8 ms·
Camus's New York Diary (1946)
- world2vec 4y agoSomething about Camus' succinct but elegant way of writing that is very attractive to me. That man was just too cool.
- noduerme 4y agoOne of my favorite wikipedia articles of all time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase
- mitchbob 4y agoNice! Especially liked this one: > When he was consulted on how Spartans might best forestall invasion of their homeland, Lycurgus advised, "By remaining poor, and each man not desiring to possess more than his fellow."
- detourdog 4y agoI went through a phase where I was reading Camus's notebooks. They weren't finished or complete ideas and I loved the ideas that were packed in. I didn't have the same attraction to his stories. I will definitely revisit him at some point.
- Maursault 4y ago> Something about Camus' succinct but elegant way of writing that is very attractive to me. Sure, you... and the 1957 Nobel Committee.
- standardUser 4y ago"A stroll to Staten Island" Pardon me? Like, through New Jersey? Hell of a stroll!
- zabzonk 4y agoperhaps he took a ferry? and isn't there a bridge? things may get lost in translation.
- bootwoot 4y agoThere's no bridge to this day. There's the start of a tunnel on both ends, but not very far along. He likely took a ferry.
- zabzonk 4y agowhat about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verrazzano-Narrows_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verrazzano-Narrows_Bridge
- tetromino_ 4y agoObvious mistranslation. I am guessing the intended meaning of the French original was something like "excursion" or "cruise".
- zabzonk 4y ago> The heart trembles before so much remarkable inhumanity. i can see what he is getting at, though i have to say that on my own visits to NY (from london, uk) i often thought there was too much humanity!
- disqard 4y ago> Finally a country that really takes care of its children. I mentally shed a tear when I reached this part.
- zvmaz 4y agoI recently read The Plague by Camus about an epidemic happening in colonial Oran, Algeria. I sometimes smiled at how underwhelming it was in comparison to what the COVID pandemic revealed about society and human nature in times of total catastrophe.
- sureglymop 4y agoHad to read it in school. Iirc it was a direct response and commentary/allegory of ww2.
- howlin 4y agoIt's popular to connect The Plague to mid 20th century fascism. The message is actually much deeper and more broad than that specific point in time of Western history.
- thmsths 4y agoI read it recently too and I was actually impressed by how well he described the atmosphere of the quarantine. It made me wonder if he actually lived through one.
- SCAQTony 4y agoHappy guy for an existentialist of that period; most were dour and fatalist. I like him!
- z3c0 4y agoHe always rebuked the "existentialist" moniker for that reason. Most would call him an absurdist for his insistence towards finding happiness amidst the absurd indifference of life towards ones aspirations.
- OneLeggedCat 4y agoOne must imagine Sisyphus happy.
- noduerme 4y agoEasy to say when the daily climb is up to the cliff house where you're shacked up with a couple chicks.
- aryanmann 4y agoWell, he was a part of the resistance against Nazi occupation. Albeit less on the front lines and more on the journalistic side, but nonetheless. I'd say it's valid enough to give him the opportunity to have an existential crisis.
- Maursault 4y agoCamus referred to himself as a moralist. Camus was a moralist; he claimed morality should guide politics. While he did not deny that morals change over time, he rejected the classical Marxist view that historical material relations define morality.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus#Political_stance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus#Political_stance
- z3c0 4y ago
- akiselev 4y ago> Their fondness for animals. A multistory pet shop: canaries on the second floor, great apes at the top. A couple of years ago, a man was arrested on Fifth Avenue for driving a giraffe around in his truck. He explained that his giraffe didn’t get enough air out in the suburbs where he kept it and that he’d found this to be a good way to get it some air. In Central Park, a lady brought a gazelle to graze. To the court, she explained that the gazelle was a person. “Yet it doesn’t speak,” the judge said. “Oh, yes, it speaks the language of lovingkindness.” Five-dollar fine. There’s also the three-kilometer tunnel under the Hudson and the impressive bridge to New Jersey. Did he step through a door to Narnia or something? New York used to be wild! Great apes, giraffe, gazelles!?
- IIAOPSW 4y agoI imagine the giraffe found the tall buildings and the people at eye level with it to be a splendid surprise. Though, it was less enthused with the prospect of trying to get around on the subway.
- noduerme 4y agoMy dad got a pet monkey in New York in the 1950s when he was a kid. Moishe the monkey. According to Dad, he used to walk the monkey around the park in the Bronx and introduce him to girls. (Translation: The monkey introduced my dad to girls.) The downside was the monkey made a complete mess of his parents' apartment and they ended up giving him away.
- slim 4y agoIs this originally written in English ?
- 2b3a51 4y ago> I notice that I haven’t noticed the skyscrapers, that they’ve seemed only natural. It’s a question of overall scale. And in any case, you can’t always walk around with your head turned up. A person can keep only so many floors in sight at once. Just realised that this is happening in the centre of the city I live in. Quite a few 45 and 50 story towers going up, but from street level it is just buildings like the 10 story ones before.
- MengerSponge 4y agoThe reason for this is the setback requirement. Once a setback is small enough, you can't see the full scale of the building, and you stop noticing. Ironically, decreasing setbacks lets you build taller without making cities feel overwhelming.