Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel That Ended It

by Ronald Aronson

Book Overview

Until now it has been impossible to read the full story of the relationship between Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Their dramatic rupture at the height of the Cold War, like that conflict itself, demanded those caught in its wake to take sides rather than to appreciate its tragic complexity. Now, using newly available sources, Ronald Aronson offers the first book-length account of the twentieth century's most famous friendship and its end.

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226000249
• ISBN13: 9780226000244
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 302 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Top-Notch Philosophical and Political Nostalgia

Both Camus and Sartre won the Nobel Prize for Literature (Sartre declined it). Both are major figures in twentieth century philosophy and literature. Both were embroiled in central political and world-historical events of the middle years of the last century--World War II and the German occupation of France, the Cold War, and the end of colonialism. Paris, their home, was still the center of the cultural and intellectual world and Parisians lived exciting lives at the center of world events. Aronson captures the sense of these events and Camus' and Sartre's roles in them. I felt that I got a good idea of the context and background of the philosophies and political and personal activities of both men. I enjoyed a vicarious sense of the excitement of post-war intellectual Paris. This is definitely a nostalgia stroll down the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Aronson, although not presented as a philosopher or historian of philosophy, has a good grasp of the philosophical issues revolving around existentialism, Marxism, and mid-century French philosophy in general. If you are interested in Camus and Sartre, their lives and loves, their quarrels, and politics you could not do better than to read this book. But are you interested in this? I am because I grew up with this stuff and still find it fascinating. How many readers, though, will want to wade through many pages of arcane Parisian disputes about Marxism, Stalinism, and communism? How many are still gripped by details of the Algerian War? Of course these events are monumental, but not so the fussy ruminations of Parisian intellectuals. When reading this book the phrase "bombination in a tea cup" kept occurring to me. Toward the end Aronson attempts a stab at suggesting the universal and eternal relevance of the Camus/Sartre disputes. I don't buy it. The issues that led to the Camus/Sartre quarrel are dead--of interest only to historians and aging existentialists. As a vintage existentialist, I enjoyed the book, felt I got a lot out of it, and recommend it to anyone yearning for a walk down Memory Lane in Philosophy Town.

Battle of the minds

Is there anybody out there who, after all these years of marketing, trusts those words written on the back of the cover? Whether it is a CD, DVD, computer game or a book, it all boils down to a single fact - praise and praise alone. I'm yet to see a publisher who will be willing to put a negative comment on his product. But, it doesn't matter. We're used to this practice by now, and it's one of the reasons why there is so much confidence for any kind of review in newspapers and on a specialized web-sites. Edition that I'm holding, has nothing but the words of praise for Aronson, his writing skills, his research and knowledge of Sartre and Camus. It would be really weird if it weren't like that. There are excerpts from Times Literary Supplement, New York Times, and other less noted sources. Judging the book by it's covers we could think of nothing less than brilliant work, destined to be remembered for all ages to come. Yet, reality is somewhat different. This is not a bad book on any level. Amount of research that Aronson has put in it, qualifies it as a work worth of reading. That is, if you're have a little bit of interest for a subject. If you couldn't care less for Sartre, Camus, existentialism or a Cold War atmosphere in Europe, you will not be magically transformed into an activist willing to sacrifice everything for final judgment on who was right back then. There are number of scholars battling these questions, their works is widely unread and it may seem that they're battling a battled already lost. Whether he is aware of this fact or not, Aronson is writing for them, and general populace of modern times will remain as uninterested in these subjects as it always were. Try imagining some farmer in Alabama reading this, and you'll get the picture. It is summer and time for an endless wasting of time by some kind of a beach, and I kinda took this one with me as a literature for summer vacation. Despite all the advices in "literary supplements" of local newspapers and magazines who all seem to take a easy way out, I wanted to read something I've been putting for for a year or two. You should have seen some of the looks on the beach :) Anyway, this is non-fiction and it reads as one. Despite it's topic being lives and quarrels of two of the greatest thinkers and artists of 20th century it doesn't reach for the language of philosophy or the one of the Theory. Aronsons's way of telling the story will be readable for all levels of readers out there and that is one of the commendable facts about this book. Yet, it seems to me that it isn't written with such a grandiose objectivity as covers would seem to apply. This book is written with passion and zeal, and they lie strongly on Camus side. Aronson is much quicker to jump on Sartre rather then Camus, and sometimes this causes rather dubious paragraphs. Yet, for an insight on 20 years period of War and post-War France (and in a nutshell Europe as well), this book presents itself a valuab

Useful and Informative

I read this to learn about the relationship between the two protagonists, Camus and Sartre. Both authors were previously familiar to me through their writings and also via some incidental biographical material; what was not familiar was the story of their collaboration during WWII and thereafter, and the specific nature of their philosophical difference, blossoming as it did into a very public and influential break. This book was entirely successful in providing the information and analysis necessary to understand how two close collaborators, both very gifted and politically committed men, could come to be outspoken mutual antagonists. Especially interesting was Aronson's elucidation of the view of history each man held, and how the two activist intellectuals treated the tension between freedom and the seeming constraints of material reality. While it is helpful to have some familiarity with the work of Sartre and Camus, a prior technical reading of their philosophical outlook is not necessary. Aronson does a good job of presenting the subject matter as a stand-alone volume geared to what is sometimes called "the informed layman." This text is well worth reading, both for historical interest and presentation of the transcendent issues it addresses.

Sartre is fairly repulsive (I'm more of a Gabriel Marcel....

man myself)and it's difficult to stomach an "even-handed" (i.e., non-judgemental) account of his behavior during and after WWII, but, solely from the perspective of this work being a window into the relationship of, arguably, the two foremost French thinkers of the twentith century (and please don't throw-up Foucault, Derrida and crew against C & S) - it has considerable value and is worth the read.

Reflections in a Cold War mirror

The friendship and then the falling out between Sartre and Camus is more than biography and tells the story of the Cold War in story book dialectical form. This account brings this self-reflective history to light, beginning with the period of the War, the Vichy regime and the Resistance, then the postwar euphorias of both authors as they become public intellectuals par excellence. Their friendship and vanguard solidarity conceals hidden differences, and as the Cold War gets into gear the divergence of 'lefts' finds its exemplars. It would seem sad in one way, and yet this encounter and division produced the dialectic needed to confront the legacy of Communism and capitalism in collision, as if a fated broil. Within a few years all the issues, later the stuff of endless discourse, were tabled, and the stakes clear til the end in 1989.