The First Man

Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting
Review: _The First Man_ was published by the late author's daughter, Catherine Camus. Largely autobiographical, the manuscript was raw, uncorrected and unfinished at the time of Camus's death. In it Camus speaks of the father he never met, who was killed in combat in World War I. Camus, called "Jacques Cormery" in the novel, was raised by his strong-willed grandmother, a strict disciplinarian who would punish Jacques for wearing out his shoes playing soccer. From a poverty stricken family living in Algiers, Jacques's grandmother just did not have the money to purchase him new shoes. Jacques's war widow mother, a deaf mute, took a backseat to his grandmother in raising her son. Both women were illiterate. Jacques's Uncle Ernest, also deaf, provided a loving and strongly positive male role model for Jacques. Camus also describes the beneficent influence of a beloved male teacher who greatly encourages Jacques to succeed academically despite his family's indigence and ignorance.

According to Camus's daughter, who wrote the preface to the book, had Camus lived, as a man with a reserved nature he would have edited out much of his personal feelings that he included in the manuscript. Left untouched the published manuscript had an honesty that it may not otherwise have had. The book's unedited, frequent run-on sentences lent the book a flowing quality and a sense of immediacy and urgency. Camus also beautifully described the suffocatingly hot, sere quality of the Algiers summers. For me, _The First Man_ is a scintillating tale of a boy who triumphed despite his extreme disadvantages, who was never without "a sure confidence...(that) guaranteed that he would achieve everything he desired..."

Rating:
Summary: Camus's unfinished "Horatio Alger" Story
Review: _The First Man_ was published by the late author's daughter, Catherine Camus. Largely autobiographical, the manuscript was raw, uncorrected and unfinished at the time of Camus's death. In it Camus speaks of the father he never met, who was killed in combat in World War I. Camus, called "Jacques Cormery" in the novel, was raised by his strong-willed grandmother, a strict disciplinarian who would punish Jacques for wearing out his shoes playing soccer. From a poverty stricken family living in Algiers, Jacques's grandmother just did not have the money to purchase him new shoes. Jacques's war widow mother, a deaf mute, took a backseat to his grandmother in raising her son. Both women were illiterate. Jacques's Uncle Ernest, also deaf, provided a loving and strongly positive male role model for Jacques. Camus also describes the beneficent influence of a beloved male teacher who greatly encourages Jacques to succeed academically despite his family's indigence and ignorance.

According to Camus's daughter, who wrote the preface to the book, had Camus lived, as a man with a reserved nature he would have edited out much of his personal feelings that he included in the manuscript. Left untouched the published manuscript had an honesty that it may not otherwise have had. The book's unedited, frequent run-on sentences lent the book a flowing quality and a sense of immediacy and urgency. Camus also beautifully described the suffocatingly hot, sere quality of the Algiers summers. For me, _The First Man_ is a scintillating tale of a boy who triumphed despite his extreme disadvantages, who was never without "a sure confidence...(that) guaranteed that he would achieve everything he desired..."