Finding Meaning in Ordinary Lives: Albert Camus and John McGahern

Linda: Hello and welcome to the Tangent Lab. Today I have very special guest, Dr. Eamonn Maher, who is a scholar from TU Dublin. He's written extensively on Albert Camus. He has explored themes like existentialism, the absurd, ethics and Camus characters like Marceau and Dr. Rue in articles such as Albert Camus and existentialist with a sense of the absolute and Camus Marceau. the only Christ that modern civilization deserves? Dr. Maher is known for analyzing Camus' nuanced stance on faith, justice and human dignity, often contrasting Camus with simpler labels such as atheist and highlighting his commitment to facing life's inherent absurdity with courage. So welcome to the show. I'm so delighted to have you, Dr. Meher.
Eamon Maher: And thanks very much for inviting me, Linda. Always, always nice to chat about Camus.
Linda: Wonderful. I mean, that's a very interesting note there. The simple label, like the simple label of atheist doesn't really fit the bill for Camus. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Eamon Maher: Yeah, mean Camus obviously was a man of a certain heritage, in the sense that he was a Pied Noir, and that is a member of the French colonial ⁓ caste that established itself in Algeria. But unlike other Pied Noir, he actually came from a very modest background. His father was killed in World War I, and his mother made a living from cleaning houses. So they were very much working class.
Linda: Mm.
Eamon Maher: and he would never have reached the status he did, ultimately becoming a Nobel Prize winner for literature, if it hadn't been for his mother's sacrifices and also if it hadn't been for the French system, the educational system, that gave him opportunities, scholarships to further his education and to go on and ultimately then to become a journalist and then to move to
Linda: Mm.
Eamon Maher: to Paris during ⁓ just before the second world war and then becoming active in the resistance ⁓ and that for Camus. Yes.
Linda: So he was in Nazi occupied France. He was in Nazi occupied France, is that right? And then he was part of the resistance to the Nazis, I suppose, that were occupying France. And he edited a newspaper, that right? Called Combat or something. So you're saying that all of that background sort of influenced his philosophical writings and thinking.
Eamon Maher: He was. That's correct. Combine, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It most certainly did and the whole essence of communism, the communism which he espoused, would have been that idea of fairness and equality and that every person living within a society should have the right to... shelter to food and to a job opportunity. And he fell out a bit with the Communist Party when Russia or the Soviet Union as it was then invaded Czechoslovakia and he condemned them publicly. And as a result of that, there was a falling out between himself and Jean-Paul Sartre. And the Communist Party in France was very much sort of very closely connected to Russia. So the idea of condemning an act of violence like that wouldn't have sat well with someone like Sarsk. But Camus, as always, saw an injustice and actually declared it as such. And as a result of that, the friendship he had with Sarsk at the beginning was damaged. And then they...
Linda: ⁓ So Camus, so you're saying there is that Camus was opposed to violence and that was a very important facet of his work, I think. Was it? I right in saying that? That he was saying there's no justification for violence. There's no religious justification for violence. There's no political justification for violence. Is that right? So he was kind of a go ahead.
Eamon Maher: Yes. Yes. ⁓ And most famously, he said after the he was interviewed after the winning the Nobel Prize, and he said at that time, there was the the War of Independence going on in Nigeria and the FLN, the Front de Liberation Nationale. They they were they were literally engaged in guerrilla warfare against the occupying French. And he said he would always
Linda: Yeah.
Eamon Maher: defend his mother ahead of the aspirations of the FLN. In other words, they were planting bombs in Algiers and he said those bombs could actually hit and kill his mother and who had done nothing and who was apolitical. again, those sort of pronouncements and they were turned around and turned against him and he was shown in a different light to the reality of the situation. He was accused by our own Conor Cruz O'Brien
Linda: Mmm. Mmm. Mm. Mm. Mmm.
Eamon Maher: writing under the pseudonym of Donald in Maria Cross, he was accused of having a colonial mindset that he was very in his work, the actually indigenous Arab community are neglected completely. I don't think it was a fair assessment.
Linda: Mmm. ⁓ okay. But is that fair? Do you think that's fair? How would you respond to that then?
Eamon Maher: I think when he was writing novels based in Algeria, he was using them to actually talk about the contemporary situation in Europe. The Arab community were silenced to a certain extent because they didn't actually fit into the thesis he was developing, which is the occupier.
Linda: Mm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: would have been France in Algeria. But really what he was talking about was the Nazi sort of fascist takeover of Europe that was happening. And so he was using Algeria, a foreign situation, ⁓ as a way of sort of bringing that out. Now, it is true, however. Yes. Go ahead, Linda, yeah.
Linda: Mm-hmm. So in a way it was... Oh yeah, go ahead. It was twisted, I suppose, in a way that people were twisting what Camus was trying to get at. My interpretation of Camus' stance is that he grew up in Algeria, the rebellion happened during his lifetime. He lived through, his father died at war. He was living through the Second World War in a Nazi occupied France. And I suppose he had so much violence, so much death, ⁓ because of these ideologies, religious ideologies or political ideologies, like for example, both ideological sides, I suppose of the conflict between ⁓ France and the Nazis and the same thing in Algeria, the colonialists and the ⁓ anti-colonialists. I suppose for me, I'm wondering, it's kind of interesting he's called an atheist because in a way he's the ultimate humanitarian because what he's really saying is regardless of your political views or your ideology, there's no justification for violence. So that's what you're saying. He was saying about his mother. In other words, I don't care what side, I don't care what side of the fence I'm on in this struggle because the main thing for me is that the ordinary people such as my mother are not harmed. this fight ⁓ ⁓ ideologies. Is that right?
Eamon Maher: I think that's a very good summation of his ethical position in relation to violence. It's not permissible under any circumstances. And you're right as well. in his one of his more famous novels, I think it's probably his best, The Plague or La Peste, the doctor who is the sort of hero, he's the man who is fighting. He's the man of science, a doctor. He's doing everything in his power.
Linda: ⁓
Eamon Maher: to bring the plague under control and to save lives. And one of his big comments is, and I'm going to quote from it, he says, I feel more solidarity with the defeated than with saints. I don't think I have any taste for heroism and sainthood. What interests me is to be a man. And I think by being a man, he means I want to be a human being.
Linda: Yeah. ⁓ please do. peaceful.
Eamon Maher: and what all that entails, with all the ethical implications of that. And because he's a man of science, he treats everybody who comes to within his orbit in the same way. He even treats the Jesuit priest, Panalu, he treats him with the same dignity, although they have serious differences when it comes to the plague. Panalu is arguing this is a punishment sent by God.
Linda: Mm.
Eamon Maher: because the people have turned their back on God and on religion. And Rio is saying that it's a nonsense. It's a plague. It's like COVID. It's something that we will have to find a scientific solution for. So he still goes and looks after Rio on his deathbed. And in actual fact, there's a sort of accommodation between them at the end. Rio is grasping onto the crucifix.
Linda: Mm. Mmm. Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm. Mmm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: showing a little bit of fear in the face of death but not too much and that's something that Río admires. He thinks that at least this man was sincere, he was sincere in his religious convictions and as such then, you know what I mean, he had what might be described as a good death. So those
Linda: No. the person that the doctor was looking after. He was clutching the crucifix as he died.
