Albert Camus: A Life by Olivier Todd

Quote of The Book:

“Your pleasure at being in class was always apparent, and your face was so optimistic that looking at it, I never guessed your family’s real situation. I only had a clue when your mother came to see me about entering your name on the scholarship candidate” (11)

This quote explains the hardship at Albert Camus’s mom had to go through just to make sure that he gets a proper education. Having his mom g up to one of the school’s teacher to ask for a scholarship opportunity for Albert was really impressive because it shows that she truly cared for his son’s future. The teacher on the other hand, seemed impressed with Albert because Albert showed a lot of potentials in his class. Also, it seems to me that his teacher treated him like a son because after he found out that about Albert’s situation, he did his best to get a scholarship for Albert.

Connections:

“On Thursdays and Sundays, Helene would prepare desserts, flavoring pastries with lemon and orange blossoms, while the boys hovered around the kitchen. Their grandmother would yell at them, but never send them outside because she didn’t want them hanging around” (8)

After reading this, I thought me and my brother when we were little because whenever my mom and my grandma make desserts, my bother and I would try to hang out in the kitchen to wait for them to finish. But my grandma would always kick us out because she doesn’t us to bother them.

“I’m thinking about journalism as a way to continue my studies…. I feel a sort of happiness in believing that I have I infinite possibilities” (25)

The first thing that I thought of after reading this quote was college students because some college students had to find a job that will help them offset their colleges expenses, which was similar to the problem that Albert was facing.

“Albert excelled in written assignments but was not best in oral exams in the small class” (32)

It seems like written assignments was the only subject where Albert excel, which doesn’t surprise me because this is very common for every other students.

Visual Representation:

There is a part in the book where Albert’s mom asked him what he wanted as a wedding gift and he replied “A dozen pair of white socks”. This picture stood out to me because I thought it was weird for him to ask for a dozen pair of sock as a wedding gift.

Questions:

What did Olivier Todd mean when he wrote?“If you don’t do a goddamn thing in my class, I’ll throw you into a Jesuit factory, and make you into a good little Jesuitties!”If Albert had scholarship, why did he have to work to pay for his school expenses?Why did Albert decide to marry Simone if he doesn’t have enough money to support them?

Reflection

Throughout this book, I was able to get an idea of how Albert Camus’s life was like back then. I was inspired by his motivation to excel in school. Even though he was poor, it didn’t stop him from going to school, which was truly inspiring. And, he worked hard to keep himself from going to school and fulfill his dreams.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Quote of The Book:

"Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness" pg. 59

Meursault’s mother recently passed away and
was involve with a murder due to his friend, Raymond and his mistress. When Raymond invited Meursault for dinner, he told Meursault that he suspected his mistress was cheating on him. This had caused Raymond to beat his mistress in order to punish her for her unfaithfulness. But the mistress’s Arab brother decided to go after Meursault and Raymond, which lead Meursault to shoot him.

Connections:

1. “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: Mother deseased.”

What I liked about this quote was that people can easily make a connection with their own personal experience with death. It is normal for some people like Meursault to be guilty and in denial, which causes them to blame themselves that they are the reason why their significant love one is dead because this is a way of grieving for certain people.

2. “They were lost in their thoughts that they weren’t even aware of it. I even had an impression that the dead woman lying in front of them didn’t mean anything to them. But I think that that was a false impression.”

This quote reminded me of my dad’s funeral because during his funeral, I encountered a lot of people that I have never met before. My first impression was similar to Meursault’s impression because I thought that they didn’t mean anything to my dad. But later on I realized their significant friendship with my dad.

3. “Then he left, yanking at the animal, which was letting itself be dragged along, whimpering.” pg. 28

When I read this quote, the first thing that popped out of my head was animal testing because of the way this man treated his dog. he pretty much treated his dog as if it was his slave.

Visual Representation:

There was a part in the book where Meursault ran into Maria, (the girl that he used to like) at a public beach. They swim happily together and flirt with each other throughout the afternoon. Even though this was not the picture that I had in my mind, it was very close to the image that the book was trying to depict.

Questions:

What caused Meursault to shoot the Arab four times in his body, knowing that he didn’t have any reasons for killing him? If Raymond is still attracted to his mistress, why did he want to beat her up just to get even? How come Meursault didn’t want to marry Maria? Was he looking forward for this event to happened? Why was Salamano mistreating his dog?

Reflection

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book because I was able to make a connection with some of the events that were brought up as I read. For example, the funeral, I know exactly how Meursault felt because I felt the same way as he did when my dad passed away. I really like how descriptive the story was because it allowed me to visualize how certain scene looked like in the story.

The Plague by Albert Camus

Quote:
“Some few of us, however, persisted in writing letters and gave much time to hatching plans for corresponding with the outside world; but almost always these plans came to nothing” pg.69

In this book, the Bubonic plague known as “The Plague” had stuck the town Oran, located in North Africa. It all started with the rats. The rats were all over the city and Dr. Rieux did his best to kill and remove all the rats in the town but unfortunately, there were too many of them. Soon the people in the town had started to get sick and the only reason for their sickness was the rats. In order to survive, there were some people who were persistent enough to write letters, asking other town for help.

Connections:
1. “Our citizen work hard, but solely with objective of getting rich” pg. 4

This seems to show that the incentive of the citizens to work hard is not because they are passionate about their job. Their incentive for working hard is to make money to be prosperous. This is something that every other person in the world would do because to them, money is more important to them than other things in the world.

2. “Still if things had gone thus far and no further, force of habit would doubtless have gain the day as usual” pg. 23

When I read this quote, the first thing that popped out of my head were the things that things that happens in our every day life when we certain things in the news or radio. We tend to have negative thoughts when we hear devastating news on the television or radio.

3. “Actually the municipality had not contemplated doing anything at all, but now a meeting was convened to discuss the situation” pg.15

This quote reminded me of the government because when an epidemic strikes a certain place, the first thing that a public health organization would do is to write policy papers to the government. Sometimes, the government tends to neglect some of these issues.

Visual Presentation:


This image conveys a lot of things that happened during the plague and it was able to visualize how the rat infested the town of Oran. Also, I was able to visualize how Dr. Rieux struggle to survive people’s lives and prevent the rats from going to the town. This image had also reminded me of the pity looks on Dr. Rieux’s face when he went to the market and saw millions of rat in the vegetables.

Questions:
If Dr. Rieux’s wife has a nurse, why does his mom has to come over to his place to take care of the wife? When the concierge became very ill, the doctor came to his house along with a priest which made me questioned myself, what does the priest have to do with the concierge’s illness? What is the effect of quarantine on a city's population? What is there to do in quarantine? When a plague strikes a city, what are the things that the citizens can do to prevent themselves from getting infected?

Reflection:
Overall, I thought that the book was interesting, but it was a bit hard for me to read this kind of literature since the book is translated from French. There were some parts in the book where there were typos. Since I am used on reading books that are much simpler than this book, I found it hard to understand some of the meaning out of every chapter, which took me a while to finish reading this book. I recommend this book to people that are looking forward to learn about the Bubonic plague in literature.