book of books - Exile and the Kingdom

This collection of six stories by Albert Camus covers different moods and locations from the Algerian desert to the rivers of Brazil but all apart from the Artist at Work, which is more satirical, have a haunting quality.

But if I was only allowed to have read two of them then The Guest and The Growing Stone would be the choices because the first leaves you hanging metaphorically on a cliff edge and the second leaves you wondering just what happens next and what is the promised fulfilled.

At the risk of doing the entire plot summaries - please track back through the blog – I will only post those for the two stories mentioned above.

The Guest
A schoolmaster is living in a remote classroom at the top of a mountain pass, which has been made almost inaccessible by snow. For three days none of the pupils have made it to the classroom so he is alone. Then a policeman with an Arab prisoner approach and the teacher is told that he has to look after the prisoner and take him to the next town, something he refuses to do. That night there is minimal conversation but the teacher is adamant that he will not take the man to the town. In the morning the Arab has not tried to escape. The teacher gives him food and money and tells him the way to avoid the route to prison but discovers the Arab is going that way anyway. Once he gets back to the classroom there is a message telling him that he has betrayed an Arab brother and they will come and get him making him feel al alone.

The Growing Stone
A French engineer arrives in a Brazilian village with responsibility for building a pier that is going to stop the river flooding the poorest part of town. As he wanders round the town he makes an acquaintance with one of the residents of the shack housing on the rivers edge. The man explains that he was a cook on a boat but there was an accidental fire and as a result he promised Jesus that if he lived he would carry a 100-pound stone at the procession to celebrate Jesus day. He goes out the night before and dances all-night, even though the engineer warns him to stop and reserve his energy for the stone. On the day of the procession the engineer is able to watch from invited prime positions but in between seeing the start of the procession and getting into place for the arrival at the church the stone carrier drops his load. The engineer picks it up and carries it past the church and the awestruck pilgrims down into the poor quarter and drops it in the middle of the house where the original carrier lives.
There has been a key exchange where the man carrying the stone explains his promise and the engineer says that something not too dissimilar happened to him. The man replies that in that case he is carrying the stone for both of them. But when it falls to the engineer to take the load afterwards he feels released and that would only happen as a result of fulfilling a promise he had not consciously made.

Is it well written?
You can taste the salt on your lips and feel the sand brushing against your cheek in some stories and see the slippery mud road down to the shacks in another. He has a power of description that is much more subtle than you first imagine. The ability to carve out a deep character quickly and in such a short space of words is also something else that you have to admire. There is also an expectation that the reader is going to work with these stories so it is not all handed over on a plate and you have to work with the information provided to create the full picture. Making the reader work is something that not all writers manage to do as well as this and you end up being happy engaging with the stories.

Should it be read?
The blurb on the back of the book talks about the Nobel Prize handed out to Camus and mentions that it was for writing of this quality he received it. That is one reason for reading it but the other more fundamental one is that in these six short stories you can travel to different worlds, meet some pretty desperate people and see it all in front of you. The reader can choose to engage or skim but if you do the former than this book can be like taking a holiday with every chapter.

Version read – Penguin paperback

Lunchtime read: Exile and the Kingdom

If you were only allowed to take a couple of stories away from this Albert Camus collection then this one would have to be included because it grows on you much as the title does and the ending is both moving and unexpected.

The Growing Stone
A French engineer arrives in a Brazilian village with responsibility for building a pier that is going to stop the river flooding the poorest part of town. As he wanders round the town he makes an acquaintance with one of the residents of the shack housing on the rivers edge. The man explains that he was a cook on a boat but there was an accidental fire and as a result he promised Jesus that if he lived he would carry a 100-pound stone at the procession to celebrate Jesus day. He goes out the night before and dances all-night, even though the engineer warns him to stop and reserve his energy for the stone. On the day of the procession the engineer is able to watch from invited prime positions but in between seeing the start of the procession and getting into place for the arrival at the church the stone carrier drops his load. The engineer picks it up and carries it past the church and the awestruck pilgrims down into the poor quarter and drops it in the middle of the house where the original carrier lives.

There has been a key exchange where the man carrying the stone explains his promise and the engineer says that something not too dissimilar happened to him. The man replies that in that case he is carrying the stone for both of them. But when it falls to the engineer to take the load afterwards he feels released and that would only happen as a result of fulfilling a promise he had not consciously made.

Fantastic stuff and I will post a full review of the book tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Exile and the Kingdom

Due to having a lunch in London today this is being posted rather earlier than usual.