Eamon Maher: Yes, the Jesuit priest, Panalu, ⁓ who really for whom the plague is a godsend, if you'll excuse the pun, sent by God, a godsend, because he benefits from it in that people start turning up again at religious ceremonies, which can often happen in times of crisis like that, that people begin to, ⁓ my God, ⁓ my God, what's happening? And maybe there's something in this
Linda: Mmm. Right. Yeah, yeah. Mmm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: religion stuff after all. like that's Camus position and it's a very consistent position throughout that ethical thing of human, valuing human life, valuing the dignity of human beings and doing all he can as a writer and as a... like in France writers aren't just writers. They don't just do books. They're public intellectuals. It's a little different from Ireland.
Linda: Okay. ⁓ that's so interesting.
Eamon Maher: Ireland, we don't have public intellectuals to the same extent as France. Now, you could argue that Colin Tobin is very vocal on issues, but nothing like as much as in France, where the public intellectual has been established for many centuries and people look to writers to offer opinions on political and environmental issues or whatever. In Ireland, it's not quite the same. So he was always consistent in his public pronouncements.
Linda: Mmm.
Eamon Maher: when it came to ⁓ the dignity of life and of human beings and also respecting beliefs, respecting religious beliefs are the lack thereof. He wasn't. And that's why I don't look on him as being an atheist, because he was raised. He was raised at some stage at the early stages of his life. He was baptized and he was raised as he wasn't raised as a Catholic, but he was. It's a bit like Graham Green says, once you're once you're baptized, sometimes unknowingly, that marks you. You're there.
Linda: Hmm Mm.
Eamon Maher: And you never know when you never know when it's going to emerge out of you. ⁓ So this religious thing that has been, you know, taken hold of your soul, as it were, can come back and get you later on in life. So there's a bit of that with Camus. And like because a lot of the things I mean, if you look at communism, socialism, it's not in its purest form. It's not very different from Christianity.
Linda: Mmm.
Eamon Maher: it's you know, they seem to look for the same things, they look for the best in human beings and the best, the sort of lives for human beings. And then they become, because all big organizations, they become a little deflected from their main purpose and then elites grow up and then you have a hierarchy and then like an animal farm, the pigs start walking on two legs and they become worse than the farmer who was there in charge of them initially. So
Linda: Hmm Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Yeah.
Eamon Maher: Yeah, it's a complex thing that I've always looked on that as being interesting. So if you go, the farther you go to the extremes, the more you become similar. So if you go to the right and you're conservative and religious, you go to the left and you're not, you're liberal and you're looking at things differently. they become, when they get polarised, they become very similar in their lack of tolerance in particular. Yeah.
Linda: Mmm. So interesting. And you touched on there the similarities between religion and different political ideologies. And that's something that you've written on and something that Camus touched on in his work. Did Camus say that in some political ideologies that salvation is replaced by the idea of utopia and God is replaced by history or justification on what has happened in history.
Eamon Maher: I don't know if ⁓ actually ever ⁓ that down. ⁓ ⁓ way of looking at it, ⁓ fit the bill perfectly with Camus. That's the way ⁓ ⁓ see things. ⁓ that to give significance to your life, sometimes you need ⁓ cause. You need a cause. And that cause can take various forms. It can take the form of
Linda: Okay, I see what you mean. Yeah.
Eamon Maher: of political change. It can take the form of religious rejuvenation. So it doesn't matter. That cause is the one that will inspire you and force you to do things that you might never have done if you hadn't had the passion that this cause has aroused in you. So I think as well in human relationships, he was very strong in human relationships. And if you take the main The main reason why Merso in The Outsider, who ends up like killing an Arab on a roasting hot beach in Algeria, has obviously been affected by the sun, hasn't intentionally gone to kill the Arab, but has had some wine and then he meets this Arab and he has a gun that his friend Remo had given him at an earlier stage and ends up killing him. And then what happens is,
Linda: Mmm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: because he refuses to show remorse, because he says look I don't know why I did this and he doesn't play the game, he refuses to play the game and in fairness in a PNR dominated court as one of their own as Mercosol was he would normally have been he would have been pardoned if he had just played the game but when the prosecutor comes in and shows him the cross
Linda: Mm. Mmm. Mmm. Mm. Mm. Right. Mm.
Eamon Maher: and says this person died for you and Merceau doesn't, he won't go down that route with him. then from then on, he's that means that the prosecutor is trying to get him to show remorse and show Christ on the cross and this man died for you. And Merceau rejects all that. He rejects it.
Linda: What does that mean? Sorry, what does he mean there? He brings in the cross. Okay, like you should show, if you, all you have to do is show remorse and then we will, we will let you go. But he won't, he says, I don't feel remorse. I don't even know why I did it. And then they, I see. And then they show him Jesus on the, being crucified saying, won't this, you know, make you feel remorse? And he doesn't, he, ⁓ I see what you mean. Okay, interesting.
Eamon Maher: Mars. Yeah. That's it. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he doesn't. Yeah, so he becomes and that's the outsider. So he's the ultimate marginal. He's the marginal vis-a-vis his Pianoir background, the colonial background. He's in his relationship with Marie. She asks him does he love her? And he says, I don't know what that means.
Linda: Mm. Mmm.
Eamon Maher: Would you want to get married? If you want to get married, I'll get married. So he obviously that's quite disappointing for him. He is not sort of response she'd like, but he won't he won't feign emotion. He won't say I love you to Marie because he actually.
Linda: Of course, yeah. And what are we supposed to get from that? What are we supposed to take away from that?
Eamon Maher: I think the inherent message there is that people are different and people are indifferent. And Merceau is the ultimate indifferent. He's indifferent to his destiny, his fate, because he cannot or will not play the game by the rules. And he knows what the rules are, but he can't comply to them. So I think the message is sometimes you know, society has to be cognizant of the fact that people, marginal figures exist and they're marginal. They're not trying to be disruptive for the sake of being disruptive. They're marginal because they're different and they view life differently and that there's... he doesn't excuse Merceau in any way, but at the same time we have the impression that there's something noble about this man who goes, you know, right through to
Linda: Mm. Mm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: he's going to be executed at the end and he knows that you know his life hasn't amounted to too much but there's something noble about him going to that courageously and it's a face that he could have avoided quite easily had he he just done what was expected of him.
Linda: Mmm. That's so interesting. in a way, it makes me think that it's very interesting to think of a story, the story of this man, Morceau, without explanation. You know, he's not offering explanation for the actions that Morceau takes. And that's a very interesting way to consider life, because in a way, it makes me think it sort of fits into his suggestion that like no violence can ever be justified. Like it's interesting to look at murder, for example, without a philosophy around it, without a reason why or why not. And in a way, it can kind of make you look more objectively at experience kind of. Do you know what I'm getting at there?
Eamon Maher: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, because absolutely. think what he's saying is these things aren't black and white. These things aren't black and white. And certainly in the case of Merceau, he did not go out with the intention of killing anybody. It happened. And I feel as well that the whole notion of existentialism as distinct from absurdism.
Linda: Mmm. Mm. ⁓ yeah.
Eamon Maher: Camus is sometimes grouped with the existentialists. And the existentialists, they maintain you must assume responsibility for your actions. So we are responsible. We are responsible in some way. And in the absence of ⁓ a God, because there is such a thing as Christian existentialism, but in general, existentialism was one in which there was no belief in an all powerful God. So in that
Linda: Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Mm. Mmm.
Eamon Maher: In that instance, it's up to the individual to assume his or her responsibility. Camus went the other way. He went a slightly different way. He believed in the absurdity of the human condition, like a life is absurd. And then you try to find meaning with it in it in spite of the absurdity. And he gives the example of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was condemned to roll a rock up to the top of a hill.
