Audiobook8 hours
The First Man
Written by Albert Camus
Narrated by Jefferson Mays
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own.
Camus summons up the sights, sounds and textures of a childhood circumscribed by
poverty and a father’s death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy’s
attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. Published thirty-five years after its discovery
amid the wreckage of the car accident that killed Camus, The First Man is the brilliant
consummation of the life and work of one of the 20th century’s greatest novelists.
Camus summons up the sights, sounds and textures of a childhood circumscribed by
poverty and a father’s death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy’s
attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. Published thirty-five years after its discovery
amid the wreckage of the car accident that killed Camus, The First Man is the brilliant
consummation of the life and work of one of the 20th century’s greatest novelists.
More audiobooks from Albert Camus
The Plague: Translated by Stuart Gilbert Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Myth of Sisyphus And Other Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stranger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exile and the Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Happy Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Camus at Combat: Writing 1944-1947 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Personal Writings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Committed Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speaking Out: Lectures and Speeches, 1937-1958 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to The First Man
Related audiobooks
Exile and the Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Amerika: A New Translation by Mark Harman Based on the Restored Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Happy Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speaking Out: Lectures and Speeches, 1937-1958 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hunger: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Journey to the End of the Night Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Committed Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Hunger Artist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notes from the Underground Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hunger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Personal Writings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World As Will and Idea, Vol. 1 of 3 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Life of the Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Difficult Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Agape Agape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If On a Winter's Night A Traveler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World as Will and Idea, Vol. 3 of 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Cloven Viscount Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dubliners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Island Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tractatus Logico - Philosophicus Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Swann's Way Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Amsterdam Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Against The Grain, or Against Nature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSix Memos for the Next Millennium Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Carpenter's Gothic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Italian Folktales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Classics For You
The Perks of Being a Wallflower Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Kill a Mockingbird Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Sherlock Holmes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fountainhead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frankenstein Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Gatsby Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #1 Multi-Voice, A: The Bad Beginning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gone With The Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Tale of Two Cities Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Prince: Machiavelli Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: A New Translation by Caroline Alexander Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pride and Prejudice: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atlas Shrugged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Name of the Rose Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crucible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War & Peace - Volume I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Picture of Dorian Gray: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Thousand Ships: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Noise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Around the World in 80 Days: Classic Tales Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stone Blind: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The First Man
Rating: 3.7835820246268654 out of 5 stars
4/5
268 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5exquisite.(10)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When he died in a tragic and unforeseen car crash in 1960, novelist and existentialist Albert Camus had a draft of this work in his briefcase. It was not published until the 1990s, but is the most autobiographical of Camus’ works. The main character, like the author, grew up impoverished in Algeria and escaped a life of the same through education. This tale, properly characterized as a coming-of-age novel, shares how the great writer and future Nobel-Prize winner understood his maturity into an adult man.The protagonist Jacques Cormery grew up not knowing his father. The father was never married to Cormery’s mother and died in battle in World War I. Jacques’ mother was partially deaf and also mute. His grandmother lived with the family, but was illiterate. So his family background was not ideal for social ascent. He attended school, and a teacher appreciated his keen mind. Through this teacher’s involvement, he won a scholarship to the lycée, the French equivalent of the gymnasium or an advanced high school.His studies at the lycée opened the world to him, both intellectually and interpersonally. Despite gaining and growing, Jacques was still a child in the eyes of his mother and grandmother. Like many Americans who are the first in their families to attend college, achieving adulthood is not an automatic process; the world of work, not study, is viewed as the threshold. Thus, he was forced to labor during a summer break. This experience not only won him money for himself and for his family, but it also won him enduring respect of the matriarchs in his life.This work is frankly not as great as The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger, or The Plague. That might be due to the fact that we have only a draft, not a finished product. The writing is good, but just not entirely polished. The value resides in its autobiographical nature and in its portrayal of pre-World-War-II Algeria through the eyes of an attentive but impoverished young lad. The reader cannot help but wonder what might have become of this text had Camus lived past 1960.Incidentally, it took 30+ years for this text to be published because Camus’ family was afraid the unpolished nature would discredit his notoriety. Fortunately, his philosophical and literary greatness has withstood the tests of time. Accordingly, Albert’s daughter Catherine felt free enough to share this tale with the world. For us, it contains the unvarnished passion of rolling sentences and cultural acuity. Fans of Camus (like myself) will enjoy gaining a deeper understanding of this great twentieth-century figure, about how he as a child transformed into a man of courage.