So I'm reading this book for a class and while the first 40 pages were alright the 20 after that have left me rather rattled, wondering what the hell this guy is getting at. Please tell me, does it continue to drone or does Camus start to get interesting?
And if you've read this book before, mind helping me out a bit on some of the main points?
What I'm getting so far is this notion of the "absurd man" and how suicide would be reconciling oneself to absurdity instead of revolting against it. So to live is to revolt against absurdity...hence a lifelong struggle so as not to succom.
What I am now finding especially confusing is this notion of freedom. Camus, as far as I perceive it, states that freedom is non-existent to the absurd man because to have a conception of freedom is to at once be a slave. But then he goes on to talk about the ultimate freedom for the absurd man. Is he purposefully being contradictory or am I not reading this accurately?
Lastly, are there any other points that people have picked up from this book that you think might be pertinent?
Thanks in advance!
And if you've read this book before, mind helping me out a bit on some of the main points?
What I'm getting so far is this notion of the "absurd man" and how suicide would be reconciling oneself to absurdity instead of revolting against it. So to live is to revolt against absurdity...hence a lifelong struggle so as not to succom.
What I am now finding especially confusing is this notion of freedom. Camus, as far as I perceive it, states that freedom is non-existent to the absurd man because to have a conception of freedom is to at once be a slave. But then he goes on to talk about the ultimate freedom for the absurd man. Is he purposefully being contradictory or am I not reading this accurately?
Lastly, are there any other points that people have picked up from this book that you think might be pertinent?
Thanks in advance!
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SF Bay Area
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Re: The Myth of Sisyphus
05/05Sorry , I just came across this site and your quandry. As to the question of freedom, if one has a concept of freedom one must also then have a concept of it's opposing idea, which is some kind of slavery. To get past the concept of slavery and freedom it is best to embrace existence in it's totality.
That is to say, to immerse oneself in the being that is life.Is life only that time during which one emerges from the womb to the decomposition of the body at death?Or is it that moment when one transcends the artificial descriptors and limits of the paradigms implanted and seeded by our heritage and environment, (our teachers and our parents)?
