their name from Camus' novel The Fall. These also include an album by Jeff Martin(Exile and the Kingdom, 2006) and songs by Gentle Giant ("A Cry for Everyone", 1972), The Cure ("Killing an Arab", 1978), Tuxedomoon ("The Stranger", 1979), Digable Planets ("Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space)", 1993) The Magnetic Fields ("I Don't Want To Get Over You", 1999), The Manic Street Preachers ("The Masses Against The Classes", 2000), JJ72 ("Algeria", 2000), Suede ("Obsessions", 2002), Streetlight Manifesto ("Here's To Life", 2003), A Perfect Circle ("A Stranger" and "The Outsider", 2003), Angela McCluskey ("Know it All", 2004), Joanna Newsom ("This Side of the Blue", 2004), Tarkio ("Neapolitan Bridesmaid", 2006), The Independence, ("20-Ought-Almost-Talkin' Blues"), 2008.

Anti-folk singer-songwriter Jeffrey Lewis references Camus, as well as Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg, in a 2005 song, "Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror" in the line, "And I'm sure the thing is probably Dylan himself too, stayed up some nights wishing he was as good as Ginsberg or Camus."

References

1. ^ Les Nouvelles litteraires, 15 November 1945

2. ^ a b Todd, O Albert Camus: A Life, p37, 250, Alfred A. Knopf, 1998; Carroll & Graf, 2000.

3. ^ Actuelles III: Chroniques Algeriennes, 1939–58

4. ^ KIAD MA in Fine Art: a student run seminar

5. ^ Interview with Catherine Camus

6. ^ http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:becLSqP2AvMJ:query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html%3Fres%3D9806EED9113FF93AA25751C1A961958260%26sec%3D%26spon%3D%26pagewanted%3Dall+Now+the+only+moral+value+is+courage,+which+is+useful+here+for+judging+the+puppets+and+chatterboxes&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk In Camus' notebooks and letters, as quoted in Albert Camus A Life By Olivier Todd.

7. ^ a b Albert Camus and football

8. ^ RedHotPawn.com : General : Yan!! Camus

9. ^ Ashley Lattal'S Paper: Albert Camus

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus

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'Exile 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.

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969

This autobiography/biography was first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

Albert Camus died on January 4, 1960.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-bio.html

novel sampar albert camus - kado ultah untuk gadis arivia

Hudan Hidayat
Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:21:39 -0700

Novel sampar albert camus
Kado ultah buat gadis arivia
 
saya membaca karya seni, dengan memenggal tubuhnya sendiri. keutuhan sebuah 
novel misalnya, saya turunkan bukan ke dalam kejadian atau bulatnya peristiwa 
dalam novel, tapi saya letakkan dalam perspektif diri yang hendak mencari oase. 
oase dari hidup yang berat dari peristiwa yang berat, di mana  jiwa membutuhkan 
lumbung lindung. Atau, mana kala dunia malam sudah kehilangan pesonanya, maka 
karya sastralah tempat kita berteduh.
 
begitulah saya berpaling kepada novel sampar, bukan terutama pada moral yang 
dituturkan dengan kata "sampar" itu. tapi pada relasi sedih dari tokoh tokoh 
inti novel sampar. 
 
sampar memang lambang dari rumpalnya dunia, dari dikotomi yang tak terselamat: 
rentang yang meruang dan meraung, ke dalam belahan nasib baik, di mana manusia 
bahagia memandang laut yang berkilau, atau bayang pepohonan di kejauhan. tapi 
juga riwayat perang, yang menimbulkan derita dan sedih di hati.
 
