Sisyphus1.0023

Sisyphus1.0023_Camus

Black and white portrait of a man with dark, wavy hair, wearing a dark coat and smoking a cigarette, looking slightly left

Camus' monumental essay, though not easy, is full of insight. Nearly every page, especially after p. 48 (!), bears some compelling observation still. Sisyphus, however, is not overtly mentioned until the last few pages. — Is it heresy to suggest reading the last 5 pages first?

Until Sisyphus makes his formal entrance, the essay begins with contemplation of suicide, "judging whether life is or is not worth living". This, Camus says, is essential philosophy: "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." It then contemplates the Absurdity of human existence. When Sisyphus "the absurd hero" finally enters the essay, in its last five pages, the whole turns out to be a contemplation on "the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks".

Camus was dealing with persistent bouts of tuberculosis when he wrote this essay. His accidental death in a car accident 20 years later was considered tragic.