The Rebel (Twentieth Century Classics)

"The Rebel" was written to "understand the times" we live in, which was always a very broad subject to conquer in one seperate book. "The Rebel" is a seperate side to Camus' creative spectrum, this time with a more philisophical attempt at writing, although strongly iterates that this work is not philisophical, and he attempts to use no rhetoric or persuasion in his work. The ground covers in this book has a simillar vague feel to that of religeous book. In fact, Camus directs a more professional outlook to issues that are usually combatted through questionable metaphore or mis-directed philosiphy. Instead of using this method, he uses logic to prove or disprove people's theories or opinions, never once criticizing others through his own beliefs.

Slavery and leadership is one of the key topics combatted in the book, and displays how much of an important ascpect on our lives these roles play. He questions our reasons to rebel against our leaders, what lengths we'll go to, to make our stands, why we do it and what the possible outcomes are to the rebellion. He goes on to look at the spectrum that could be considered the spectrum of our places in life, addressing fascism and wars to nihilists and rebellions of the past.

Albert Camus offers no solutions, only options. This book discards the fictional creativity that people who have read "The last man" and "The Outsider" will have noticed, with literature offering his ideas. "The Rebel" is strictly in essay form, and describes so many aspects of life, always keeping to the main point "rebellion". Overall I found this book highly interesting (so much so, I have read it about 9 times since) and I'm sure any reader will appreciate Camus' ability to clarify such a vague topic, using masses of logical reason. I highly recomend this book to anyone with an open mind, or someone who seeks non-biased guidance on many aspects of life.


Camus deserves better editing than this   August 1, 2000
Svein Olav Nyberg (Grimstad, Norway)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful

Penguin have taken their liberties in making unnecessary edits of this book. As they excuse themselves: "Unfortunately in the interest of economy certain pages relating to some of these figures have been deleted in the English edition."

On pages 198 - 199 there's a supposed quote from Lenin's lecture 'The State' of which the first two sentences are authentic, and the remainder are Camus's sarcastic commentary on them. This distinction is not visible in the Penguin edition.

These are just 2 examples. I give this book 1 star. Not because of Camus', whose writing would deserve far better, but because of Penguin's editing. Buy another edition!