Untuk kita, sampar adalah kaca buram, di mana diri bisa berkaca. bahwa wajah 
buram kita dalam kaca. buram dari jerit yang kita teriakkan. imbas dari hidup 
yang tak memiliki jalan keluar, di mana orang terbuang sia sia ke dalam, atau 
terpintal menjadi, laba laba para pemimpin, dari masyarakat yang retak dua: 
lain ucapan lain pula tindakannya.
 
saya tidak tergoda pada ideal dokter riuex  akan hidup. riuex pun tahu: apa 
yang ideal adalah kehidupan yang bahagia tanpa derita, adalah kabar yang 
timpang turun ke bumi. Selalu, dalam bahagia yang turun itu, mengintip nestapa 
dari derita hidup kita sendiri. 
 
karena itu walau rieux seolah memejamkan mata dengan tetap memeluk dunia 
abstrak itu, dan tetap keras kepala memperjuangkannya dalam kenyataan, saya 
menjauh dan agak berpisah jalan. biarlah perjuangan semacam itu diambil dan 
diusung para aktifis, yang memang cinta pada dunia keselamatan manusia. Saya, 
biarlah memungut dunia kesedihan di dalamnya.
 
begitulah saya terpesona, akan nasib grand yang malang. lelaki ini, dalam novel 
sampar camus itu, adalah representasi dari kemurnian hati, ketimbang cabang 
pikiran. grand hidup tanpa daya dan berjalan apa adanya. ia cuma lelaki tua 
yang tak kuasa menoleh, betapa bahwa hidupnya telah hancur di makan perasaan 
cinta pada jena bekas istrinya - sebuah perasaan yang tak nampak ke permukaan, 
tapi menghancurkan di dalam. Seolah ulat di hati. 
 
dan ulat di hati itu memainkan dirinya ke dalam bahasa. permainan yang dimulai 
saat kehidupan kritis manusia tersingkap. 
 
kita perlu mencatat dan mengungkap momen kritis. bahwa dalam momen kritis 
semacam itu, manusia menampakkan hatinya dan kelihatanlah warna aslinya. grand 
yang tua membuat novel, seolah ia menghidupkan jena dalam kenangan. bukan dari 
struktur kisah yang menceritakan ke dalam detil novel, ke dalam peristiwa 
kejadian dalam novel. ia hanya memenuhi sekujur tubuh novel dengan hanya 
mengungkap kerinduan hati. seolah repetisi. dari pengulangan mimpi mimpinya 
yang memanggil manggil dalam hidupnya.
 
jen telah pergi dan tak pernah kembali lagi. 
 
hari ini natal jen, katanya sambil berkaca kaca bersandar di tembok sebuah toko 
perhiasan. tapi engkau di mana? 
 
hiduplah dialog singkat tapi mematikan itu. aku tak bahagia pergi tapi aku tak 
bahagia hidup bersamamu lagi. begitulah suara hati jena saat sebelum menghilang.
 
begitulah novel itu hanya berisi lima puluh halaman dari kata kata yang 
mengulang, kata kata yang dibolak balik seolah ingin mendapatkan kesempurnaan 
dari hidup yang tak sempurna. seolah ingin menggapai bahagia dari hidupnya yang 
tak bahagia.
 
apakah kesan kalau laku subjektif grand yang mengenang bekas perempuannya itu 
sebagai sebuah tindakan yang tak tahu diri, di tengah bencana penyakit sampar 
membunuh seluruh penduduk kota oran? 
 
apakah begitu kesannya? 
 
tentu tidak. tidak dari kenyataan bahwa grand sendiri dengan caranya yang khas 
adalah juga aktifis, yang mendampingi dokter riuex di tahun tahun yang sukar 
itu. tapi tidak juga dalam kenyataan gerak seluruh cerita. 
 
seolah laku grand adalah kontras: lihat dan dengarlah wahai manusia, atau kalau 
ditempatkan ke dalam jiwa novel: lihat dan dengar lah wahai tuhan, kami di sini 
memang hampir mati, tapi kami masih bisa bahagia dengan mengenang. kami melawan 
takdir yang engkau jatuhkan dengan dunia ciptaan. kami kalah, tapi kami menang 
karena masih bisa bahagia dengan ciptaan. 
 
