A Comparative Study on the Theme of Human Existence in the Novels of Albert Camus and F. Sionil Jose

Abstract

lbert Camus (1913-1960), novelist, essayist, dramatist, and recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature, is esteemed as one of the finest philosophical writers of modern France. The French existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about him as “the latest example of that long line of moralistes whose works constitute perhaps the most original element in French letters.”1 Camus’ literary legacy includes three novels, namely L’Etranger (The Stranger) of 1942, La Peste (The Plague) of 1947, and La Chute (The Fall) of 1957, and a fourth unfinished one that was posthumously published as The First Man in 1995. Camus’ works both intensively and extensively explored the theme that was prevalent in the intellectual climate of the post-World War II Europe, the absurdity of human existence together with the notions of alienation and disillusionment, and speculated beyond the crushing pessimism a glimmering faith on human dignity and brotherhood. These concerns, no matter how well ingrained they may be in the European history of ideas, would prove to be too cognitively remote for a contemporary Filipino reader. Thus, there is a need to mediate Camus’ literary discourses with a more familiar Filipino text. If ever there are some few Filipino novelists in English who can possibly parallel the breadth and depth of Camus’ intellectual brooding, one of them would certainly be Francisco Sionil Jose. Eleven years younger than Camus and still very much productive, Jose has authored more than ten novels that are translated into over twenty languages. Nick Joaquin, his fellow National Artist, refers to him as “Asia’s white hope for the Nobel,” as well as “the most widely read Filipino author.” This paper would pursue the question: what are the similarities and differences between Camus and Jose’s novels with regard to the theme of human existence? By comparing the novels of Camus and Jose, this paper aims to grasp the temporally and culturally distant speculations of the former on human existence through the more familiar texts of the latter. But since a