The Stranger Or the Boy from Belcourt

THE STRANGER, OR THE BOY FROM BELCOURTdiscussing his own writerly aspirations, hidden beneath the stilted prose of French academicphilosophy. As Stephen Eric Bronner has noted, “[Augustine’s Confessions] was probablythe first self-conscious autobiography, and in its pages Camus saw the possibility of personalexperience becoming a constant point of reference for literary and philosophicalundertaking.” 267In writing his thesis, Camus learned how one’s personal interests and experiencescould reach the level of the universal through language. But it would still take him years toarrive at the crisp and lucid prose one sees in his lyrical essays and The First Man. Indeed,the turgid style of “Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism” resembles those of The Mythof Sisyphus and The Rebel. 268 “Our task and our plan are sketched out as follows,” Camusstates in the introduction to his thesis. “To trace in Neoplatonism the effort of Greekphilosophy to give a specifically Hellenic solution to the problem of the era; to trace theChristian effort to adapt its dogma to its primitive religious life, until the momentwhen…Christianity blossoms into this second revelation that was Augustinian thought.” 269“Subject of meditation for him” or not, Camus’s essay is positively dense. 270And yet, one notices in Camus’s thesis some of the same phrases and ideas he woulduse later in his autobiographical essays and notebooks. Discussing Greek thought, Camuswrites: “Hellenism implies that man can suffice for himself and that he carries within himselfan explanation for the Universe and Destiny. His temples are built according to his measure.In a certain sense, the Greeks accepted a light-hearted and aesthetic justification forexistence. The shape of their hills or the running of a young man on a beach delivered thewhole secret of the world to them. Their gospel said: Our Realm is of this world.” 271 The266 Plotinus (205-270) is generally regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism, a term invented by 19 th centuryhistorians and applied to Plotinus’s metaphysical ideas about the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. Gerson,Lloyd. “Plotinus.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition), ed. by Edward N. Zalta..267supra Bronner, Stephen Eric. Camus: Portrait of a Moralist. p. 12268 Of course, these are philosophical works, and so their dense styles can be attributed to the seriousness oftheir subjects. Still, the beauty of Camus’s essays and fiction is that the author found a way to be philosophicalwithout seeming affected, abstruse, or pretentious.269 Camus, Albert. Métaphysique chrétienne et néoplatonisme. Typescript of Camus’s undergraduate thesis atthe University of Algiers. CMS2.Ap2-04.07. The original French reads: « Notre tâche et notre plan se trouventalors tracés. Suivre dans le Néoplatonisme l’effort de la philosophie grecque pour donner au problème del’époque une solution spécifiquement hellène ; tracer le travail chrétien pour adapter sa dogmatique à sa viereligieuse primitive, jusqu’au moment où rencontrant dans le néoplatonisme des cadres métaphysiques déjàmoulés sur une pensée religieuses, le Christianisme s’épanouit dans cette seconde révélation que fut la penséeaugustinienne. » Translation is mine.270supra Grenier, Jean. “Souvenirs d’Albert Camus.” p. 44271ibid. The original French reads: « L’hellénisme implique que l’homme peut se suffire et qu’il porte en lui dequoi expliquer l’Univers et le Destin. Ses temples sont construits à sa mesure. En un certain sens les Grecsacceptaient une justification sportive et esthétique de l’existence. Le dessin de leurs collines ou la course d’unjeune homme sur une plage leur délivrait tout le secret du monde. Leur évangile disait : notre Royaume est dece monde. »176