Vintage Books

384 pages, $11

Review by Gabriel Gilbert

I can’t quit Albert Camus’ lyrical essays. Better known for The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger, his lyrical essays differ in that they read more like prose poetry. I found his essays by chance around the same age Camus was when he wrote them—in my mid 20’s. What’s hard to quit is the fact that he writes in the language of someone sensing the end of youth.

Camus confesses in the preface that “there is more love in these awkward pages than in all those that have followed.” That love takes on the form of an urgent yearning for the past. Camus senses that life is fleeting, yet nothing escapes him. The sun bleached beaches and ancient Roman ruins in Tipasa—his home—serve as Camus’ muse while he struggles to catch his breath in search for that place where “his heart first opened.” His prose is biting. He contends with a world where war has robbed the young of innocence and life. His essays are underscored with a certain elegy. Continue reading →