Is this whole book just a warning against nihilism?

Is this whole book just a warning against nihilism?

It's existentialism for dummies and a very enjoyable read.

Nihilism will get you killed, kids. Madame la guillotine--her quick kiss will freeze your heart and trim your height.

I suppose not, but it's a meaningless question anyway.

i felt it was about overcoming nihilism

I second this

I think it's just trying to get you to think. You could interpret it as a trumpet for the meaninglessness of everything, and sympathize with the main character, or you could see it as a "Warning against nihilism", which if you want my opinion is fucking dumb, but you don't care about my opinion.

I found it ironic that he was dead throughout his life, and only came to life when he was about to die

I felt like it showed the futility in attempting to reconcile one's inability to understand the world with others nonsense, but who cares what I think?

I think a lot about what he would have written if he had lived longer. I once heard it said he was moving from an obsession with Dostoevsky (whose influence can obviously be seen in his early work) and reading a great deal more Tolstoy. I don't know how true that was, but there is the stereotype of Dostoevsky being a "young man's" writer and that we move onto Tolstoy with time (a simplification, which nevertheless contains elements of truth).

As it stands I can't rank him as a great novelist, but for some reason, I get the feeling that, if he had lived longer, and really assimilated the messages of Tolstoy, using him as inspiration in same way he used Dosto, then he would have produced a truly great novel, one undeniably up there with the 20th century greats, and would have founded a stream of literature, which set itself apart by lacking the teenage elements of Dosto (the obsession with nihilism, the constant pervasive sense of drama(Dosto was the greatest playwright never to have written a play)), which plague his earlier work, and following instead the Tolstoyan model.

Instead, the 20th century became a Dostoyevskyan century, every work a lesser fragmentation of his Brothers Karamazov (Not that this is at all dismissive; it's a wonderful book), populated by exaggerated psychology, an unfounded distaste for naturalism, and a subtle conservatism (present even among the most left-wing writers of the modern and post-modern tradition) which reveals itself in the post-modern suspicion of "ideology" and "ideologues".

The death of Albert Camus came too early. As with Keats and Shelley, when we read his work, what is far more dominant than the actual work which stands before us is the tragic sense, which pervades his corpus, of what could have been.

>getting more than 2 pages into this book without throwing it away

/co/ sounds more your style friend

>I’d passed my life in a certain way, and I might have passed it in a different way, if I’d felt like it. I’d acted thus, and I hadn’t acted otherwise; I hadn’t done x, whereas I had done y or z. And what did that mean?

It's a cautionary tale against abandoning realism for nominalism. If there is no real human nature and therefore no way to determine which of our acts are good/virtuous and which are bad/vicious, the life becomes absurd because there is no justifiable reason to act one way and not another.

It's even more ironic that he accuses the priest of living like a corpse.

I appreciate posts like this, makes me desire to learn more.

Nice post

I think its an over extrapolation to consider the 20th century the "dostoyevskan century", but well written

It's ironic how even in his last moments, he continued to shift blame and lie to himself even though he was the only one around.

what is nihilism? Do you even really know? Can you actually give me a substantial answer, not the idiotic "It's when you don't believe in anything" response?

I seriously hope none of you consider yourselves 'nihilists'

>strongly identified with Meursault (I read this when I was 17)
>didn't knew eating eating on a funeral and going out while mourning was "abominable" until they mentioned it in the trial

This book mostly flew over my head because I think half of the content is in what is missing rather on what is included

>eating eating
fuck, *eating

Wish Veeky Forums could be more like this post

>Can you actually give me a substantial answer, not the idiotic "It's when you don't believe in anything" response?
But that's EXACTLY what a nihilist is, you mouth-breathing cunt.

Nihilism is the belief that nothing matters. Everything is futile. There is no consequence for our actions. We're all going to die.

It's a philosophy that represents an intellectual rock-bottom. You are THE evil of the universe if you're a nihilist.

No. Mersault isn't a nihilist. It's about anomie (alienation), and the absurdity of being born as someone who doesn't want to be a part of the in-crowd.

>nihilism is the belief
You are the exact type of person I was shitting on. Nihilism literally means the LACK of belief. It is applicable to anything, not just existential meaning. People call themselves existentialists, absurdists, nihilists, without even stopping for a moment to think about what they are talking about. They think it's all interchangeable. You pretentious faggot, did you even stop to google the word nihilism before you spewed out the same vague, incorrect garbage that every entry level philosophy kiddie spouts?

You can be a moral nihilist, or a spiritual nihilist, but you cannot be a 'nihilist'. The very idea of it is retarded. Everytime I hear someone repeat this shit like they know what they're talking about I die a little on the inside.

kek

I hadn't realized Dostoevsky's connection with Camus until I just happened, purely coincidentally, to read The Stranger for the first time in one sitting the same day that I'd finished Crime and Punishment earlier. They make fantastic companion pieces. Seeing Camus do with Tolstoy's ideas what he did with Dostoevsky's would be fascinating.

It's a reminder to take your meds.

Is this whole book just a warning against nihilism?

Not really. It really is an embrace of the coming of nihilism, because it means the new man can create better values. Values that will never again end up in nihilism.

Third paragraph confirms you're absolutely a fraud. Read a book, faggot.

Literally nothing stated here is anything I didn't already know, because it's basic shit. The only pretentious one here is you, you wheedling cocksucker. Kill yourself, and fuck all nihilists.

He's actually right. You're the retard here. Sorry.

>Dostoevsky
>young man's writer
>a simplification, which nevertheless contains elements of truth
Please get off this board.

The Arab had it coming. Mersault did nothing wrong

Yibble yibble Muslim pig

but the new man would die too. what's the point