BOOKS
On Camus
ALBERT
CAMUS: A
LIFE.
By Olivier Todd.
Alfred Knopf. $30 .00
In 1996 the French publisher Gallirnard brought out Olivier Todd's new
biography of Albert Camus-an exhaustive not to say exhausting piece of
work for a man of Camus' generation, or almost, with a fondness for read–
ing in bed. And now, since Knopf has published what purports to be an
English-language version of this opus by one Benjamin Ivry, I have been at
pains to read all of Todd's eight hundred fifty-five pages including notes and
an index. This will, I think, remain the "definitive" biography, although
Todd modestly disclaims any such intention, citing the philosopher
J.
B.
Pontalis to the effect that a hundred biographies are possible for any human
being. And indeed, although his subject is an exceptionally rich human
being, at once incessantly active and reflective, I cannot imagine anyone
henceforth trying to make sense of Camus, from whatever viewpoint, with–
out taking account of Todd's total immersion, since the story he distills is
almost seamless, weaving in the notebooks, the correspondence, and his own
recollections of the man, his friends , enemies, relatives; and the French cul–
ture wars of the Fifties. '
Although much of this material was unavailable for an earlier biography
of Camus, Herbert Lottman's, published by Doubleday in 1979, the latter
still stands out among the myriad studies that have appeared since the post–
war years as the best-informed and most insightful inquiry into Camus'life,
as opposed to his work, and Todd loyally salutes the American historian in
his foreword, proposing to emulate Lottman's pioneering work, he says,
"without forgetting that Camus was first of all a writer" and pointing out
that he would no longer be bound by the constraints of discretion imposed
by the fact that Camus' wife, Francine, was still living when Lottman wrote
his book. In other words, Camus' rather astounding career as a Don Juan–
perhaps the proximate cause of Francine's suicidal depression in the early
Fifties--could now be dealt with in detail, which Todd imperturbably does,
eschewing the obvious opportunity for psychological speculation and moral
comment, not to mention the sort of pop sociology that the French media
(in re
Mr. Clinton's alleged priapic adventures) are inflicting on us as I write
these lines. (Despite his English patronymic and his studies at Cambridge,
Olivier Todd is
seriously
French, and observes the decent discretion that is
