It would make sense for me to post this rant in French but I will try to do the best I can in English. I first read Albert Camus' L'Etranger in 1986/7 as the set book for French Literature and therefore obligatory reading for Advanced level French. Twenty years later in 2007, I was excited to purchase the book off a book store in Laval, France where I had visited a good friend of mine. As my children were studying French, I also had them read my copy of the book as my view was that one can never really purport to have studied the French language if they had not read Camus.
It made sense for me to dust the book from its place on the Book shelf on 7th November 2013 as that marked the centenary of Albert Camus' birth and completed rereading it a month later on a trip from Luanda. I wondered whether, were I to redo my exams, I would get better grades in the French Literature paper since I have had the experience of life and the lessons that come with living.
The Los Angeles Times, in marking Camus' 100th birthday, indicated that Albert Camus was timeless and that article led me to browsing many more that had been written to commemorate the life of a man known for absurdist literature. The Guardian in discussing L'Etranger held that Mersault (the narrator and protagonist) who tells this tale from his perspective wasn't as unconcerned about his mother's passing as the prosecutor later made him out to be. The article put the blame on the telegram sent from the old people's home - l'asile - announcing Mme Mersault's death indicating that it was vague & callous.
Where I come from the messenger of death must use as much tact as possible in delivering a message of death. Often, one is told that someone is very sick when they have already expired. More often than not the word death was not even in the vocabulary as the language used phrases such as "one had rested" or "one had slept". As a matter of fact death presupposes a finality whereas in my culture it is simply a transition. One is gathered to his fathers (and mothers!) to continue the business of living in the after world. In these days of social media, this 'tact' is not always possible and so it was on 6th December 2013 that I woke up to messages streaming off Twitter, Facebook and even one from my mother many miles away that the great Madiba had thrown in the towel. Mr Ole Tumbi, a Kenyan that I follow on twitter, had the audacity to unceremoniously tweet about this death before a formal announcement had been made by the South African powers. In the IsiXhosa culture, the death of a King was never announced publicly because after all the King hadn't really died but had been gathered to his fathers to rule in the after world. For the past few months since Nelson Mandela was admitted in hospital the Southern Africans were therefore insulted by the bevy of journalists that camped outside the hospital like vultures all awaiting the passing on of a man revered by many as an icon...unfortunately the last of his kind in the continent that I have the fortune to call home. However the angel of death had not come a-knocking to the extent that many people circulated conspiracies that perhaps the great Mandela had already left for the next world.
The Los Angeles Times, in marking Camus' 100th birthday, indicated that Albert Camus was timeless and that article led me to browsing many more that had been written to commemorate the life of a man known for absurdist literature. The Guardian in discussing L'Etranger held that Mersault (the narrator and protagonist) who tells this tale from his perspective wasn't as unconcerned about his mother's passing as the prosecutor later made him out to be. The article put the blame on the telegram sent from the old people's home - l'asile - announcing Mme Mersault's death indicating that it was vague & callous.
Where I come from the messenger of death must use as much tact as possible in delivering a message of death. Often, one is told that someone is very sick when they have already expired. More often than not the word death was not even in the vocabulary as the language used phrases such as "one had rested" or "one had slept". As a matter of fact death presupposes a finality whereas in my culture it is simply a transition. One is gathered to his fathers (and mothers!) to continue the business of living in the after world. In these days of social media, this 'tact' is not always possible and so it was on 6th December 2013 that I woke up to messages streaming off Twitter, Facebook and even one from my mother many miles away that the great Madiba had thrown in the towel. Mr Ole Tumbi, a Kenyan that I follow on twitter, had the audacity to unceremoniously tweet about this death before a formal announcement had been made by the South African powers. In the IsiXhosa culture, the death of a King was never announced publicly because after all the King hadn't really died but had been gathered to his fathers to rule in the after world. For the past few months since Nelson Mandela was admitted in hospital the Southern Africans were therefore insulted by the bevy of journalists that camped outside the hospital like vultures all awaiting the passing on of a man revered by many as an icon...unfortunately the last of his kind in the continent that I have the fortune to call home. However the angel of death had not come a-knocking to the extent that many people circulated conspiracies that perhaps the great Mandela had already left for the next world.