Linda: Mm. Mm. Mm. Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Eamon Maher: right? And to watch it roll back down and he has to start the job again. And Camus says we need to look, we need to consider the possibility of Sisyphus being happy because all these thoughts and all these efforts are going into rolling this rock up a hill. there's a simplification, it's a simple type of life that so he just has to, it's physically demanding.
Linda: Yeah.
Eamon Maher: and it's very boring, but he seems, you know, he gets on with it and it's a routine that he grows accustomed to. So that's why absurdity and absurdity is a much better way of analyzing Camus than existentialism because the absurd is more prevalent than, you know, your average existential dilemma that you encounter in Sartre and other existentialist writers.
Linda: Mm. Mm. ⁓ Very interesting. it makes me think that Albert Camus, given his historical context, growing up in an occupied Algeria and then living through Nazi occupied France, that he, know, the way he says, so the human beings are seeking meaning and they're calling out to the universe. They're looking for this God figure. to give meaning to their lives. And because there's no answer, that there's an absurdity to our experience because we expect there to be this all-powerful force that looks down on us like children and looks after us and it's not there. So then it's almost like we create things like political ideologies, religious ideologies to fill that gap. Whereas Camus is saying, no, embrace your humanity and that that should be enough. As you were talking about Sisyphus there with his rock going up the hill and the rock coming down the hill and Sisyphus having to push the rock back up the hill, it kind of reminds me a little bit like Christ and that we all have our cross to bear. You know that expression, everyone has their cross to bear and Christ carrying the cross during his crucification. And it kind of just makes me think that You know, sometimes there's this obsession with being free of responsibility, free of your rock in a way. But that rock itself can be what gives you meaning and gives you purpose. that's kind of I think what you're saying there as well, that that's what Albert Camus was saying, that really for Sisyphus, the rock is almost like a response to that call for something greater than oneself. It's almost like the antidote to the absurdity to a certain degree. What do you think? Or maybe not.
Eamon Maher: Yeah, I think that's that's that's that no, I think what you've extrapolated from from from from from the rock and and and the context in which you place it is very good that sometimes the things we we figure are are holding us back are weighing us down.
Linda: Mm.
Eamon Maher: the very things that liberate us or can liberate us. And it struck me when you were talking there Linda as well, we were talking about absurdity and Sisyphus, what he does or appears to do with equanimity is the ultimate absurd absurdity, know, or absurd character. But I think that Camus could
Linda: Mm. What does that mean? Sorry. What does what? What do you mean? Can you explain that to me a little further?
Eamon Maher: Like because he appears, he's doing it, he's doing it with equanimity and looking at it objectively from the outside. We're saying like, how could, how could he, how could he be anyway happy? How could Camus say we need to imagine the possibility of Sisyphus being happy? We don't see.
Linda: Mmm.
Eamon Maher: We don't see it through his eyes or through his body or through his mind. We don't know what he's going through. We don't know what he's actually feeling, but we assume that this is a terrible thing. And I suppose if you talk about that, then you were talking about Christ. mean, couldn't he be the ultimate absurd character as well because of what he went through? And a bit like Merceau, who didn't defend himself in court,
Linda: Mm. Mm. Mmm.
Eamon Maher: He didn't speak up for himself. Christ was that. And that's why I entitled that article, the only Christ, that Mercer was the only Christ that modern civilization deserved. Because he was doing this, but not for altruistic reasons, but because he just couldn't feign. He couldn't feign remorse. couldn't...
Linda: ⁓ interesting. Mmm.
Eamon Maher: He couldn't play the game. And people like that frighten us. We're frightened by people who won't conform, you know, that make us uncomfortable because we have this notion of society and where we live that it needs to have some structure. And people can't just do anything they want within that society. They can't behave indifferently. Like if somebody hurts you and they won't acknowledge
Linda: Hmm Mmm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: and they haven't done it knowingly, but they've hurt you. You expect remorse. And even if they don't feel remorse, you expect them to pretend. That's what people do. They pretend to be sorry when they're not sorry, because that's what we are. We're not comfortable when people don't respect the rules, don't respect convention. So I think the analogy you make between, you know, Christ and the Christian path and the idea of ⁓ falling, getting up again. I think that's in Camus' writing. It's there. And you also mentioned he doesn't state anything explicitly. And that's the good artist. The good artist shows rather than tells. So we don't want somebody telling us, this is what you have to think about, Merceau. You must think this about Merceau. No. It's there on the page, and it's up to you to make up your own mind with regard to sort of character he is. And I think that's an important thing with Camus. That distance, that objectivity that he maintains is always there. So he doesn't preach, he just puts it down on paper and it's up to us then to interpret it. And every time a person takes up a book by Camus, it's a new reader and a new interpretation. So that's it.
Linda: That's so interesting because I think justification is something that we do a lot as humans. know, like, for example, let's say if an event occurs like something tragic, like a car accident. then but then the let's say the the the way that that's perceived will differ depending on how it occurred. So, for example, if it was a pure accident, it'll
Eamon Maher: Thank you. ⁓
Linda: That's how people perceive it. If the person was drink driving, it'll be perceived differently. But it's not like the actual event or the outcome of the event is any different. It's like the the murder, for example, I guess, like what more or less I'm kind of just saying what you're saying about more so that he commits a murder. How we perceive the murder as a species, what we tend to do is we assign meaning and justification to different events. But we do that, don't we? And I guess Albert Camus, seems like with that novel, The Outsider, he's stripping all of that away and he's saying, well, what's it like if we just look at an event without any justification, without any meaning, without any... And it's a very thought provoking thing to do.
Eamon Maher: Mm. Mm. Mm. Yes, it is. Yeah. And I think it's wrapped up in his marginality, right? Because Camus was the ultimate marginal character. So he was a member of the Pied Noir class in Algeria. So he was... by the local community, the Arab community, would have been distrusted because of that. So he's a bit of an outsider in Algeria. He comes to France and he's viewed as a Pianoir. He's not fully French. He's Pianoir. They're different from true, know, born, bred French people. And then in his writing, he always conspires to be on the margins because he thinks as an artist that he has
Linda: Mmm. Mmm. Mm-hmm ⁓
Eamon Maher: He has the duty to look at things in a slanted manner. He needs to have perspective. And ultimately, by going to the margins and by putting his characters on the margins, he actually seems to say or be saying, look, we can learn from these people. We can learn from those who are on the margins. Because if a writer is smack bang in the middle of society and very comfortable. with everything that's happening around him. He's not going to make good literature out of that. Nearly all good artists are somehow marginal to the mainstream society. And they need to be. And they need to have a critical objectivity with regard to what is happening. Because their work needs to be imbued with an experience that is something that
Linda: Mm.
Eamon Maher: writers might be uncomfortable with but that they see ultimately there's a truth in it and when you read through the outsider and I've read it several times because I taught a module on it for years my poor students were driven mad about with Camus because I love Camus but every time I read it I saw something I saw something different I saw something new something either his relationship with his mother the extent to which he was accused he was he was accused of murder because he buried
Linda: Mm. Really.
