He represented in this century, and against History, the present heir of that long line of moralists whose works perhaps constitute what is most original in French letters. His stubborn humanism, narrow and pure, austere and sensual, waged a dubious battle against events of these times. But inversely, through the obstinacy of his refusals, he reaffirmed the existence of moral fact within the heart of our era and against the Machiavellians, against the golden calf of realism.
— Jean Paul Sartre, from his obituary of Albert Camus.
46 years ago today, on January 4, 1960, Albert Camus — veteran of the French Resistance, editor, philosopher, anticolonialist — died at age 46 in a car accident in the small town of Villeblevin. Camus was the author of, among many other notable works, Le Mythe de Sisyphe, in which he offered the notion that acceptance of the futility of life is the only healthy alternative to the suspension of critical thought required to accept a religious point of view.
“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Incongruously, I’ve spent much of my life deriving meaning from the fact that Camus died on the day I was born.