Berbahagia dengan kenangan agaknya sudah cukup bagi grand. dan saat penyakit 
sampar itu menusukknya dari dua jurusan, di ranjang kematiannya ia bangkit dan 
meminta dokter rieux membacakan bisikan hatinya. riuex pun membacakanya untuk 
grand dan untuk dirinya sendiri:
 
"di pagi mei yang cerah, seorang wanita langsing menunggang kuda alezane yang 
megah, berjalan di tengah-tengah bunga jalan setapak di bois..."
 
itulah penggalan hidup dari seorang lelaki tua romantic, yang telah kehilangan 
bahagia dalam hidupnya. seolah kutuk sampar yang menyukarkan berkumpul dan 
menusuknya: kutuk dari sebuah kisah cinta yang kehilangan tangannya. tangan 
dalam bentuk wanita bernama jena.
 
grand tokoh penuh perasaan terlihat lucu, dari kehidupan keras semacam itu. 
maka betapa haru ketika kutuk sampar sosial dan kutuk sampar yang masuk ke 
dalam hati grand, diungkapnya dengan kata kata kepada rieux sehari menjelang 
keadaannya yang kritis:
 
"saya ingin mempunyai waktu buat menulis surat kepadanya. supaya dia tahu... 
dan supaya dia dapat berbahagia tanpa sesalan..."
 
tapi dalam kenyataan, ideal seperti itu ibarat cangkir air yang dituang penuh 
air, sehingga air melimpah keluar sia sia, ironi. cinta datang dan mungkin 
masih terselip di hati. Tapi kenangan terbenam dalam keruwetan hidup yang minta 
dipenuhi.
 
Itulah absurditas itu. 
 
Absurditas dari dunia keindahan ideal yang agaknya memang hanya ada di dunia 
novel. sedang di dunia nyata, kita berkubang dan terjerembab dengan sesuatu 
yang tak ideal dari kenyataan hidup.
 
Adalah menarik membayangkan jena. Di manakah dia dan sedang apakah dia? 
 
Jen memang tak pernah hadir di dalam novel itu, hanya sengkarut di dalam 
kenangan dan pikiran grand. Tahukah jen bahwa grand mantan suaminya masih 
mengenangkan dia? Inilah kawawasan lubang dari sebuah novel. tempat di mana 
kita bisa bermain main mengisinya dengan imaji. Imaji pembayangkan akan 
seseorang yang tak pernah hadir di dalam novel, tapi bisa kita jejak tiap tiap 
kemungkinannya. Jena yang malang mungkin bahagia. Dan kalau benar seperti ini, 
alangkah malang dan alangkah ironis hidup grand: pada saat dirinya terbuang 
dalam cinta, pada saat yang sama orang yang dicinta bahagia dengan lelaki di 
dunia sana.
 
Manakah yang benar? Camus sebagai pengarang tentulah tidak tahu, sebagaimana 
kita sebagi pembaca juga tidak tahu. Tokoh dalam novel pada suatu titik pergi 
dari pena pengarang, berjalan menempuh hidupnya sendiri.  Seperti jena bekas 
istri grand.
 
Tetapi ketidakidealan seperti itulah yang membuat orang terus menulis. Menggali 
jiwanya dan menghayati pengalaman pribadinya. 
 
Apakah diri dengan mimpi buruk dan mimpi ngeri ini? Diri yang terbenam dan 
berkubang dengan segala kecamuk. Apakah diri karena itu meminta sesuatu yang 
mengelupas, ibarat ular berganti kulit? Tapi ular yang berganti kulit itu tak 
kuasa juga untuk tak beranjak ke bukit bukit, kalau panggilan suara absurd 
tualang itu memanggil manggilnya. Ia pun bangkit. Pergi menemui malamnya dan 
pergi memenuhi panggilan tualang cintanya.
 
Perempuan di hati camus, dan di dalam novelnya sampar itu, adalah perempuan 
yang luar biasa. Luar biasa dari sosok ibu dokter riuex. Siapakah nama 
perempuan itu? Rieux tak memberikan nama untuk ibunya. Solah tanpa nama 
perempuan itu menjelma menjadi perempuan perempuan seluruh dunia, sebagai 
symbol, sebagai lambang, dari pengertian dan ketegaran akan hidup. Perempuan di 
mana hati lelaki tergantung. Perempuan di mana diri lelaki terus berpaling 
justru di saat saat sukar hidup mereka.
 
(hudan hidayat)

http://www.mail-archive.com/artculture-indonesia@yahoogroups.com/msg01643.html

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