>>7727309

avoid it till later, or altogether.

continue on with the plague.

>>7727354
But The Plague was a snore

>>7727309
Myth of sissyphus is super important to understand camus' view of existence. IMO it places the character from the stranger, the fall etc. into more context. The Fall was probably my favorite novel of his, I'd recommend reading it alongside sissyphus.

It's definitely much less entertaining to read than his novels, and to get the full grasp of it you need to understand who he's responding to with regards to existentialism--mainly Nietzsche and Kierkegaard if I recall correctly.

Reading Sartre alongside Camus is also a lot of fun.

>>7729974
Would you recommend reading the myth before any other of his books?

>>7730051
Camus is really easy to understand and not particularly astonishing if you're already versed in existentialism. If you wanna jump straight into him I'd read sissyphus alongside stranger. I tried to start with myth and got so bored with his prose that I dropped it at first. Stranger is a really fun quick read IMO. Once you've read those two you can pretty much tackle any Camus. He's not a difficult writer at all. Like I said my favorite by him is the Fall. I think it's his most original philosophy.

If you want to get the full grasp of Camus and contextualize him you're gonna have to do some prior reading. Yes the greeks, hume, kant etc. are super important, but existentialism functions pretty well on its own. I started off by jumping straight into existentialism when I was a freshman in college with Nietzsche, with only entry level understandings of Aristotle, Rousseau, Kant, and a little bit Hme. I dont regret it.

For Camus, I'd start with overviews of Kierkegaard and then Nietzsche, as they are honestly much more important in the realm of philosophy compared to Camus and are primary influences on Camus. I recall one of my colleagues mentioning that he got into existentialism through Kaufman's dostoevsky to sartre.


If you want to read full books by them you have a few options. If you're a really strong reader who has people/professors/grad students to discuss the book with, start with Thus Spoke Zarathustra, it's probably N's most entertaining work, but it's also the hardest to understand because Zarathustra isn't necessarily an accurate representation of his philosophy but an evolving character. If you want a more coherent rundown of his philosophy start with gay science or beyond good and evil.

A lot of Kierkegaard hasn't aged particularly well since he's so christian, but Either/Or is definitely a great text if you wanna read a full book by him. Get the penguin abridged version because Hong's full translation, while excellent, is 1500 pgs.

>>7727309
I read Sisyphus before any of his novels and I started with the plague. Honestly as long as you read it, it doesn't really matter. According to the myth of Sisyphus, it probably doesn't matter if you even read anything at all, or do anything at all.

>has read the stranger
>still wants to read any Camus after that
Why

>>7730109
I've read plenty of philosophy but didn't read any Kierkegaard yet. That was an extensive answer anon, and I thank you for that.