Much has been said about L'Etranger ever since it was published in 1942, the year of my mother's birth - translated into English as the Outsider, the Loner or the Stranger - that I cannot do it much justice in this rant. I would love to explore the theme of aloneness, however in the aftermath of Nelson Mandela's death, I wager that death is an opportune sub theme to explore. There is so much death as one reads through the paperback's 186 pages. The first paragraph of the book starts with Mersault telling us "Aujourd'hui, Maman est morte" which loosely translates to "Today, Mama died". The second half of the book focusses on the fact that Mersault has been condemned to die by hanging for killing an Arab youth. As Mersault awaits his turn on death row, he ponders about the absurdity of life & death and shares his thoughts with us. His point of view can be juxtaposed against the bible verse that says:- "It is appointed for man once to die..." so what the heck? "C'était toujours moi qui mourrais, que ce soit maintenant ou dans vingt ans" - It is appointed for him to die, whether now or in twenty years. This understanding of the institution of death allows him to accept his situation without much regret. As Americans are wont to quip, "Only two things are certain, death and taxes". Mersault says that there are those who will die at thirty and others who will die at seventy but the business of life & living still continues. Thinking about it deeply, in essence, life and the pursuit thereof is truly vanity of vanities...a chasing after the wind. "Everything is meaningless" says the writer of Ecclesiastes, who further tells us that "There is a time to be born and a time to die". Regarding the subject of death, I found a lot of similarity between the thoughts of Mersault and those of the writer of Ecclesiastes.
Given the events of this past week - I must quote Nelson Mandela..."Nobody knows when they are going to die. Even though I am an old man, I do not dwell on the possibility of death. Death comes when it is ready". Death is personified in that quote and a few others attributed to Mandela. It also reminds me of a play by David Ruganda where we are often reminded in reference to mysterious disappearances in post colonial Uganda, "The call of the beckon, who one can resist it?" For some - like the 33 passengers who died aboard the Mozambican Airways TM470 plane on 30th November 2013 - it comes unplanned & unforeseen, whilst, for others like Mandela it will come after a life well lived. As Franco Modigliani & Merton Miller theorized regarding the capital structure irrelevance principle - the difference is the same whichever way one looks at it.
Although Mersault indicates severally that he is an agnostic and has no particular need to see the Priest assigned to people who are about to meet their maker - he has, like Paul - learnt in whatever situation he is in, thereby to be content. He does not to fuss too much about his situation. Throughout the book - in response to many things - he says "Cela m'est égal" or as the Tunisians love saying "C'est Kif Kif" meaning that it doesn't matter one way or the other.
Society, however, does impose some standards upon Mersault and by extension upon us. It legislates our actions & behaviours including what we must feel towards life, death and everything in between. Mersault is judged & condemned to die, not so much for the killing of an Arab youth in colonial Algeria (an act that he does very callously) but more for the fact that he does not abide by the tenets that society has legislated. The case for the prosecution rests strongly upon the fact that the day after his mother's death, he smokes a cigarette, drinks café au lait, declines to view the body, sleeps during the vigil, goes to the beach for a swim and, as if to add insult to injury, soon after starts a sexual relationship with Marie. For those misdemeanours & inadvertently going against what is expected of him, Mersault must pay the ultimate price. The prosecutor - like Herod's dancing daughter in the case of John the Baptist - asks for Mersault's head. This is not a punishment for Mersault as he has accepted his fate but a lesson to others who, like him, might be tempted to go against the grain. I shall avoid digressing to the pros and cons of capital punishment in considering this view...
I am left wondering whether - in the context of organisational theory & relationships to the environment in which I find myself - the better option would be to conform to the group or stand out like a sore thumb. Ofttimes I have found myself take Mersault's position or like Scarlett O'Hara (Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell) simply say, Fiddle dee dee!
Although Mersault indicates severally that he is an agnostic and has no particular need to see the Priest assigned to people who are about to meet their maker - he has, like Paul - learnt in whatever situation he is in, thereby to be content. He does not to fuss too much about his situation. Throughout the book - in response to many things - he says "Cela m'est égal" or as the Tunisians love saying "C'est Kif Kif" meaning that it doesn't matter one way or the other.
Society, however, does impose some standards upon Mersault and by extension upon us. It legislates our actions & behaviours including what we must feel towards life, death and everything in between. Mersault is judged & condemned to die, not so much for the killing of an Arab youth in colonial Algeria (an act that he does very callously) but more for the fact that he does not abide by the tenets that society has legislated. The case for the prosecution rests strongly upon the fact that the day after his mother's death, he smokes a cigarette, drinks café au lait, declines to view the body, sleeps during the vigil, goes to the beach for a swim and, as if to add insult to injury, soon after starts a sexual relationship with Marie. For those misdemeanours & inadvertently going against what is expected of him, Mersault must pay the ultimate price. The prosecutor - like Herod's dancing daughter in the case of John the Baptist - asks for Mersault's head. This is not a punishment for Mersault as he has accepted his fate but a lesson to others who, like him, might be tempted to go against the grain. I shall avoid digressing to the pros and cons of capital punishment in considering this view...
I am left wondering whether - in the context of organisational theory & relationships to the environment in which I find myself - the better option would be to conform to the group or stand out like a sore thumb. Ofttimes I have found myself take Mersault's position or like Scarlett O'Hara (Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell) simply say, Fiddle dee dee!
