PENGUIN The First Man Paperback – Big Book, 6 December 2001

An interesting account of Camus' childhood life, one that seems to be a source for his lifelong attraction to Alrgiers, Oran, etc. However, it was vastly incomplete as his death (we're told he planned an much more extensive auto-biolgraphy). As it is, this short account, while readable, gives to this reader little other insight as to his mature beliefs.

Anyone who has read Camus' other works will relish reading this. For those who haven't, it's probably best to start with "The Outsider" and "The Plague" before coming to "The First Man".An unfinished autobiographical book, Camus leads us from his birth in the opening chapter, through his father's death to his own discovery of himself as the first man, looking around for a moral compass, the moral compass that guides all of his books.Towards the end of the book as it was left he writes: "he always was [ready] to lie for pleasure but incapable of doing so out of necessity." This provides a key of sorts to unlocking departments of "The Outsider", and is just one of hundreds of such enlightening comments littered throughout the book.But the book doesn't merely have value as a guide to Camus. It's not an author's lazy autobiographical book.The book emanates the smells and sounds of Algerian, the unbearable heat and the September rains. It is rich with balmy feeling that bring the hero's poverty-stricken childhood off the page in a way that has never been equalled.The Algerian weather is something that sticks out in "The Outsider" as Mersault walks along the beach and shoots an Arab, tormenting Mersault and driving him to his destiny, as if it were inevitable (inevitability is another idea that is explored in "The First Man").In "The First Man" he describes the summer heat as: "heavy, sweaty and roasting...even the memory of winter's cool and its waters was lost, as if the earth had never known the wind, nor the snow, nor light waters," linking it into another of his core themes: memory.Camus writes how memory is the reserve of the rich, and that the poor, as his family were, have no distinct memories as every day is the same, creating no distinct reference points for memory to stick to. It is this lack of past that connects back to his feelings of being "The First Man": robbed of a father by World War I, robbed of a guiding source in life.This book is an outstanding piece of memoir, despite never being finished. It is rich in the stuff of life, overflowing with passion for existence, just as Camus was, and stuffed with the keys to Camus' sensibility.

This book is three things: it is an autobiography of a great writer; it is a novel, albeit unfinished, that evokes breathtakingly the atmospheres and social situations of post WWI colonial Algeria; and it is a wonderful insight into the processes of literary creation. In its autobiographical content it is necessary reading for any devotees of the man and his work. As a novel, unless we insist on such art forms as being formally complete and structurally sound, it is a magical evocation of Twentieth Century Algeria, its sounds, sights and smells. It is also a touching account of a deprived childhood, and a chronicle of the coming to terms with the loss of a father in such circumstances. Finally, from the standpoint of literary creation, the work is complete enough to thrill the reader, and the perception of the missing parts, augmented by Camus' often cryptic notes gives a rare insight into the creative process. Its appearance, so long after Camus' death, is a credit to his daughter, Catherine, and a considerable benefit to the world.

Once in a while you come across a book that is so beautifully written, so closely observed and so poignant in its observation of life and poverty that it changes you for ever.Camus' semi-biographical account of a young boy's childhood in French Tunisia is just such a book. Buy it! Now! It will change you too.

A deeply moving and telling book about Camus himself. Though presented as a novel, and an unfinished one, it reveals more about Camus himself and the process of his writing than any of his other books.