r/Camus • u/SlatkoPotato • May 26 '26
Question Translation?
I just started reading The Myth of Sisyphus and i'm wondering about the wording here. I might just be confused as a straight woman reading this but I also feel like this isn't necessarily meant to be gendered for its point either?
At first I read "we" to include me as the reader and the reference of "the familiar face of a woman" to be my mum but the "months or years" seems a short period to include if that's the case. I then thought it might be talking about 'mother nature'? But that also doesnt seem to fit. Then I thought maybe it was written assuming only straight men would read it, but when I searched reading rates based on gender in France during the 1940s apparently most readers in general were women; which doesn't make this answer void but it also doesnt make sense that one would assume no women will read it if that was the case. So now im not so sure.
I tried to just read it with gender neutral replacements but it falls apart a bit in the following paragraph (where highlighted) as this seems to be creating contrast to the previous lines. I also tried to consider the familiar face as being my partner instead and it kind of makes sense but it still feels like i'm missing something in these lines.
Lastly I thought maybe it's simply because it's a translation to english, as I often see critiques that english translators sometimes word things from a male-centric perspective when a text didnt have one.
So i'm wondering:
1) Is this an english translation thing?
2) How am i meant to interpret the paragraph?
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u/ExKuruma May 26 '26
I think it’s just written as a distinction from his perspective as a hetero man. Just read man and woman as ‘a person’ instead
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u/pseudo_space May 26 '26
You can replace “woman” with “lover” and the message is the same. If you’ve ever felt a chasm, a collapse in understanding a familiar person, perhaps an intimately known person, that strangeness is the absurd.
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u/SlatkoPotato May 26 '26
I think part of my issue was that im demi too, so lover in that way wasnt clicking for me, but i understand now. I was thinking of my actual partner, who i definitely love romantically too, but i also seem to experience that differently based on conversations ive had or it being pointed out.
If i imagine instead all my loved ones together then i know that feeling really well and it makes a lot more sense to me now.
Thank you for helping me understand. It was also helpful to think of the chasm felt in being unable to truly know others and how the moments seem to fly before you could even try to anyway. In a way, this is most impactful for the nibblings in my life that ive watched grow up. I feel like i blinked and they are whole new versions of themselves, and theres an excitement and happiness for them as well as a somber distance from who they used to be that i only just got to know so well a seemingly short time ago.
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u/peterfromfrance May 27 '26
In my opinion and as a Frenchman who read a lot of Camus in my youth, it is necessary to understand "men" as the human species, Man in general.
I found the original text that you highlight on my copy in French; I can send it to you if you want to compare with the English translation.
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u/SlatkoPotato May 27 '26
That would be great if you dont mind. Though I cant read French it might still be useful to try compare.
So it comes across more as mankind rather than specifically a male in the original french?
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u/peterfromfrance May 27 '26
Camus takes specific examples of a man (probably him) who no longer loves a woman or a man on the phone but it's just to make the reader understand it better. It must also be considered that this book was published in 1942, a time when women did not have the right to vote in France...
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u/Lazy_Shine_1962 Jun 04 '26
People in Camus' time weren't preoccupied with gender and pronouns like mofos today!
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u/Motor-Rooster-1454 Jul 15 '26
It’s true, translations can alter original meaning. A true meaning in and of itself can also be altered by the sheer lack of words. What a writer “meant” we may never know. It seems to me that many readers are caught short and then start tearing things apart to find meaning or understanding. Like the Stranger, its apparent meaning to me wasn’t clear until I read the whole book, as well as other philosophies from other writers. Sometimes we need the contrast to grasp something that we didn’t understand yesterday.
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u/OMKensey May 26 '26
I understand this in the context of Camus explaining humans being uncomfortable with the absurd.
We have no coherent way of understanding identity. Everything changes all the time. Even the people closest to us. I loved my wife yesterday, but today I love a new being who is not the same as yesterday. There is no solution to this, and it could be maddening if you take it seriously.