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Albert Camus' famous introduction and exploration of the concept that permeated the rest of his fiction: "The Absurd".

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Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus BOOK REVIEW (Round 1)

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Comments

Shubha Ghosh

Enjoyed it. Read The Rebel—a great response to moral relativism

Riles Kiley

One of my favorite books. I have a mug with Camus drinking a cup of coffee and it says “should I kill myself or have another cup of coffee?”

Ryan

I love listening to Cliff. He faces the serious and the bleak with an open mind and sense of humor. Kudos - another great breakdown.

Croix Laconsay

Thank you Cliff for another great review--you got me wanting to read this one. It's probably been recommended to you already, but, after listening to this review, I think you might like the Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. Though not fiction I think Becker's philosophy is related to some of the ideas you mentioned in Camus. In particular he discusses man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality.

Derrik

I eventually came to think it should have ended "One must imagine Sisyphus distracted."

Braxton Rich Wages

Great review. The video, like the book itself, goes full circle back to the original problem at hand. Every time I try and think about this stuff I feel like I’m on to some great discovery and then back where I started. No wiser. Only tired. Just like good old Sisyphus.

Bee Colleen

I know I'm so behind on commenting - but I do have to speak to the "meandering" nature of the prose. I had this same problem with Sartre, and Beauvoir, when read in translation. I preferred all three in French - not because the translations are bad, but because they are good. French is a meandering language that tends towards the run-on. The French are sparing with commas, dashes, ellipses. The only reason I preferred this book in the original language was that, frankly, I expect meandering when I'm reading in French. In English, I'm just annoyed by it.