Robert Zaretsky is Professor of French History at the University of Houston.
Zaretsky brings to light in this wonderfully readable intellectual
biography of the iconoclastic pied noir the continued relevance of
Camus in contemporary life This volume offers a portrait of Camus
not simply as an existentialist (as is typical) but rather as a
Mediterranean humanist disillusioned by the world s failure to live
up to its purest ideals.--L. A. Wilkinson"Choice" (05/01/2014)"
Zaretsky delivers a lucid perspective on the intellectual
provenance of the writer s moral philosophy through an examination
of Notebooks, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Rebel, The Plague, and The
Stranger. His scrutiny converges on Camus s sense of the
fundamental absurdity of life and why suicide is not an option; his
sensitivity to the positive and negative aspects of silence; his
understanding of the human condition; and his conviction that
rebellious response to injustice be measured, not extreme An
admirable, comprehensible introduction to Camus.--Lonnie
Weatherby"Library Journal" (12/13/2013)"
Zaretsky identifies Camus as a moralist, not a moralizer, one who
poses questions rather than imposes answers. Like such courageous
moralists as Montaigne, Voltaire, Hugo and Zola, Camus extended his
private quest for truth into the public sphere In pithy prose
worthy of his subject, Zaretsky reminds us that, in an age of
suicide bombings and state-sanctioned murder, Camus is an author
worth reading.--Steven G. Kellman"Texas Observer" (12/17/2013)"
A Life Worth Living departs from the chronological approach
Instead, Zaretsky tells [Camus s] story according to the five
themes that preoccupied his life and work: absurdity, silence,
measure, fidelity, and revolt. The result is a much more human
portrait of a man whose life is often reduced to a meditation on
the bleakness of absurdism. By chronicling the ideas rather than
the events of Camus s life, Zaretsky shows that Camus was all too
human: an obvious point that our desperate need for heroes,
especially now, often obscures. --Linda Kinstler"New Republic"
(11/08/2013)"
A marvelously wise, concise, and adventurous exploration of Camus,
his intellectual antecedents, the battles that raged around him,
and his continuing power to unsettle and inspire us to this
day.--Sarah Bakewell, author of How to Live: A Life of
Montaigne
Enlightening Zaretsky probes Camus s multifaceted
sensibility.--John Taylor"Times Literary Supplement"
(11/08/2013)"
For a good short study of [Camus s] life, work and philosophy, try
Robert Zaretsky s A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest
for Meaning.--Stephen Romei"The Australian" (12/14/2013)"
In the beautifully titled and beautifully written A Life Worth
Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning, historian Robert
Zaretsky considers Camus s lifelong quest to shed light on the
absurd condition, his yearning for a meaning or a unity to our
lives, and its timeless yet increasingly timely legacy A remarkable
read in its entirety.--Maria Popova"Brain Pickings"
(10/01/2014)"
More than a half-century after his untimely death in 1960 at age
46, Camus continues to engage us Zaretsky provides thorough and
rigorous examinations into the author s life and work while also
helping us understand the disquiet of a man who gave readers
seeking sustenance in art some of the most lyrical and encouraging
advice in 20th-century literature.--Kevin Rabalais"The Australian"
(11/02/2013)"
Offer[s] concise, eloquent, and learned treatments of the life and
work of the French-Algerian moralist Camus contained multitudes and
Zaretsky returns to this truth again and again.--Barry
Lenser"PopMatters" (11/21/2013)"
Some writers are lucky enough to be remembered 50 years after they
die, and a few are even beloved. What is vanishingly rare, however,
is for a long-dead writer to remain controversial. Albert Camus is
one of those exceptions, a writer who still has the power to ignite
political passions, because he managed to incorporate the history
of the 20th century so deeply into his writing Readers new to Camus
will find in Zaretsky a deeply informed and warmly admiring
guide.--Adam Kirsch"Daily Beast" (10/20/2013)"
The centenary [of Albert Camus] has spurred books, papers and
reconsideration of his contributions to literature and his times.
Robert Zaretsky s is one of the best. The Algerian-French Nobel
Prize winner, known for novels such as The Stranger and The Plague
and essays including The Myth of Sisyphus and Reflections on the
Guillotine, wrote piercingly and urgently about facing injustice,
the need for revolt, confronting absurdity and the search for
meaning. Zaretsky underscores why the ideas of Camus, who died in a
car accident in 1960, remain important today.--Peter M.
Gianotti"Newsday" (12/27/2013)"
This is a wonderful introduction to Albert Camus and an overview
for those who have already read him. Zaretsky effortlessly explores
sometimes difficult concepts in an accessible, even conversational
study that blends significant aspects of Camus life his Algerian
background, life in France, the importance of the war; the
Resistance and the TB that afflicted him for much of his life with
his works, in such a way that it offers a strong sense of the
writings and the writer The result is a concise portrait of an
intellectual deeply concerned with ethics, but with an abiding love
of the sensual, and life s beauty.--Steven Carroll"Sydney Morning
Herald" (12/14/2013)"
What emerges is the paradoxical portrait of an exceptional
everyman: imperfect, plagued by doubt, melancholic, flawed, but
also sensitive, hopeful, passionate and heroic A Life Worth Living
reveals much about Camus, the times he lived in and wrote against
Those looking for a better understanding of the context in which
Camus penned his books and essays on murder, torture, suicide,
silence and rebellion will find much to ruminate on Zaretsky is
especially adept at seamlessly weaving Camus own words into the
text, and the result is that the reader feels almost as though she
is reading Camus as opposed to a biographer Zaretsky s book is good
reading for dark times, a wonderfully written monograph about an
absurd hero whose life serves as a reminder that, while we have no
reason to hope, we must also never despair. --Jon
Morris"PopMatters" (12/10/2013)"
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