Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Books Ltd (2001), Edition: New Ed, Paperback, 272 pages
Description
A fictionalized autobiography, covering his youth in Algeria. It is filled with details of the white working class to which he belonged and there is the undercurrent of a boy's search for a father figure, his own killed in World War I. He describes the intervention of a school teacher who obtained for him a scholarship, first step on the road to the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature.
User reviews
LibraryThing member rmckeown
When Albert Camus met his tragic end in an automobile accident in 1960, he left behind this unfinished manuscript. His wife, Francine, decided its incomplete state, with lots of marginalia, notes, and interleaved sheets, would tarnish her husband’s reputation, so she decided against publication.
This highly autobiographic novel offers many insights into the formative years of Camus. The death of his father -- when he barely passed his first birthday -- his strict upbringing by his timid mother who deferred to his martinet of a grandmother, to his early education and rescue from a life of poverty by a beloved teacher who recommended him for a scholarship to the lycée, and ultimately to his search for information about his father, appear with a warmth and nostalgia I have not experienced in any of Camus’ other works.
In fact, so many things in his early life strike me as startlingly familiar. For example, on his vacation, young Jacques Cormery frequently visits the local library,
“Thursday was also the day Jacques and Pierre would go to the public library. Jacques had always devoured any books that came to hand, and he consumed them with the same appetite he felt for living, playing, or dreaming. But reading enabled him to escape into a world of innocence where wealth and poverty were equally interesting because both were utterly unreal...illustrated stories that he and his friends passed around until the board binding was gray and rough and the pages dog-eared and torn, was the first to transport him to a world of comedy or heroism where his two basic appetites for joy and courage were satisfied” (244).
Jacques sets off for the lycée with the encouragement of a beloved teacher, and he experiences an epiphany similar to that used by James Joyce in the last paragraph of the Dubliners story, “Araby.” Jacques and Joyce’s young boy realized they are on the edge of new experiences and are about to put their childhoods behind them.
The manuscript has numerous passages with a bit of awkwardness, and footnotes hint at Camus’ indecision about diction or deletion, inclusion, or expansion of some information for the final version of the novel. But he deals with all the major issues found in all his works – life, death, religion, punishment, colonialism, prejudice, and family relationships. Camus always makes me think about all these topics.
If you are unfamiliar with Camus, this novel is the perfect place to start – a literary and philosophical buffet of his life and beliefs. The First Man represents a most important addition to the literary canon of existentialism. 5 stars
--Jacques, 7/17/10
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When Francine died, responsibility for Camus’ literary estate fell to his daughter Catherine. She struggled with the decision, and rejected the idea of destroying the manuscript of about 144 pages with little or no punctuation, and with only the barest evidence of any revision. In the 1990s, at the urging of some scholars, she agreed to publication. The English translation appeared in 1995. I, for one, offer a most hearty thanks to Catherine for her decision.This highly autobiographic novel offers many insights into the formative years of Camus. The death of his father -- when he barely passed his first birthday -- his strict upbringing by his timid mother who deferred to his martinet of a grandmother, to his early education and rescue from a life of poverty by a beloved teacher who recommended him for a scholarship to the lycée, and ultimately to his search for information about his father, appear with a warmth and nostalgia I have not experienced in any of Camus’ other works.
In fact, so many things in his early life strike me as startlingly familiar. For example, on his vacation, young Jacques Cormery frequently visits the local library,
“Thursday was also the day Jacques and Pierre would go to the public library. Jacques had always devoured any books that came to hand, and he consumed them with the same appetite he felt for living, playing, or dreaming. But reading enabled him to escape into a world of innocence where wealth and poverty were equally interesting because both were utterly unreal...illustrated stories that he and his friends passed around until the board binding was gray and rough and the pages dog-eared and torn, was the first to transport him to a world of comedy or heroism where his two basic appetites for joy and courage were satisfied” (244).
Jacques sets off for the lycée with the encouragement of a beloved teacher, and he experiences an epiphany similar to that used by James Joyce in the last paragraph of the Dubliners story, “Araby.” Jacques and Joyce’s young boy realized they are on the edge of new experiences and are about to put their childhoods behind them.
