Exile and the Kingdom: Albert Camus

Exile And The Kingdom by Albert Camus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Outsider was my first Camus. I wanted to read more of him but never got the time to buy the books. Of late i like to own the books i read. The Outsider was a terrific experience but i have, as usual, forgotten most of it.
So when Gurvinder Singh, acclaimed director of 'Anne Ghore Da Daan' and 'Chauthi Koot' came to campus and gave a lecture by just reading one of the stories in this collection i was thrilled. And when he read each line and translated it to the language of films i decided to read it. I looked online for the book and realized it was expensive for me. Borrowed the book from the library, a tattered, nostalgia oozing copy. I liked almost all the stories but i couldn't read the one called 'The Renegade' because it was too tough for me. Quoting some lines which i liked from the stories i liked. I think the one i liked the best was the 'Silent Men'. I even felt like adapting it. So for the lines which i marked because i liked how it was written, in 'The Adulterous Woman' The jackal pocketed the box and simultaneously swallowed his smile.

Beneath her, the blue-and-white terraces of the Arab town overlapped one another, splattered with the dark-red spots of peppers drying in the sun

When i was trying to read 'The Renegade', i liked the line

Around me the stones are beginning to crack open with a dull sound, the only cool thing is the rifle's barrel, cool as the fields, as the evening rain long ago when the soup was simmering, they would wait for me,...

From 'The Silent Men'

No matter how the sun shone, the sea held forth no more promises. Yvers pressed on his single pedal and with each turn of the wheel it seemed to him he was ageing a little.

and later

All were working in silece, but a warmth, a life was gradually beginning to reawaken in the shop.

From 'The Guest',

On the blackboard the four rivers of France, drawn with four different coloured claks, had been flowing towards their estuaries for the past three days.

In 'The Growing Stone', which is the story of which three pages were read to us by Gurvinder, i liked the cinematic nature the best, maybe because that was what was introduced to me first.

The tall Negroes stood still with hands above their heads gripping the ends of the poles, which were barely stuck in the bottom, but their taut muscles rippled constantly with a motion that seemed to come from the very thrust of the water.

I have marked a place in which i have compared the line to Han, a fellow student getting increasingly irritated with barking dogs around him. He is usually soft spoken but when the previous night the dogs were not stopping their scuffle with loud barks i heard him shout for the first time and it was a voice that i never suspected he had. So it struck a chord when i read the line

The dialogues became very lively, and suddenly the Judge broke out in a deafening voice that one would never have suspected in him

I gave a serious thought whether to adapt 'The Silent Men' as my diploma project. Decided not to. For now.

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