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stunning, meditative prose that rises near the level of Faulkner's. (The author's influence is everywhere apparent in this fragment.) Incomplete, yet whole, this novel is more evocative than most of Camus's more frequently cited works.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In this unfinished novel, Camus gives a poignant and richly detailed semi-autographical account of a childhood in Algeria. The notes included here make it clear that this was intended as part of a much more ambitious work, but what remains is very readable and moving.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First Man opens with Henri Cormery, the new manager of the Saint-Apotre property seeking help for his wife, in labor with their second child. But, the meat of the transcript is the son, Jacques Cormery, looking to understand he father he never met. With a deaf-mute mother and a contradictory tyrannical grandmother, Jacques's quest for knowledge is slow-going. Henri Cormery died in combat when Jacques was just an infant and the women in his family are reluctant to remember anything. Most of the story centers on Jacques in the formative years, his education, his religion, his poverty and of course, his mother and grandmother. While most of the story centers on the bleakness of poverty and the restrictions placed upon Jacques because of that poverty, I liked the sly sense of humor Camus inserted throughout the story. Take this dialogue, for example: "How is it going?" "I don't know, I especially don't go in where the women are." "Good rule...Particularly when when are crying..." (p 15). It just goes to show you that emotional women still drive men nuts. What I didn't appreciate in First Man was how confusing an unfinished transcript could be. On page 8 Jacques's mother's name is Lucie, but by page 90 she is Catherine. Then there were the hundreds and hundreds of reference notes. It made reading slow and plodding at times.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In The First Man Albert Camus allowed the main character Jacques Cormery to reflect back on his life of humble beginnings. A forty year old Jacques Cormery sets out on a journey seeking details about his deceased father. Henri Cormery died before Jacques was a year old. Very little was shared with Jacques about his father while growing up. There was no time for Jacques to yearn for his father because he and his family were trying to survive a life of poverty.Jacques referred to his neighborhood as an island of poverty and himself as being born into an ignorant and handicapped family. These truths were ever present but never overwhelmed him. The adults that live at home with Jacques are all illiterate. His mother is partially deaf and always distant. His grandmother is a tyrant. All his family knows is hard work. They have no time for religion or patriotism. Jacques life begins to change when a teacher recognizes his academic potential.Jacques mother has to be the most complicated yet the most simple character of the entire work. Her personality and her status as a parent is constantly overshadowed and taken over by her tyrannical mother. She never shares any insight with Jacques about his father. When Jacques specifically asks her about his father she is dismissive. This could be seen as selfish but we learn that due to her disability and illiteracy she has a hard time expressing herself. Regardless, Jacques always had a steadfast love for his mother.The First Man was found handwritten and unedited among the wreckage in which Albert Camus lost his life. In this raw state, it still reads like a fully developed novel. This story is melancholy yet delightful.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Deze roman is in manuscriptvorm teruggevonden in de tas van Camus na zijn dodelijk ongeval in 1960. Het grootste deel van de tekst was vlot uitgeschreven, maar de cahier bevattte ook vele annotaties en aanvullingen.Het gaat om een autobiografische roman waarin Camus in de eerste plaats over zijn vader en zijn jeugd in Algiers schrijft.Interessant, maar zeker geen hoogvlieger als La Peste. Eerder in de lijn van Yourcenar, en dan vooral Quoi ? L’Eternité.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When Albert Camus met his tragic end in an automobile accident in 1960, he left behind this unfinished manuscript. His wife, Francine, decided its incomplete state, with lots of marginalia, notes, and interleaved sheets, would tarnish her husband’s reputation, so she decided against publication. When Francine died, responsibility for Camus’ literary estate fell to his daughter Catherine. She struggled with the decision, and rejected the idea of destroying the manuscript of about 144 pages with little or no punctuation, and with only the barest evidence of any revision. In the 1990s, at the urging of some scholars, she agreed to publication. The English translation appeared in 1995. I, for one, offer a most hearty thanks to Catherine for her decision.This highly autobiographic novel offers many insights into the formative years of Camus. The death of his father -- when he barely passed his first birthday -- his strict upbringing by his timid mother who deferred to his martinet of a grandmother, to his early education and rescue from a life of poverty by a beloved teacher who recommended him for a scholarship to the lycée, and ultimately to his search for information about his father, appear with a warmth and nostalgia I have not experienced in any of Camus’ other works.In fact, so many things in his early life strike me as startlingly familiar. For example, on his vacation, young Jacques Cormery frequently visits the local library,“Thursday was also the day Jacques and Pierre would go to the public library. Jacques had always devoured any books that came to hand, and he consumed them with the same appetite he felt for living, playing, or dreaming. But reading enabled him to escape into a world of innocence where wealth and poverty were equally interesting because both were utterly unreal...illustrated stories that he and his friends passed around until the board binding was gray and rough and the pages dog-eared and torn, was the first to transport him to a world of comedy or heroism where his two basic appetites for joy and courage were satisfied” (244).Jacques sets off for the lycée with the encouragement of a beloved teacher, and he experiences an epiphany similar to that used by James Joyce in the last paragraph of the Dubliners story, “Araby.” Jacques and Joyce’s young boy realized they are on the edge of new experiences and are about to put their childhoods behind them.The manuscript has numerous passages with a bit of awkwardness, and footnotes hint at Camus’ indecision about diction or deletion, inclusion, or expansion of some information for the final version of the novel. But he deals with all the major issues found in all his works – life, death, religion, punishment, colonialism, prejudice, and family relationships. Camus always makes me think about all these topics.If you are unfamiliar with Camus, this novel is the perfect place to start – a literary and philosophical buffet of his life and beliefs. The First Man represents a most important addition to the literary canon of existentialism. 5 stars--Jacques, 7/17/10