Eamon Maher: He buried his mother with the heart of a murderer. He wasn't crying at her graveside. He never cried at his mother's funeral. That, he never even looked unhappy at his mother's funeral. That, in the view of society, was not acceptable. This person is a monster. A monster, an unfeeling monster who ends up murdering a person. And he murders a person because how could anyone who isn't sorry at his mother's... great side, how could that person be anything other than a monster or a murder? So that's the way with Camus that he gets these extreme situations and he puts us in uncomfortable positions, ethical positions as readers and forces us to think differently about existence.
Linda: And you touched on there, we were talking about the myth of Sisyphus and I might as well read that quote that you said the quote, I'll just say the full thing. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. So he's really all about embracing what it is to be a human being, isn't it? And not trying to look for anything outside of that. Just be happy. However, it's different from Nietzsche's more fatty embrace your life, embrace the struggle. There's a meaning to your struggle. He's not about the struggle either, though, is he, Albert Camus? He's not. Am I right in saying that, that he's not saying that's You know, like that there's a divine purpose for suffering. There's a divine purpose to your struggle. He's not saying there's a divine purpose or there's some ideological outcome from suffering. It's more he's kind of saying you should move away from suffering, but embrace your life. Is that right? Am I right in saying that? Do you think?
Eamon Maher: Yeah, that's you You're spot on. And he's definitely not a nationalist and he's definitely not somebody with the Christian notion that suffering is good ultimately for you. suffering is purifying, which is at the basis of the Christian faith that we all get our cross. We must carry the cross. And it's how we carry it that dictates
Linda: Mmm. Yes.
Eamon Maher: what sort of people we are, you know, are we able to carry the cross and we have.
Linda: So that's a good point. So when I was making the comparison between Christ and his cross and the Sisyphus and his rock, pushing the rock up and down the hill, really, it's not a good comparison because Albert Camus would oppose that. I suppose the difference is he's saying, well, Christ and his cross is about suffering, whereas Sisyphus with his rock has more purpose. It's not just it's not about the suffering, it's about the rock.
Eamon Maher: Yeah. Yeah.
Linda: getting the rock up and down the hill like your responsibility.
Eamon Maher: It's about the process and that's his life. That's his life. That's what he has become accustomed to. every grain in that rock he's familiar with. Every little turn in it, every little crevice in the rock, he knows it. He knows it intimately. He knows the route. He knows the hill. He's familiar with all that. He knows what he has to do.
Linda: Mm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: you know, that's just part of his daily existence. And that's why for him, that's satisfactory. And that's ultimately something that he can live with and be happy with. And that's a pretty scary sort of scenario, though, Linda. It's not something that like we don't we don't look on things that way normally. And that's what good art does. It makes us look at things differently. It makes us see the
Linda: Mm.
Eamon Maher: sometimes the nastier side sometimes the more joyful side of life but it has authenticity if it doesn't have authenticity then it won't it won't move you it won't it won't inspire you and it won't change you in any way and and Camus is the ultimate right look when i when i when i read Camus and i read him talking about north africa algeria i'm just struck at he the the joy he took in nature the joy he took in
Linda: Mmm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: in the human body and the way he conveys place is just beautiful. mean reading him on like the first man, posthumous memoir he wrote, he describes his childhood in Algiers where he was very poor and came from a very modest family but he was happy and he was happy because of the sun. He loved the sun, the sea, the people, the colors. And he was able to describe all those in such a vivid manner that you're transported. You're transported to that part of North Africa that's extremely beautiful. And it made me want to visit it. And I might, I'd better hurry on. But it's somewhere I would love to visit just because of the way Camus has evoked it. Compare that to my love and fascination with love and fascination with John McGarren. John McGarren is brilliant at the evocation of place. So he describes one little village, a little farm in the arsehole of Leitrim, if you like, and he makes it and everywhere. And we're there and we're communing with the people and their existences in that they may face the rising sun. It's the same. We're sharing life. It's one reviewer described that they may face the rising sun. as more a question of living than reading. So we're living what the characters are living. It's not just a novel that we read. We become part of the community and the lives of these people. And Camus has that unique skill as well. He's able to convey place, convey people in an extraordinarily ⁓ intense and authentic manner.
Linda: Wonderful. And do you think there are other similarities between McGaherne and Camus in terms of their themes and their ways of describing life and people?
Eamon Maher: Yeah. I do, but I would say that, wouldn't I? ⁓ Because some of my PhD students when they're working on MacGyharan, used to have two of them used to have a bet with regard to how soon into any of our meetings, how long would it take for me to mention Camus? So I do see it. mean, if you take a novel by MacGyharan like The Pornographer, which is not his best novel by any means, it was an experimental novel. ⁓ But in it, he has these profound philosophical observations that sort of make us stand back and think, my God, there's something in this novel. It grabs us in that regard. And I think it ultimately has to be like the world that McGarren depicts is a sort of a
Linda: Hmm.
Eamon Maher: It's not a particularly happy world. There's lots of death. There's lots of persecution. There's lots of anxiety about, know, religious anxiety about damnation. And what his ultimate job then as a writer, though, is to make make that that life that that way of life, those characters who we met on a daily basis and whom we knew for for for the
Linda: Mmm.
Eamon Maher: seven decades of his life, he makes them come alive on the page and they and Camus had that but Camus wasn't as closely identified with his characters ⁓ as McGarren was but ultimately we read them and we go back to writers like the two of them for how they show us a different way to live, a different way to live and one that has universal significance and what makes us happy
Linda: Mm. Look at her.
Eamon Maher: What makes us sad? How can we get through the how can we get through the days? How can we how can we live in in in the more authentic and more satisfactory manner? And that's that's what I see. Now, McGarran himself said he had read Camus. But when I interviewed him, he'd always tell me, have you read this? Oh, yeah. And I think Camus is a great writer. So you're thinking this is fantastic. OK, John, tell me why. But he said ultimately what?
Linda: Mmm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: What he liked most particularly about the outsider was the description of the old folks home where Mersot's mother is there. He thinks the characters in the old folks home are really strong. This man whom his mother, Mersot's mother had befriended and they used to joke about them being a little couple and he was very, very, very taken with the mother and he...
Linda: Hmm.
Eamon Maher: his wrinkled face and he's perspiring and he's crying and the tears get caught in the folds of his wrinkles. McGarren loved all that. But you could understand how that community thing, he'd like that. He could see validity in it.
Linda: ⁓ beautiful. That is beautiful. And McGaherne, think as you struck me as you were speaking there that McGaherne also shows it without saying it in the same way that you say Camus does, because I was thinking with McGaherne very often there's a message somewhere in the story, I think, isn't there?
Eamon Maher: Bye. There is, there is. And he had that great ability to just sort of... Every word has weight and meaning in McGaherne. It's like amongst women, it was a huge manuscript. I think it was nearly a thousand pages. And what you get then is you get the little tip of the iceberg.
Linda: Mmm.
Eamon Maher: all the other stuff has gone there, but it has been shaved away until you have this beautiful piece of prose that just each word is important. But the emotions say a character like Morne, patriarch in Amongst Women evokes people find him very disquieting. He's authoritarian. He's violent. He's, you know, he's very whimsical. His moods are swinging all the time. But McGarren
Linda: Mm. Mmm. Yeah. Hmm. Mm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: sort of allows us at the end of Moran's life to actually feel a bit of sympathy for him because he's been struggling all his life with the land and then none of his sons, neither of his sons is going to continue it and then instead of using the land he says it seemed to him as if the land had used him and now it would use someone else and it wouldn't be either of his sons. That's his reality as he faces into eternity. Like thanks very much.
Linda: Mmm.