The manuscript has numerous passages with a bit of awkwardness, and footnotes hint at Camus’ indecision about diction or deletion, inclusion, or expansion of some information for the final version of the novel. But he deals with all the major issues found in all his works – life, death, religion, punishment, colonialism, prejudice, and family relationships. Camus always makes me think about all these topics.
If you are unfamiliar with Camus, this novel is the perfect place to start – a literary and philosophical buffet of his life and beliefs. The First Man represents a most important addition to the literary canon of existentialism. 5 stars
--Jacques, 7/17/10
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LibraryThing member pinkcrayon99
In The First Man Albert Camus allowed the main character Jacques Cormery to reflect back on his life of humble beginnings. A forty year old Jacques Cormery sets out on a journey seeking details about his deceased father. Henri Cormery died before Jacques was a year old. Very little was shared with
Jacques referred to his neighborhood as an island of poverty and himself as being born into an ignorant and handicapped family. These truths were ever present but never overwhelmed him. The adults that live at home with Jacques are all illiterate. His mother is partially deaf and always distant. His grandmother is a tyrant. All his family knows is hard work. They have no time for religion or patriotism. Jacques life begins to change when a teacher recognizes his academic potential.
Jacques mother has to be the most complicated yet the most simple character of the entire work. Her personality and her status as a parent is constantly overshadowed and taken over by her tyrannical mother. She never shares any insight with Jacques about his father. When Jacques specifically asks her about his father she is dismissive. This could be seen as selfish but we learn that due to her disability and illiteracy she has a hard time expressing herself. Regardless, Jacques always had a steadfast love for his mother.
The First Man was found handwritten and unedited among the wreckage in which Albert Camus lost his life. In this raw state, it still reads like a fully developed novel. This story is melancholy yet delightful.
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Jacques about his father while growing up. There was no time for Jacques to yearn for his father because he and his family were trying to survive a life of poverty.Jacques referred to his neighborhood as an island of poverty and himself as being born into an ignorant and handicapped family. These truths were ever present but never overwhelmed him. The adults that live at home with Jacques are all illiterate. His mother is partially deaf and always distant. His grandmother is a tyrant. All his family knows is hard work. They have no time for religion or patriotism. Jacques life begins to change when a teacher recognizes his academic potential.
Jacques mother has to be the most complicated yet the most simple character of the entire work. Her personality and her status as a parent is constantly overshadowed and taken over by her tyrannical mother. She never shares any insight with Jacques about his father. When Jacques specifically asks her about his father she is dismissive. This could be seen as selfish but we learn that due to her disability and illiteracy she has a hard time expressing herself. Regardless, Jacques always had a steadfast love for his mother.
The First Man was found handwritten and unedited among the wreckage in which Albert Camus lost his life. In this raw state, it still reads like a fully developed novel. This story is melancholy yet delightful.
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LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
First Man opens with Henri Cormery, the new manager of the Saint-Apotre property seeking help for his wife, in labor with their second child. But, the meat of the transcript is the son, Jacques Cormery, looking to understand he father he never met. With a deaf-mute mother and a contradictory
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tyrannical grandmother, Jacques's quest for knowledge is slow-going. Henri Cormery died in combat when Jacques was just an infant and the women in his family are reluctant to remember anything. Most of the story centers on Jacques in the formative years, his education, his religion, his poverty and of course, his mother and grandmother. While most of the story centers on the bleakness of poverty and the restrictions placed upon Jacques because of that poverty, I liked the sly sense of humor Camus inserted throughout the story. Take this dialogue, for example: "How is it going?" "I don't know, I especially don't go in where the women are." "Good rule...Particularly when when are crying..." (p 15). It just goes to show you that emotional women still drive men nuts. What I didn't appreciate in First Man was how confusing an unfinished transcript could be. On page 8 Jacques's mother's name is Lucie, but by page 90 she is Catherine. Then there were the hundreds and hundreds of reference notes. It made reading slow and plodding at times. Show Less
LibraryThing member bodachliath
In this unfinished novel, Camus gives a poignant and richly detailed semi-autographical account of a childhood in Algeria. The notes included here make it clear that this was intended as part of a much more ambitious work, but what remains is very readable and moving.
