A Happy Death

A Happy Death (original title La mort heureuse) is a novel by

A Happy Death
Absurdist French writer-philosopher Albert Camus. The
existentialist topic of the book is the "will to happiness," the
conscious creation of one's happiness, and the need of time (and
money) to do so. It draws on memories of the author including
his job at the maritime commission in Algiers, his suffering from
tuberculosis, and his travels in Europe.

Camus composed and reworked the novel between 1936 and

1938 but then decided not to publish it. It was eventually
published in 1971, over 10 years after the author's death. The
English translation by Richard Howard appeared in 1972.

A Happy Death was Camus' first novel and was clearly the
precursor to his most famous work, The Stranger, published in
1942. The main character in A Happy Death is named "Patrice
Mersault", similar to The Stranger's "Meursault"; both are French
Algerian clerks who kill another man. A Happy Death is written
in the third person, whereas The Stranger is written in the first Cover of the first edition
person. The novel has just over 100 pages and consists of two Author Albert Camus
parts.
Original title La mort heureuse
Country France
Summary Language French
Part 1, titled "Natural death", describes the monotone and empty Genre Existentialist,
life of Patrice Mersault with his boring office job and a Absurdist
meaningless relationship with his girlfriend Marthe. Mersault
Publisher French: Gallimard
gets to know the rich invalid Roland Zagreus (Zagreus is a
English: Knopf
character of Greek mythology) who shows Mersault a way out:
"Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a Publication 1971
date
long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives
Published in 1972
making money, when we should be using our money to gain English
time." Zagreus implies that his life is a meaningless waste, and so
ISBN 0-679-76400-3
Meursault decides to kill him in order to create his own happiness
with the rich man's money. OCLC 33430967 (https://ww
w.worldcat.org/oclc/3
Part 2, titled "Conscious death", follows Mersault's subsequent 3430967)
trip to Europe. Traveling by train from city to city, he is unable to Dewey 843/.914 20
find peace and decides to return to Algiers, to live in a house high Decimal
above the sea with three young female friends. Everybody here LC Class PQ2605.A3734
has only one goal: the pursuit of happiness by abandoning the M613 1995
world. Yet Mersault needs solitude. He marries a pleasant woman
named Lucienne whom he does not love, buys a house in a village by the sea, and moves in alone. "At
this hour of night, his life seemed so remote to him, he was so solitary and indifferent to everything and
to himself as well, that Mersault felt he had at last attained what he was seeking, that the peace which
filled him now was born of that patient self-abandonment he had pursued and achieved with the help of
this warm world so willing to deny him without anger." Severely ill, he dies a happy death: "And stone
among the stones, he returned in the joy of his heart to the truth of the motionless worlds."

External links
Review (https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/12/14/home/camus-death.html) by Anatole
Broyard, The New York Times, 13 June 1972
Notes on A Happy Death (http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/personal/reading/camus-death.
html) by Bob Corbett
A Happy Death (http://centretruths.co.uk/fahdtu/A%20HAPPY%20DEATH.htm), translated
by Richard Howard
From In Review (https://davidlathamwrites.wordpress.com/book-reviews/albert-camus-a-ha
ppy-death/) by David Latham

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This page was last edited on 17 March 2019, at 15:34 (UTC).

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