Eamon Maher: But it's beautiful. It's beautiful in its own right because and he's he's just we just feel we can see the world through Mourns eyes at that stage. He looks out in this beautiful in spring, this beautiful meadow at the back of the house and knows he won't see it. He won't see another spring. And he never, ever actually appreciated the beauty that he was part of because he was all the time preoccupied with actually taming the land. Do you know what mean?
Linda: Mmm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: He could never see it truly because he was working it. And that's a poignant moment. But you know, I mean, yeah, go ahead, Linda.
Linda: Very poignant. it kind of makes me think. Yeah, it kind of makes me think of Camus. It just made me think of Camus there as you were speaking, because I was trying to apply Camus philosophy to that story. And I was just thinking, would Camus have if he were to have advised that character, would he have said... You need to focus on your life as it is right now and try and just enjoy your life as it is right now. Like Sisyphus, like embrace your rock rather than working towards some greater ideology or some utopic future that will never be realized.
Eamon Maher: I think you're right in that interpretation. feel as well that Morne was the ultimate disillusioned veteran of the War of Independence and he had been in charge of a flying column and he was used to commanding respect. ordering people and that was the most intense moment of his life. After that then he was very disillusioned with what had emerged out of so-called freedom and he said some of our own Johnnys in the top jobs instead of some English Johnnys you know my half of my family are in England the whole thing is a cod he said the whole thing was a cod yeah.
Linda: Like George Orwell's animal farm, sort of like what you were saying earlier that there's always going to be somebody it hasn't changed.
Eamon Maher: Yeah. yeah it hasn't changed yeah and that the church took took over then and they'd be similar in their view of they would have had a sympathy with the rituals of religion and of Catholicism in particular, both Camus and McGarren. But they wouldn't have been practicing and they wouldn't have viewed themselves as being very religious. think there's... Yeah, go ahead. You'd love for us. It's always good to follow up when you start a sentence with I'd love.
Linda: Mmm. I'd loved, ⁓ go ahead, yeah. Well, just because of your expertise, would love, there's a story of MacAherns that really stayed with me and you might know which one I'm talking about as well as the short stories. And it's about a young lady and a young man who are courting. Now, I think they're from down the country, but they're staying up in digs in Dublin or in a city. And anyhow, they meet and they go courting and...
Eamon Maher: Mm-hmm.
Linda: It's kind of presented in such a way that it's like he's kind of using her and they go for these walks and they go for walks in the rain and sometimes they get very hot and heavy under the umbrella in a corner somewhere. in a way. Is that what it's called? ⁓ yeah. My love, my umbrella. And I just thought it was I thought it was very sympathetic to the woman in the story, but also.
Eamon Maher: My love, my umbrella, Linda. That's the short story. My love, love, my umbrella. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Linda: It was just a very interesting, there was sort of a sting in the tale because spoiler alert to any listeners who may not have read the story. in the end, you know, he he's presented all the way through like he's the one that's using her and he's the powerful person in the story. And then towards the end, I think he tires of the single life and thinks, you know what, I'll marry that merry girl that I go for my little strolls with under the umbrella. But by then, it's too late. She's already found another suitor and she turns around and says to no, don't want to marry you. But I thought it was really interesting because it's almost like he was looking down on her. my interpretation from the ending was almost like she had no respect for him because he wasn't doing the right thing by her. I just thought it was a really interesting story. yeah, I just love to hear your thoughts on that.
Eamon Maher: Mm. It's a great story. Yeah, it's a great story and it's... McGarren is very good on unrequited love. There's so many affairs that end badly in McGarren's work and that one in particular, yeah, and this whole fetish of the umbrella, she had to hold the umbrella, that was almost something that he got excitement from that for whatever reason. And when it wasn't raining, he'd still want her to hold the umbrella. And I think at one stage she says near the end, she wouldn't do it because she said,
Linda: Mm. Mmm.
Eamon Maher: would I do that? ⁓ And it shows that, you know, ultimately humans and relationships are so complex and are dictated, there's so many things dictate whether they're going to be successful or not ⁓ and that he, as you say, when he comes to the ultimate conclusion, look, I married this girl, it's too late and
Linda: Mm. Mmm.
Eamon Maher: And rightly she has seen that look, he's not moving in the right direction. It's become futile what we're doing. We're just using each other and we're using each other's bodies and there's nothing deeper than that. But yeah, that's the way with McGaherne and Lord, you feel like shouting out and telling the character, get a grip of yourself. Come on, come on, come on. You're going to be you're going to be ultimately very unhappy if you don't follow up on this and do the right thing. ⁓ that's the way life is, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.
Linda: They're so realistic, a lot of, yes, absolutely. Yeah, but they're so realistic, a lot of his characters, aren't they? You'd almost wonder were they based on real people because they'd, you know, you could just, they're like living, breathing things. They jump off the page.
Eamon Maher: Yeah, well, oftentimes they are based on real people. But then again, where fiction comes in is that because if I were to talk about people I know really well, I put them into a novel and they didn't change anything about them, then that's that's not art. You know, and people see through that. But you're right there. You're feeling as if you know these people, you know, the people are that.
Linda: Mmm.
Eamon Maher: McGaher must have known him. He knew the traits and he did something then within fiction. He gave them some essence, universal sort of essence that we can all identify. that's why, unless you can identify with people, you can't feel what they feel. You can't go through and you have to accompany them on their journey. So he was a past master at that, as he was of nearly everything. And I think one of the big similarities between McGaher
Linda: you
Eamon Maher: and as I saying that this whole religious thing and I think in his Jean Animous was one of the great Camus critics and he can I quote this to you he said Camus always mistrusted the religious emotion because he learned to place above everything the lucidity of a positive spirit
Linda: ⁓ please, I'd love that.
Eamon Maher: whether it be cynical or nihilist. Now, what's he saying here? know, he placed everything a lucidity of a positive spirit. think that requires you to... Lucidity is something that allows you to look and observe and look at existence and see it as it is. And then if you can adopt a positive... pose there a positive position with regard to what you observe that can lead to satisfaction or happiness or whatever fulfillment and for all yeah and and and any moose
Linda: It's like his quotes in the... It makes me think of his quotes in the... Makes me think of his quote, in the depth of winter I found there was within me an invincible summer. Is it like kind of cultivating that invincible summer within oneself?
Eamon Maher: The cause in. Yes, yes, yes. That is it. That is it in a nutshell. Yeah. And sometimes that can be a religious sentiment, necessarily an attachment to ⁓ any institutional church, but that you can have a spiritual or religious outlook on life without being party to the latter. It can be like Ríos described as a secular saint, the doctor who's trying to save lives in
Linda: And now,
Eamon Maher: in the midst of the plague and who loses his own mother, who loses his best friend, but he keeps on going and because that's what he's there to do and that's his role in life and he knows it and he can still take time to go for a swim in the sea and to look up at the stars and you know the height of the plague he's looking up at the stars he can the smells of the city are all around him and he's saying my god this is yeah
Linda: you That's so beautiful.
Eamon Maher: That's it. And then we begin to realize that this doctor is able to do what he does because he has that positive lucidity. So he realizes that the plague is a huge challenge, the people are dying and he can't save them. But in the midst of it all, he looks at the stars and he says, wow, this is so beautiful.
Linda: Mmm. It's so magical, I think, because I suppose for so much of history, the focus has been on things outside of the world and outside of being a human being that we should seek comfort from that, like seek comfort from God and also seek comfort from thinking, well, someday I'll be in the afterlife. I'll be happy in the afterlife or all this suffering has a divine purpose. And so it's all about this focus on things that are outside of the lived sensual human experience.
