The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

Citation of Books Detail

Click here to return to the main list

Author QuotedAlbert Camus
Title QuotedMyth of Sisyphus
Date (Year/Month/Day)1966/06/19
Imprint[S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1942
QuotationThe great and deliberate flaw in Camus - a flaw on which he insists - is the "ethic of quantity." Certainly this is decisive for our time - perhaps the only way of not being quixotic (the repetition of the absurd in complete lucidity - Don Juan - is non-quixotic). This I cannot accept. I'd rather fight windmills. But am I fighting them? Or does it come back to the same thing - and to the fact that "knowing oneself to be mortal" is in fact a disguised return to quality! That is the ambiguity in Camus and La Peste [The Plague] proves it. (Sisyphus is by no means final!) The desert landscape in Camus - the hidden Islamism. Finished Sisyphus in a rush, finally bored by it.
Quotation SourceLearning to love: exploring solitude and freedom. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 6, 1966-1967.; Edited by Christine M. Bochen. / [San Francisco] : HarperCollins. 1997, p. 86
Letter to 
Notes 
Link to Merton's Copy  

(If there is a link above showing up as a number, click it to open another window with a full text version.)