Camus' Notebooks & More Greece

I picked up Albert Camus' Notebooks: 1951-59 at the sad closing sale of my local Borders, and thought it would be like the Kerouac-Ginsberg letters that I read last summer. Not so. The letters were much more interesting, and while Camus has some excellent moments ("The Hague") it's more of a collection of notes and ideas than an insightful diary.

Before I read the Notebooks, I had also happened to read Susan Sontag's critical essay on the first collection of his notebooks (think these were from the late 30s?), so I went back to see if anything rang true for me. She notes that it's very "anti-autobiographical"; not really any mention of events or other people -- SO TRUE. And of course in true Sontag fashion she points out that, "solitariness is the indispensable metaphor of the modern writer's consciousness." In other words, the writer is always alone.

From Camus, p.65:

It is alone that one must decide if he loves, and it is all alone that one must respond to the incalculable consequences of true love ... He is afraid of himself and for himself. He wants to spare himself, refusing then his condition.

For the most part in the diaries, it seems like he's trying to escape things -- his work, possibly the boredom of his marriage, politicians ... p.47:

The tragedy is not that we are alone, but that we cannot be. At times I would give anything in the world to no longer be connected by anything to this universe of men. But I am a part of this universe, and the most courageous thing to do is to accept it and the tragedy at the same time.

I think that quote relates to what Sontag describes as Camus' "leaping of the abyss of nihilism." To be honest, I really need to brush up on this whole nihilism thing and especially the ol' oft-mentioned Nietzsche. Like Zorba, Camus mentions this a bunch of time. Along with Greece. What the heck is it with optimistic quasi-nihilists writing about Greece?! ("For the first time I watch a land that I love disappearing with the painful feeling that perhaps I will never see it again before dying," p.155)

Other tidbits of interest that I starred & picked out:

- Joanna of Castile
- Sontag told me to go read Camus' "Reflections on the Guillotine," so there's a detour
- wrote more about Countess Tolstoy than Leo (should I put her diary on my reading list?)
- had a lifelong desire to write a combo of Faust and Don Juan, on the nature of love I guess

Bottom line: Mildly interesting but not impressive.

Next up: "Pillars of the Earth" ... I should also note that I read "A Decade of Hope" in the interim and was pleased with its tastefulness and wide representation. In addition, I was trying to nab "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen from the public library and the online catalogue told me it was finally available after months and months of all copies checked out. I walk over to the library, wander around in squeaky sneakers for half an hour because the fiction section is under construction and I CANNOT FIND THE BOOKS. I finally find a small segment of new fiction moved out in the hallway and there is a book-sized gap where 'Franzen' should be. Really? Really. I got "A Decade of Hope" instead and felt self-conscious about just getting a book about 9/11, so I almost got "Pillars of the Earth" before realizing that I was not realistically going to read a 900+ page book in two weeks. My coworker kindly lent me a battered copy.