Eamon Maher: I lost you there a little bit, Linda, that your voice wasn't coming through clearly. But I think you're right in saying you're thinking that this whole thing about, you know, how some people is deferred gratification that, you know, you have to put up with this stuff because ultimately you might be rewarded for it later. Is that is that what you were saying? Hey there Linda, I think you're frozen there. You're back, Linda,
Linda: Sorry, I'm back, sorry, I don't know what happened there.
Eamon Maher: yeah. And you were after making such an insightful comment, a commentary for what I can remember of it or for what I heard of it. was it was very insightful. Yeah. Do you want to go? Yeah, go ahead.
Linda: ⁓ okay. Well, ⁓ really? ⁓ thank you. I think we were talking about how I guess I'll try and I'll try. Yeah, I'll try. I hope that everything's OK with the recording. I'm sure it is. I'm sure it's fine. And OK, so maybe we'll just do another 20 minutes. Do you have another 20 minutes or no? OK, lovely.
Eamon Maher: Okay. Sure, absolutely, absolutely. you know, ultimately you're going to edit this and you take what...
Linda: I don't know if I will, I kinda like the long form.
Eamon Maher: Do you? OK, all right. Yeah. OK. As you wish. No, on we go. I think I think I think what would be useful maybe is to describe. I think one of the great pronouncements as a Nobel Prize giving was that of Camus and what he said at the the prize giving and and he says in here.
Linda: Yeah, that's what I'll do.
Eamon Maher: coming back to this idea of looking at the stars, know, ⁓ feeling, feeling, feeling the water and the soothing quality of the water, especially the Mediterranean at that stage. But he said in his Stockholm speech, I have never been able to renounce the light, the pleasure of being and the freedom in which I grew up. Now, many people might have thought Camus because of his you know, the poverty, you know, and his mother having to clean houses and work basically as a cleaning lady that he wouldn't have had a great life. No father, you know, an uncle who had special needs and whatnot. But he just found that he had the freedom to discover things. He was allowed to roam the streets a bit and get to know the characters. see the colors, smell the smells, commune with his environment and the environment that was Algiers. that sort of is what sustained him in life and when he went to Paris he said one thing he hated that people were all pale and ⁓ they didn't have that sun to revivify them so they were dull, they were dull because they hadn't, you know they were pale and they hadn't got the benefit of the sun and in merceau in in the outsider one of the big things that gives him pleasure is is is that thing of swimming and feeling the the sun dry his dry his body after the swim and looking at marie how beautiful she is her pretty dresses her hair the smell of her hair and all these things they give him a human quality that isn't always appreciated certainly is not appreciated when he goes on trial. That these things, he was a simple man with simple needs and just because he wasn't able to to tell Marie he loved her when he didn't love her or he didn't know what love, you know, what does it mean to love somebody? Maybe I do, you know, it's possible I do, he said to her, but you know, he wasn't sure, he couldn't be sure, he didn't know what love was, but he certainly loved being with her.
Linda: Mm.
Eamon Maher: and loved her presence and he enjoyed her body and that sort of thing. this is the thing with Camus, the light, the light and the positivity. Coming back to lucidity as well, the lucidity for him was associated with light, you know, metaphorically and literally. That you have these things and you begin to see. Yeah, you see them differently.
Linda: Mm. So interesting. I suppose in a way it's almost like what's strikingly as you speak there is that in so many ways, so many of our problems are invented in our own minds and like within our own societies, like in a way, if we go more deeply into the lived experience of a life, like enjoying the sensual side of life, the enjoyment of seeing a tree, of breathing, of eating, of moving, of, you know, petting a dog, like all of these sensual aspects of life can really enrich an experience and enrich one's life. I suppose religion always focused on turning away from that human experience, turning away from the flesh, you know, turning away from all of the, everything to do with sensuality. was like, it was like, it was like a complete rejection of the flesh. And a lot of different religions, not just Christianity, like Buddhism, I think even more so than Christianity is, I mean, I don't want to say anti-human, it's not that it's anti-human, but it's certainly all about rising above being a human being. You know, it's all about becoming one with whatever the higher power is. Whereas it sounds like Camus is saying, you know, for example,
Eamon Maher: The grass head is, yeah.
Linda: in Buddhism, this one of the first tenets of Buddhism is life is suffering and Camus was saying, no, life is not suffering. Life should not be suffering. And we can actually lean into, you know, touch, sight, smell, feeling what it's like to be a human being now on Earth. And I think you're kind of saying as well that McGaher did the same thing in a way in that almost like Vermeer, the Dutch and the Dutch painters who started painting just ordinary life, like a woman cutting onions or, ⁓ you know, maid washing sheets. Like in a way, it's sort of like glorifying just the average life and that maybe just the average life is enough. And that sometimes when we get, when we start to move away from that, we kind of start to get into trouble. We kind of create problems for ourselves that don't necessarily need to be there.
Eamon Maher: Yeah, and that the ultimate simplicity. Isn't that it, ultimately? And Camus got that and people look on him, like when you consider Camus and you consider Sartre, Sartre came from a bourgeois background. He was very, very, very comfortable. The family were comfortable. Camus was very poor. ⁓ But there's more joy in Camus than there is in Sartre. and the joy doesn't come from the human situations that are often very bleak. Ultimately, things like people dying from the plague, the suffering, all the pain that goes into that, and you have a guy murdering somebody else and then ultimately facing the guillotine himself. in between, there are these things that even when he's in his cell, Merceau looks out and he can the city he hears the noise of the city he also can hear the sea and he loves the sea the lapping of the sea in the distance and then he actually says at one stage my gosh I had been he's deprived of all this now access to it and he said I was happy I was happy he didn't know he was happy but I was happy at that stage and that is something, that realization that the physical world and the natural world, that they have the capacity to comfort, to soothe, like good literature. And by writing in the way he did, he could write in no other way. There's a sunniness about Camus' style that comes from that background, that North African background, and where the body the body is so much more important than it would be in the Western world and that the body is not looked on by Camus as something to be ashamed of or the desires and the passions and the pleasures of the body, they're embraced and they're shown to be a natural side and a very important side of the human condition and that getting in contact with that is something that helps you. to sort of move forward and to appreciate what it is, what it is like to live, to live in an authentic and a fulfilling manner. And most of us actually don't realize when we're happy. It's only when we get a bout of unhappiness, we begin to say, why wasn't I, why didn't I appreciate that relationship? That relationship was a great relationship. Now it's over. Like McGarren in the character in My Love, My Umbrella. that it's too late, that that moment has come and gone. But at least in Merceaux's case, he embraces it. He embraces it and he realizes that he had been actually happy ⁓ without realizing it. So I don't know if that answered your question really.
Linda: He was so wise, Camus, wasn't it? That's. Well, yes, absolutely. And gives me more food for thought as well. Very interesting, fascinating to hear you speak, have to say. And Camus was so wise, wasn't he? And it's sort of occurred to me as you're speaking. Now, this might be a little bit abstract, but. The way Camus talks about humanity, it's. It's so fatherly almost, it's so loving in a way, even though he doesn't say those exact words, but it's like he accepts human beings as they are, flaws and all. it's almost like it almost would remind you of Jesus Christ in the way, like it's almost like a message Jesus Christ would give about self-acceptance and sort of not taking on the troubles of the world, just living your life and accepting your life and maybe like, do you know what I'm getting at there or is that?
