Continuing in my Camus-fest this summer!!! - Here's the problem - "Is it possible to die a happy death?"
This is the central question of Camus's astonishing early novel A Happy Death (original title La mort heureuse), published posthumously in 1971, more than 10 years after Camus' death and greeted as a major literary event.
The existentialist topic of the book is more specifically the "will to happiness," the conscious creation of one's happiness, and the need of time (and money) to do so.
It draws on memories of the author including his job at the maritime commission in Algiers, his suffering from tuberculosis, and his travels in Europe.
Camus composed and reworked the novel between 1936 and 1938 but then decided not to publish it. It is clearly the precursor to his most famous work, The Stranger (or The Outsider as its sometimes known - see below) published in 1942. The main character in La mort heureuse is named "Patrice Mersault", similar to The Stranger's main character "Meursault"; both are French Algerian clerks who kill a man in cold blood. It tells the story of a young Algerian, Mersault, who defies society's rules by committing a murder and escaping punishment, then experimenting with different ways of life and finally dying a happy man. In many ways A Happy Death is a fascinating first sketch for The Outsider, but it can also be seen as a candid self-portrait, drawing on Camus's memories of his youth, travels and early relationships. Reading this after The Stranger/Outsider its interesting to note many of the ideas and descriptions that appear in his more famous later work - a nice touch if you are fascinated by the art of the writer.
This short novel is infused with lyrical descriptions of the sun-drenched Algiers of his childhood - the place where, eventually, Mersault is able to find peace and die 'without anger, without hatred, without regret'.
The novel has just over 100 pages and consists of two parts.
Part 1, titled "Natural death", describes the monotone and empty life of Patrice Mersault with his boring office job and a meaningless relationship with his girlfriend. Mersault gets to know the rich invalid Roland Zagreus who shows Mersault a way out: "Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time." Mersault decides to kill Zagreus in order to create his happiness with the rich man's money.
Part 2, titled "Conscious Death", follows Mersault's subsequent trip to Europe. Traveling by train from city to city, he is not able to find peace and decides to return to Algiers. He marries a pleasant woman he does not love, buys a house in a village by the sea, yet moves in alone - Mersault is a man who ultimately needs solitude. "At this hour of night, his life seemed so remote to him, he was so solitary and indifferent to everything and to himself as well, that Mersault felt he had at last attained what he was seeking, that the peace which filled him now was born of that patient self-abandonment he had pursued and achieved with the help of this warm world so willing to deny him without anger." Severely ill, he dies a happy death: "And stone among the stones, he returned in the joy of his heart to the truth of the motionless worlds."
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Cамиздат [Samizdat]
