Albert Camus and David Hapgood - The First Man: Le Premier Homme

Pros: builds emotion strongly, interesting and unique characters, intelligent look at a slow loss of innocence

Cons: paragraphs that run for pages, sometimes flashbacks too extended

Review: Camus always has been, and probably always will be, one of my favorite writers. I became entranced with The Stranger when I was in my early teens and read most of his books then. However, he is one of the few authors that I feel driven to go...

Pros: Lyrical prose, insight into where the writer came from

Cons: lack of understanding of Arab Algerians and why they revolted

The Bottom Line: Sadly uncompleted at the time of Camus's death, the "novel" illuminates Camus's Algerian background, including the failure to understand the grievances of the colonized

Review: In this unfinished, heavily autobiographical novel (the manuscript of which was in the car with him when he died in 1960), Albert Camus vividly remembered specific details of his Algerian childhood. He was raised in poverty by an illiterate wispy mother...