and if Albert Camus's Mersault and Forrest Gump are the same person?
I am not really developing as much on either of them as role model for a graphic artist or any creative worker, in fact I believe that the only thing revered in Mersault is certain inner freedom and favourable consequences to any creative endeavour. He is in fact a rebel in a controlled structured society and at the same time a hero for free thinkers, with his inherent honesty about his personality. Many of us would see in him a best friend, somebody that listens and never quizzes. The thing is that I actually believe that Camus saw him that way, a friend I have met briefly, a philantrope named Gaspar, had the fortune of briefly meeting him in the 60,s I never quite forgot the way he discribed him:
"Just a Frenchman from Algiers... not quite like any of his characters"
I never quite read a huge lot on his life, or studyied any of his byographies deeply, it seemed to me quite pointless to understand either "L'Etranger" or "La Chute". In those works I could see the both sides of the same coin, his point.
It took me however to understand his first sketch on Mersault, that is the work "La Mort Heureuse" to actually understand both Mersault's infancy as a character and Camus's inspiration towards the creation of his highest achievement in "L'Etranger".
In "La Mort Heureuse" Mersault was still impulsive and rational, still a "teenager" beseth by life's changes and cycles, he had to die in the end of the book to free himself to be reborn in "L'Etranger" where his second death was more of a passage than a liberation.
Yet in both works the sun had the part of shaping his actions, in "La Mort Heureuse" it was in the end, here the sun powerless was more of a relish for the character in the isolated house he inhabited, a witness to the end of his journey, bringing about the scent of the absynt bushes in the afternoon breeze. While in "L'Etranger" the sun was much more than a witness, it was a silent life changing force, almost as a divinity, all present and influent, it freed him.
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I wouldnt be fair if I never mentioned my at the time school palls S. and G. that discussed "L'Etranger" untill sun down, secretly sensing that reading that book in our teens was almost a transcendental experience, one of those rare books that moved Lego blocks in our minds, one that made us into writters in our minds and even the old fashioned paper and pen.
Years later we are now (me and S) are now about Mersault's age, hey I guess he wouldnt see this comming, but I have been thinking about this fact for a little while know, how could you ever forget Mersault S. ?
As for G I dont want to overshadow him as I tend to do (sorry), in fact he was more than there, he met Mersault as well, and did an important contribuition for those times that by itself deserves its own post. G is somebody I consider to have a fascinating inner journey of self-discovery, like me and S, back in our "salad years" a really great guy.
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The best of it his, these guys never quite abandoned me, they still read my blogs, even pissed off not comenting, as I have discovered just recently when I checked my logs in my server, I have found both of their "IP's" home and work (there is also someone else that uses a proxy...). This just to say thanks...
"Just a Frenchman from Algiers... not quite like any of his characters"
I never quite read a huge lot on his life, or studyied any of his byographies deeply, it seemed to me quite pointless to understand either "L'Etranger" or "La Chute". In those works I could see the both sides of the same coin, his point.
It took me however to understand his first sketch on Mersault, that is the work "La Mort Heureuse" to actually understand both Mersault's infancy as a character and Camus's inspiration towards the creation of his highest achievement in "L'Etranger".
In "La Mort Heureuse" Mersault was still impulsive and rational, still a "teenager" beseth by life's changes and cycles, he had to die in the end of the book to free himself to be reborn in "L'Etranger" where his second death was more of a passage than a liberation.
Yet in both works the sun had the part of shaping his actions, in "La Mort Heureuse" it was in the end, here the sun powerless was more of a relish for the character in the isolated house he inhabited, a witness to the end of his journey, bringing about the scent of the absynt bushes in the afternoon breeze. While in "L'Etranger" the sun was much more than a witness, it was a silent life changing force, almost as a divinity, all present and influent, it freed him.
-----------------------------------------------------
I wouldnt be fair if I never mentioned my at the time school palls S. and G. that discussed "L'Etranger" untill sun down, secretly sensing that reading that book in our teens was almost a transcendental experience, one of those rare books that moved Lego blocks in our minds, one that made us into writters in our minds and even the old fashioned paper and pen.
Years later we are now (me and S) are now about Mersault's age, hey I guess he wouldnt see this comming, but I have been thinking about this fact for a little while know, how could you ever forget Mersault S. ?
As for G I dont want to overshadow him as I tend to do (sorry), in fact he was more than there, he met Mersault as well, and did an important contribuition for those times that by itself deserves its own post. G is somebody I consider to have a fascinating inner journey of self-discovery, like me and S, back in our "salad years" a really great guy.
-------------------------------------------------------
The best of it his, these guys never quite abandoned me, they still read my blogs, even pissed off not comenting, as I have discovered just recently when I checked my logs in my server, I have found both of their "IP's" home and work (there is also someone else that uses a proxy...). This just to say thanks...
posted by N at
5:07 AM
3 Comments