LibraryThing member BeauxArts79
Stunning, meditative prose that rises near the level of Faulkner's. (The author's influence is everywhere apparent in this fragment.) Incomplete, yet whole, this novel is more evocative than most of Camus's more frequently cited works.
LibraryThing member scottjpearson
When he died in a tragic and unforeseen car crash in 1960, novelist and existentialist Albert Camus had a draft of this work in his briefcase. It was not published until the 1990s, but is the most autobiographical of Camus’ works. The main character, like the author, grew up impoverished in
The protagonist Jacques Cormery grew up not knowing his father. The father was never married to Cormery’s mother and died in battle in World War I. Jacques’ mother was partially deaf and also mute. His grandmother lived with the family, but was illiterate. So his family background was not ideal for social ascent. He attended school, and a teacher appreciated his keen mind. Through this teacher’s involvement, he won a scholarship to the lycée, the French equivalent of the gymnasium or an advanced high school.
His studies at the lycée opened the world to him, both intellectually and interpersonally. Despite gaining and growing, Jacques was still a child in the eyes of his mother and grandmother. Like many Americans who are the first in their families to attend college, achieving adulthood is not an automatic process; the world of work, not study, is viewed as the threshold. Thus, he was forced to labor during a summer break. This experience not only won him money for himself and for his family, but it also won him enduring respect of the matriarchs in his life.
This work is frankly not as great as The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger, or The Plague. That might be due to the fact that we have only a draft, not a finished product. The writing is good, but just not entirely polished. The value resides in its autobiographical nature and in its portrayal of pre-World-War-II Algeria through the eyes of an attentive but impoverished young lad. The reader cannot help but wonder what might have become of this text had Camus lived past 1960.
Incidentally, it took 30+ years for this text to be published because Camus’ family was afraid the unpolished nature would discredit his notoriety. Fortunately, his philosophical and literary greatness has withstood the tests of time. Accordingly, Albert’s daughter Catherine felt free enough to share this tale with the world. For us, it contains the unvarnished passion of rolling sentences and cultural acuity. Fans of Camus (like myself) will enjoy gaining a deeper understanding of this great twentieth-century figure, about how he as a child transformed into a man of courage.
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Algeria and escaped a life of the same through education. This tale, properly characterized as a coming-of-age novel, shares how the great writer and future Nobel-Prize winner understood his maturity into an adult man.The protagonist Jacques Cormery grew up not knowing his father. The father was never married to Cormery’s mother and died in battle in World War I. Jacques’ mother was partially deaf and also mute. His grandmother lived with the family, but was illiterate. So his family background was not ideal for social ascent. He attended school, and a teacher appreciated his keen mind. Through this teacher’s involvement, he won a scholarship to the lycée, the French equivalent of the gymnasium or an advanced high school.
His studies at the lycée opened the world to him, both intellectually and interpersonally. Despite gaining and growing, Jacques was still a child in the eyes of his mother and grandmother. Like many Americans who are the first in their families to attend college, achieving adulthood is not an automatic process; the world of work, not study, is viewed as the threshold. Thus, he was forced to labor during a summer break. This experience not only won him money for himself and for his family, but it also won him enduring respect of the matriarchs in his life.
This work is frankly not as great as The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger, or The Plague. That might be due to the fact that we have only a draft, not a finished product. The writing is good, but just not entirely polished. The value resides in its autobiographical nature and in its portrayal of pre-World-War-II Algeria through the eyes of an attentive but impoverished young lad. The reader cannot help but wonder what might have become of this text had Camus lived past 1960.
Incidentally, it took 30+ years for this text to be published because Camus’ family was afraid the unpolished nature would discredit his notoriety. Fortunately, his philosophical and literary greatness has withstood the tests of time. Accordingly, Albert’s daughter Catherine felt free enough to share this tale with the world. For us, it contains the unvarnished passion of rolling sentences and cultural acuity. Fans of Camus (like myself) will enjoy gaining a deeper understanding of this great twentieth-century figure, about how he as a child transformed into a man of courage.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
French
Original publication date
1994 (1e édition originale française, Blanche, Gallimard))
Physical description
272 p.; 7.7 inches
ISBN
0140188851 / 9780140188851
Local notes
Le premier homme (incomplete, published posthumously 1995)