This is a different style from the stories that have gone before with a more satirical edge. Although this story is about an artist this could apply easily to other forms of creativity with writers also susceptible no doubt to the whims of fashion and fickle friends.

The Artist at Work
Gilbert Jonas is a painter who becomes successful and as he does so becomes popular and fashionable and his studio and cramped flat are always full of people that actually start to get in the way of him working. Those very same people that Jonas has seen as friends start to turn against him saying he is washed up. Jonas himself finds it harder and harder to paint to the extent that he completely stops and starts drinking and whoring. He comes clean with his wife and builds himself a make shift painting platform in the room at the top of his flat and stays up there becoming weaker and weaker until he falls down. His friends goes up to see what he has been painting on and there is a canvas turned to the wall with nothing but the single word solitary in the middle of it.

The moral here seems to be that it is unwise to trust the fickle friends of fame and unwise to give friendship and love to everyone . Creativity is something that is a precious commodity and needs the right environment to flourish and once that is removed then things go wrong.

Thoughts about the last short story in Exile and the Kingdom will come tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Exile and the Kingdom

Another haunting tale that is made all the more powerful by the fact that there is a communication breakdown that means someone who meant well is interpreted as intending something much more sinister.

The Guest
A schoolmaster is living in a remote classroom at the top of a mountain pass, which has been made almost inaccessible by snow. For three days none of the pupils have made it to the classroom so he is alone. Then a policeman with an Arab prisoner approach and the teacher is told that he has to look after the prisoner and take him to the next town, something he refuses to do. That night there is minimal conversation but the teacher is adamant that he will not take the man to the town. In the morning the Arab has not tried to escape. The teacher gives him food and money and tells him the way to avoid the route to prison but discovers the Arab is going that way anyway. Once he gets back to the classroom there is a message telling him that he has betrayed an Arab brother and they will come and get him making him feel al alone.

More tomorrow...

Lunchtime read: Exile and the Kingdom

Camus is able, and this has to be the sign of a great writer, to use just a dozen or so pages to set up a scene that will remain with you and has the ability to display some deep universal human characteristics.

The Silent Men
Yvars has been on strike but is heading back to work after it has failed and the unions have conceded defeat and understandably there is a tension in the air as the doors to the workshop are pulled back and the staff allowed back to resume making barrels to contain oil. The boss comes in to talk to the men but one by one they refuse to talk to him because they feel the only dignity they have left is in silence. But the boss has a little girl who is ill and an ambulance is called and when the boss returns at the end of the night the men continue their silence even though they all feel for him. Once he gets home Yvars tells his wife the story and concludes that it is all the boss’s fault.

There is a real subtle examination here of the interplay between individuals and the crowd and how fear of going against a pack mentality can often make people do things against their real desires.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Exile and the Kingdom

Another story set in the desert with the sun beating down and dry salty lips and skin in abundance along with plenty of brutality and death. There is a certain double-edged meaning to this tale with an eager missionary getting it wrong but in so doing highlighting the power of the evil that he is trying to fight.

The Renegade
You are introduced to a divided world with the Arabs being targeted by Christians as a source of conversion but one willing missionary goes out and heads into the heartlands of their religious beliefs and is rewarded with having his tongue cut out, a dose of torture and ends up with his beliefs being so overhauled that he turns against his fellow missionaries. He waits for the next missionary to come out to the town and kills him but the result is the Arabs are attacked by the French soldiers and they come looking for the renegade and kill him slowly in revenge for the trouble he has exposed them to.

More tomorrow…

Lunchtime read: Exile and The Kingdom

the reason for choosing this book as a lunchtime read is that the six short stories by Albert Camus are the perfect antitode to a cold London day. The first tale is set in Algeria and you can feel the sand brushing your cheeks and the sun burning your lips thanks to his quality of writing.

The Adulterous Woman
* The story is based around two people - Marcel and Janine - a married couple that have got trapped in a rut as the husband becomes focused on his business trying to make money. The wife doesn't want to come on the trip but Marcel insists and so you join them stuck on a bus going through a desert with the sand whipping at the windows and blinding out the landscape.

* In the course of an afternoon watching Marcel haggle with traders Janine is drained and they head back to the room and she wakes in the middle of the night realising that she does not love him and vice versa. She heads out into the night and runs through the darkness and then returns to the room and is discovered weeping by her husband.

A haunting short story that has a third character of the desert and shows that it is possible to commit adulery in the mind.