Eamon Maher: I I do. And I don't think it I don't think you're outrageous in what you're saying there at all. Far from it. I think that there's that acceptance and there's a tolerance. There's a tolerance of human beings in order fragility. And he also recognized the potential that is within human beings to be destructive. And that's something like he doesn't shy away from the nastier side of the human condition. For example, with the Nazi threat and what that did, and as a worker in the resistance, that he began to see the side of human nature that sometimes it's really hard to see that firsthand. When you see evil in people, when you definitely detect evil and maltent in people, then you know it's a shock to the system and you have to acknowledge that within all of us there is the potential for good and evil. And I think that the fatherly thing for a man that like in 1913 to 1960, like he was really young, he was glamorous. He was a fine looking man. He had, you know, lots of ⁓ interesting romantic liaisons. And, you know, he loved greatly. He loved greatly. But he was always looking for something else. You know, he was looking and he had that goodness within him, all right. But he also had that restlessness and that restless spirit. that marginal thing I'm coming back to again, he wouldn't allow himself to get comfortable in any one situation because when you're comfortable, you're not doing, you're not making good art if you're comfortable. You need to be on the edge. You need to be sort of looking at things differently. And that's where, that's where your insights come. Not like, for example, how many really happy people became great novelists?
Linda: Hmm. Mm.
Eamon Maher: You know, like we don't, it's not easy to write about happiness. You know, it's much easier to write about misery and unhappiness in the same way as how many depictions of saints have we? It's very difficult to describe a saint. it's like people, you know, are people interested in saints? No, but people are interested in evil people. They're interested in criminals. They're interested in that side, that murkier side of human nature. And Camus was exposed to that first hand and he saw what violence could do. He saw it in his native Algeria, he saw it in France. He could detect similarities between it. What people do and there's no right that FLN were no better than the French army were terrible in that they went and did things as heinous as what the FLN did.
Linda: Mm.
Eamon Maher: all these things and those they don't counteract each other they just make the situation worse. So yeah I do feel that Camus felt he had a responsibility to inform readers about you know all sides of human nature of the human condition and that he did that in a non-preachy manner in a suggestive way in an artistic way and he let the words the words were out there and it's up to each like I think it was it was Joyce who said that the the ⁓ the coffin of words he described a novel as a coffin of words so that every time you open up the coffin you know different words come so it's like a piano as well it has that ability so every time someone plays the piano it comes to life It's a bit the same with words. Every time you read them, they come back to life again and they bring some new light to whatever situation you face. And it has to have that universality, doesn't it? You mean you're not going to identify with something unless it really touches you somewhere, touches you, that you know this is something that you have gone through or you will go through or you've seen other people go through and you
Linda: Mmm.
Eamon Maher: You sense always that when it's faked, if it's faked, it won't work. When it's authentic, just you know it. You know it. You're reading something that can help you to ⁓ come to terms with the enigma that is life and existence and people.
Linda: And how can we learn, can we learn to live better by using the works of Camus or thinking about what his main messages were, do you think?
Eamon Maher: I definitely do because his message is one of justice, of tolerance, of love, of appreciation of the natural world and of the human body. It's not about the sinfulness or the fallen state of the human race. It's not telling us or portraying life in a way to try and get us to think about the next life. It's none of that. It's got to do with living in the present. You were saying that earlier. Living in the present in a non-judgmental manner and being tolerant of other people and reaching out to other people when there's an opportunity to so do. And happiness doesn't come from acquiring material possessions or fame. It's about giving. The real joy is in giving. I always remember my mother. she said sure like I love giving you I love giving you stuff when I'm alive I don't want I don't want you to have it when I'm dead because I want to see the joy it can do and and and that's a bit that's a bit like Camusian in in in its ⁓ in its world view or its life view ⁓ this thing of giving giving of oneself giving of one's possessions ⁓ And like, in spite of all his success, yeah, yeah, go ahead, go on, Linda. In spite of his massive, in spite of his massive success, he was, he was largely unchanged by it. A bit like Heaney. I mean, Heaney wins the Nobel Prize and he, he was still answering letters. He was a fantastic man to, respond to letters that people wrote him.
Linda: And that's it. ⁓ No, no, please. No, I'd rather listen to you. Thank you, please.
Eamon Maher: until such stage where Marie had to say, his wife had to say to him, look, listen, can't keep on doing this. You know, you what he says, I have a responsibility to my readers. And she said, yes, but you have a responsibility to yourself as well. must try and keep yourself well. And you have a family. We need you as well. So those sort of, you know, and Camus took his role as a public intellectual, as a philosopher, as a writer. very seriously and after the Nobel Prize it was hectic for a few years for him but I wouldn't say that he was any happier after the Nobel Prize than before it. In fact I would suggest the other, suggest the opposite, that he was less happy and that he wasn't comfortable being in the glare of the public light the whole time, that he preferred that simplicity that he associated with life in in Algeria, the life of a child, the time to just wander around and to sort of sense everything, the vibrancy of life that was happening around him and the sea and the sun. He wasn't able to do that as easily after winning the Nobel Prize as he would have been beforehand. yeah, he's a complex character. Yeah.
Linda: fascinating. It's just so interesting as you're speaking there, just imagining him as a little boy, a poor, impoverished little child in Algeria growing up, probably barefoot running around in the hot sun. But happy, you know, and it's so funny because then I suppose the nature of the human condition is that you're always sort of we all end up pursuing things, pursuing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And I suppose he was no different.
Eamon Maher: Hmm.
Linda: He pursued his education and that led to the next thing. Then he started writing and that led to the next thing. And then he started editing papers and then he's writing novels and then he's winning the Nobel Peace Prize. And it's kind of funny. You think of all the success then he had towards that, you know, stage in his life. And yet perhaps he would often reflect on how, wow, when I was that little barefoot little boy in Nigeria, apologies, with my mother, that that is I was actually at my happiest. It's kind of funny. mean, we're such interesting creatures, human beings, really, because it's the nature of us to always be moving towards something, think, you know, and even though in a way his philosophy kind of suggests the opposite. He was always moving towards something nevertheless in his own life, but I suppose you could also look at that as his purpose, as his rock, as like the rock in Sisyphus. But it also kind of reminds me, I recently saw something
Eamon Maher: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Linda: It was just a joke really on the internet and it was a Greek, know, a third generation Greek American saying, you my grandmother left Greece to come to America for a better life. And now all I want to do is to live in Greece on an island in Greece. You my grandmother left an island in Greece to come to America for a better life. And now my whole life's aspiration is to try and live on an island in Greece. It's kind of it's it makes me think of Albert Camus and his journey. And it's just funny. It's just ⁓ life is kind of funny like that sometimes, you know, but that nostalgia is beautiful. It's kind of beautiful to think of Camus in that nostalgic way, you know, and his appreciation and love of of simplicity and the simple life. And I suppose it's good that he lived both lives because who better to kind of. Who better to.
Eamon Maher: Yeah. it. Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Linda: assess the difference prestige and wealth and success can make in your life. The fact that he's talked about the virtue and the goodness of the simple life says a lot, think, given all the success he had in later years.
