|
|
|
|
|
|
by a_petrov
1118 days ago
|
|
|
I'll share my strange story with The Stranger. 10 years ago I suffered from anxiety, lack of sleep and high blood pressure. I'd been given small pink pills. Took them as prescribed. My condition didn't really change. Then I turned to reading. After a couple of other books, I found this list [1]. I read The Stranger. I've felt sudden ease of my anxiety, I was at peace. Two weeks after The Stranger, I read Siddhartha. Soon, my sleep turned back to normal. I'm not praising these books, neither I'm suggesting avoiding medical advice. I'm just still excited how reading can affect someone's well-being. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde%27s_100_Books_of_the_... |
|
|
Regarding the literary merit of Camus, Nabokov had this to say [1]:
”I happen to find second-rate and ephemeral the works of a number of puffed-up writers—such as Camus, Lorca, Kazantzakis, D. H. Lawrence, Thomas Mann, Thomas Wolfe, and literally hundreds of other “great” second-raters.”
“Brecht, Faulkner, Camus, many others, mean absolutely nothing to me, and I must fight a suspicion of conspiracy against my brain when I see blandly accepted as “great literature” by critics and fellow authors Lady Chatterley’s copulations or the pretentious nonsense of Mr. Pound, that total fake.”
“Incidentally, I frequently hear the distant whining of people who complain in print that I dislike the writers whom they venerate such as Faulkner, Mann, Camus, Dreiser, and of course Dostoevski.”
“It is a shame that he [Franz Hellens] is read less than that awful Monsieur Camus and even more awful Monsieur Sartre.”
[1] Strong Opinions
[2] Although Le Petit Prince beats it in all three (impact, even simpler language, shorter).