Abstract

Kevin Newmark

‘Tongue-tied: What Camus’s Fiction Couldn’t Teach Us about Ethics and Politics’
What is the relation in Albert Camus’s writing between his texts of literary fiction and his philosophical and political essays? While it is indisputable that all his writings imply and often enough even confront moral, social, and political questions of the utmost urgency and importance, it is by no means to be taken for granted that his literary texts serve as mere illustrations for ideas and arguments that are expressed more clearly and fully in his non-fiction writings. As early as Le Mythe de Sisyphe Camus himself insists that “les grands romanciers sont le contraire d’écrivains à thèse,” and the literary texts that follow L’Homme révolté are nothing if not enigmatic in terms of their ethical and political implications. Whether in the playful form of Jean-Baptiste Clamence’s self-proclaimed devise in La Chute “Ne vous y fiez pas,” or in the tantalizing illegibility of the artist’s work as it is inscribed in the definitive words of the récit called “Jonas”: “...on ne savait s’il fallait y lire solitaire ou solidaire”, Camus’s own last literary testament remains difficult to assess with accuracy. On the one hand, these last writings are among the most suggestive in terms of their potential relevance for contemporary cultural and political dilemmas. On the other hand, however, there is little doubt about their frustratingly elusive status when it comes to determining their actual application to particular issues in such domains. What is the source of this stubborn reticence on the part of Camus to make his literary work speak more directly to the resolution of those very social and political challenges to which they were addressed in the first place? Is there something that we, in the 21st Century, can actually learn from reading literary texts in which no specific solution is affirmed for even the most immediate and distressing of problems?
I propose to explore these questions by means of a short récit in L’exil et le royaume that remains one of Camus’s most original and violent texts, “Le renégat ou un esprit confus.” “Le renégat” lends itself to the general topic and particular concerns of this conference for a number of reasons. First and most importantly, it revolves around the seemingly irresolvable tension produced when a Eurocentric tradition of religious, political, and military colonialism collides with an unspecified but non-white African culture that resists it. The plot is furnished by the attempt and failure to convert the non-European culture to the social and moral values of the west. What makes the récit particularly haunting is that neither the western nor the non-western perspective is represented in the narrative from what could be considered a privileged or even neutral point of view. The entire text is filtered through the discourse of one and the same consciousness, though this is the renegade consciousness of a particular “believer” who over the course of his own problematic experience has been led to switch allegiances, from one set of cultural beliefs and values to another. While the text thus seems to suggest that any given cultural perspective and allegiance is at best relative and provisional, it also reveals the blind ferocity with which such relative and provisional allegiances tend nonetheless to be defended and propagated—even to the point of directing terrorist acts against all others. The “confusion” referred to in the sub-title, though, is not just the clear lack of understanding exhibited by the narrator-terrorist with respect to the true nature of either of the two opposing cultures between which he finds himself caught. It may also represent the Babel of tongues that inevitably ensues whenever the irreducible value systems of two different cultures encounter each other within the same socio-political space. The narrative thus seems to lead to nothing but a bloody impasse. However, one further figure, that of a spectral language without a specific identity or tongue, is also outlined within the margins of the text. It remains to be seen to what extent this tongue that is not one could actually figure both a literary and a political legacy for Camus in the 2lst Century.


	Kevin Newmark ‘Tongue-tied: What Camus’s Fiction Couldn’t Teach Us about Ethics and Politics’ What is the relation in Albert Camus’s writing between his texts of literary fiction and his philosophical and political essays? While it is indisputable that all his writings imply and often enough even confront moral, social, and political questions of the utmost urgency and importance, it is by no means to be taken for granted that his literary texts serve as mere illustrations for ideas and arguments that are expressed more clearly and fully in his non-fiction writings. As early as Le Mythe de Sisyphe Camus himself insists that “les grands romanciers sont le contraire d’écrivains à thèse,” and the literary texts that follow L’Homme révolté are nothing if not enigmatic in terms of their ethical and political implications. Whether in the playful form of Jean-Baptiste Clamence’s self-proclaimed devise in La Chute “Ne vous y fiez pas,” or in the tantalizing illegibility of the artist’s work as it is inscribed in the definitive words of the récit called “Jonas”: “...on ne savait s’il fallait y lire solitaire ou solidaire”, Camus’s own last literary testament remains difficult to assess with accuracy. On the one hand, these last writings are among the most suggestive in terms of their potential relevance for contemporary cultural and political dilemmas. On the other hand, however, there is little doubt about their frustratingly elusive status when it comes to determining their actual application to particular issues in such domains. What is the source of this stubborn reticence on the part of Camus to make his literary work speak more directly to the resolution of those very social and political challenges to which they were addressed in the first place? Is there something that we, in the 21st Century, can actually learn from reading literary texts in which no specific solution is affirmed for even the most immediate and distressing of problems? I propose to explore these questions by means of a short récit in L’exil et le royaume that remains one of Camus’s most original and violent texts, “Le renégat ou un esprit confus.” “Le renégat” lends itself to the general topic and particular concerns of this conference for a number of reasons. First and most importantly, it revolves around the seemingly irresolvable tension produced when a Eurocentric tradition of religious, political, and military colonialism collides with an unspecified but non-white African culture that resists it. The plot is furnished by the attempt and failure to convert the non-European culture to the social and moral values of the west. What makes the récit particularly haunting is that neither the western nor the non-western perspective is represented in the narrative from what could be considered a privileged or even neutral point of view. The entire text is filtered through the discourse of one and the same consciousness, though this is the renegade consciousness of a particular “believer” who over the course of his own problematic experience has been led to switch allegiances, from one set of cultural beliefs and values to another. While the text thus seems to suggest that any given cultural perspective and allegiance is at best relative and provisional, it also reveals the blind ferocity with which such relative and provisional allegiances tend nonetheless to be defended and propagated—even to the point of directing terrorist acts against all others. The “confusion” referred to in the sub-title, though, is not just the clear lack of understanding exhibited by the narrator-terrorist with respect to the true nature of either of the two opposing cultures between which he finds himself caught. It may also represent the Babel of tongues that inevitably ensues whenever the irreducible value systems of two different cultures encounter each other within the same socio-political space. The narrative thus seems to lead to nothing but a bloody impasse. However, one further figure, that of a spectral language without a specific identity or tongue, is also outlined within the margins of the text. It remains to be seen to what extent this tongue that is not one could actually figure both a literary and a political legacy for Camus in the 2lst Century.