For months, I've been itching to see someplace new. Six months ago, I returned to my small southern town in the United States after spending six months in Madrid, Spain. Before this, I had barely traveled, especially not outside the country. While abroad exploring different foods, different people, and different ways, I caught a bug: the travel bug.
Did John Steinbeck steal from the Book of Genesiswhen he wrote East of Eden? Was it plagiarism when the Coen brothers made O Brother, Where Art Thou?, having shaped the story around Homer’s Odyssey? And was it stealing when Darius Rucker covered “Wagon Wheel”? Or, for that matter, was it plagiarism when Bob Dylan recorded a demo using lyrics and tropes from decades-old blues songs?
We walked up the road on the mountain and found a path that jutted into the shade, continuing upward. My stomach rolled in pain, and the sweat stained my shirt as my bag grew heavier. How much longer, we asked the guide. Only a few more miles, he replied, smiling. I swallowed my groan and looked at my friend Joe, who did the same.
Writing about this place and the experience it gave me feels almost wrong. Though, again, I feel the paradoxical urge, as many writers do, to share my experience.
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| Loomis Dean - Albert Camus reading at his publishing firm’s office in Paris, 1957 |
In Albert Camus's novels, we see the recurrent figure of the exile, of a man struggling to partake in society. Meursault and Rieux, in The Stranger and The Plague, respectively, display these struggles. Meursault deals with the death of his mother and struggles to find any meaning in his life, and therefore cannot use reason to defend it in court. Rieux must face a world of chaos and exile, attempting to maintain order through constant work and dealing with the unrewarding reality of life.
