Reviews

The Fall by Albert Camus

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cso's review against another edition

5.0

I bought it to have a book on my lap while passing the mountains. it was disturbing and hastey. it was a while ago and i have forgotten all about it. i didn't have a great philosophisticonclusion about it, just a dull echoing, vibrating feeling. you see two people falling off the bridge into the water?

suvata's review against another edition

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3.0

This is been on my to-read list forever. Time to dig in.

apfitzer's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

francinacaballero's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

batbones's review against another edition

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4.0

Starts off slow but builds into a potent, unflinching picture of the worst of human nature. Strip away the layers of performance and civility and one (like Camus' character) arrives at the heart of darkness. Reading The Fall is having a mirror held so closely up to one's face that one may squirm at the oft-buried, forgotten things about the self that cannot withstand the glare of scrutiny and admission. The reader sometimes flinches in disgust, sometimes can only nod mutely. It is like having one's self explained to by someone, an ambiguous and uncomfortable position of baring one's shortcomings and yet, by virtue of being shared, rendered palatable - although this irony is also pre-empted and exposed. Camus' world is bleakly pessimistic - where human virtue is unattainable, a sham, a promise that is eventually broken - and unafraid of laughing almost helplessly at itself. Where there is neither god nor the devil, humans have only to contend with themselves, but their depths are more than enough.