Eamon Maher: Yeah. Yeah, what strikes me as well, even listening to you, it's unusual that someone your age, or even Camus, relatively speaking, he was a young man when he died. Like he would have been... I'm not good at maths. He he was 47, 48 when he died like that's young, know, even even in 1960 that's that's young but for him to have normally it's when you get to my stage in life you begin to look back, you know and look back nostalgia, nostalgically or appreciatively or whatever on the life you've led
Linda: Hmm. Hmm.
Eamon Maher: and the things that have happened and maybe things that were happy moments. And we invariably do tend to maybe idealize our childhood because childhood is a great period of innocence and of happiness because innocence and happiness are definitely linked because we don't know about the other side of life really at that point. We only know the goodness. ⁓ And then slowly but surely we begin to get exposure to the other side. Now it was interesting because you were saying that he won the Nobel ⁓ Peace Prize, well, he didn't. It was the literature prize, but he could have won the Peace Prize, you know, in another sense. He was very much engaged in that whole notion of world peace. even, you know, right up to the end, he would have been politically active.
Linda: ⁓ sorry.
Eamon Maher: But because the Loupakti Communists, the Paysais in France, the Communist Party, because he was estranged from them, I think he became somewhat disillusioned with politics or the political situation. And there were always people watching him, always people watching him on what he had to say to try and turn it around and especially pronouncements about Algeria. and coming as he did from this piano or colonist class and that how we, how, how, should we listen to him talking about Algeria? He's, he's got skin in the game. He's got skin in the game, but he did, but he, he, he felt a duty to call it as it was again. This is, this is the thing. What I like about him intellectually, he's very honest and intellectuals aren't always very honest, shall we say.
Linda: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eamon Maher: can be really clever but being really honest but with him you always feel as if there's a sincerity in what he's saying and sincerity is difficult to fake and I don't think in Camus case he was faking it and the criticisms I've heard of him would be that yeah look listen he put forward this very very very elated and elevated sort of notion of the human condition, but you know that doesn't wash with us. And normally those critics would be of the left, of the left who figured that one of their own turned native and left the fold. Like right up to his death, Zartre never wavered from you know the the one line, politically speaking. ⁓ because he knew he knew that for him to move away from the left, the party, the Communist Party would be would have meant an awful lot of retraction because the positions he had adopted would always nearly invariably have been those of the Communist Party. like politics in France is very different from politics in Ireland because, you know, politics in Ireland doesn't have that left right divide to anything like the same extent. And
Linda: Mm. Mm. Hmm.
Eamon Maher: whether that emerges now in Ireland in the coming decades. It might do, it might do, but you know don't know at the moment if Ireland is ready for that left, know a strong left, genuine left you know.
Linda: Well, that is so interesting and it's just been utterly fascinating to chat with you. I really enjoyed it so much. And we're coming to the end of this episode, but I'm just wondering what should we end it on? Is there a kind of a takeaway that you might like to share in terms of what we've chatted about today?
Eamon Maher: ⁓ I think if listeners there haven't read Camus, right? And what we've said, what we've shared today might have inspired them to read Camus. What should they go for? And my recommendation would be to start with The Outsider. It's a short novel. It's a beautiful novel. Start with the outsider and then go on to the plague and then come back to the first man. They're all available in translation and they're actually excellent translations. And then try to sort of see, right, when you read the novels and then you read the sort of memoir, which was not a biographical novel, it's not completely autobiographical in the same way. Sometimes fiction is autobiographical and memoir is fictional. Do you know the way? It depends because natural artists are artists. So they're fabricating stuff sometimes. There's a truth in it, but it might be the absolute truth. But then when you have read those three, you could maybe say to yourself, OK, now I have a notion about what this writer is about. And then you could maybe make the the journey into some of his Algerian, ⁓ Carnais Algerien, different talks, the different things that he wrote about Algeria, his political pamphlets. But I think the novels and Le Premier Homme, The First Man, they're a good start and see what you think. See whether he entices you. See whether or not my massive enthusiasm for Camus is justified. But great literature speaks beyond borders. And I think Camus has as much to say to a person in the West of Ireland as he does in Saudi Arabia. It's just life as it is, life as it's lived, and the ultimate aspiration of being a good human being. That's something I think that stays with you if you stick with Camus. That will come true in your personality. or if not in your personality, at least in your life view.
Linda: That's fantastic and so helpful. love that guide on how to approach his works. And thank you so much, Dr. Meher. This has just been such a fantastic and exciting conversation for me to have. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We might do it again sometime.
Eamon Maher: An absolute pleasure, Well, we might indeed. And listen, ongoing good work to you. You're a very easy person to talk to. And that's something that's obviously...
Linda: ⁓ good.
Eamon Maher: It's obviously a gift that you possess, one that you've acquired perhaps, but yeah, you bring interesting thoughts to the table and it's hard not to respond and be enthused by what you're saying. So thank you for that.
Linda: Well, I couldn't think of a higher compliment. Thank you so much. That's so kind of you to say.
Eamon Maher: That's the truth, it's the truth. Sometimes people need to be told the truth, especially good things. We're all reminded of our faults and failings too often. It's the positive side that are left neglected because people say, sure, she knows that or he knows that. Well, maybe you don't and maybe it's nice to hear it. In your case, it's totally justified. yeah, as the French would say, continuation. Good luck with all your future work, and I'd certainly love to talk to you again at some stage if that were appropriate, but I think you have enough of me now for a while.
Linda: I would love that. No, no, I would love it. Let's do another one in the new year. Have a think about what you'd like to chat about so we could do it again. think it'd be fantastic.
Eamon Maher: Okay, well, okay. Well, listen, will you will you you'll give me you give me the podcast when it's done. I can I can listen into it and whatnot. Yeah. And here, here are the inaccuracies. ⁓
Linda: That's right. Yeah, I won't be. I know same here. hate listening back to myself, but I won't be. I'll be publishing it in the New Year, so I'll let you know. And I'll also email you to set up maybe another one. could do part two. Part two.
Eamon Maher: Okay all right I'll tell you I have a book coming out on a French priest writer called Jean Sullivant. I did my PhD on him and he is a fascinating character and I draw parallels between Sullivant with one L, S-U-L-I-V-A-N. I draw parallels between him and Irish writers like Canon Sheehan, like John McGarren obviously, Colin McCann.
Linda: That'd be great. ⁓ wow. Mm-hmm.
Eamon Maher: And then the redemptorist priest who was in encountering difficulties recently, Tony Flannery. And I talk about the prophetic voice that at Sudiumon has a definite relevance for Ireland and France in the present moment. Although he died, he was born in the same year as Camus, 1913, and he died in 1980. you know, and that book will be coming out in the spring. I. Yeah, we could do that.
Linda: ⁓ fascinating. Mmm. Mmm. ⁓ so interesting. I'd love that. Let's do. Let's let's record then in January. Can we record in January or February? Maybe you'll probably be on leave for on January, but.
Eamon Maher: Yeah, the book one would be out on, yeah, I'd be sort of January and going to Granada at the end of January, but maybe February, early February or whatever we could set up something if that's, yeah, yeah.
Linda: February. Let's pick it. Let's take a date. Yeah, that'd be great. Let's pick a date in February. Thank you so very much. I feel I've taken up so much of your day now.
Eamon Maher: Okay, not at all. My pleasure. And that's a really well behaved dog you have there. Well done. Well done to doggy as well. Yeah. All right. Listen, take care. All the best, Yeah. Why she didn't distract you.
Linda: Well, only because she's on my lap. If she was on the floor, she would be half as well. Okay, God bless. Thank you. No, she was very good. She just lied down there. OK. Thank