By I first discovered Albert Camus’s philosophy when I was 17, pretty depressed and desperate for something to replace the “hope” that hitherto had been provided by religious faith. Since then, I’ve read several of his books, the most recent being A Happy Death. A Happy Death was published posthumously in 1971, but was written much earlier.
About the Book
Title: A Happy Death
Author: Albert Camus
Published: 1971
Series: (standalone)
Genre: classics, literature, philosophy
My Rating: 3/5 stars
The Premise
Synopsis (from Goodreads) (truncated):
“In his first novel, A Happy Death, written when he was in his early twenties and retrieved from his private papers following his death in I960, Albert Camus laid the foundation for The Stranger, focusing in both works on an Algerian clerk who kills a man in cold blood. But he also revealed himself to an extent that he never would in his later fiction. For if A Happy Death is the study of a rule-bound being shattering the fetters of his existence, it is also a remarkably candid portrait of its author as a young man.”
My Thoughts
The difficult part of reviewing a book like Camus’s A Happy Death is that it is impossible to analyze it without comparing it to its later and more developed cousin, The Stranger (aka The Outsider). They have a very similar plot, and I think about A Happy Death as being a sort of “first draft” of The Stranger. That’s what made this book interesting to me, because The Stranger is one of my favorite books of all time and a huge influence on my life outlook and even my own fiction writing.
Both books follow an Algerian man with existential questions and a random murder. But A Happy Death‘s protagonist, Patrice Mersault, is ultimately a different person from Meursault of The Stranger. Patrice Mersault is far less emotionless and a bit more sympathetic of character.
A Happy Death contains hints of the philosophy Camus would go on to develop in The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus: absurdism. The novel concerns itself primarily with the question of how to live a happy life. Patrice Mersault tries many avenues to gain happiness: money, travel, sex, cigarettes, but ultimately ends up dissatisfied. Is happiness merely something that must be chosen, Camus asks.
“You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters—all that matters, really—is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest—women, art, success—is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.”
A Happy Death contains the same characteristic mix of optimism and pessimism that always drew me to Camus, with the familiar anti-suicide message and urge to live with happiness on your own terms. It fell short to Camus’s later work, although I don’t feel it is fair to judge an author’s early work by comparison to their later books, especially if said early work was a posthumously published manuscript that clearly Camus had not decided to publish at that time.
Have you read A Happy Death by Albert Camus? If so, what did you think of it? Feel free to leave a comment!
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where did you found those quotes by Alber Camus?????
“You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters—all that matters, really—is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest—women, art, success—is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.”
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