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Article: Albert Camus: A Life.(Review)
- Article from:
- Monthly Review
- Article date:
- December 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Monthly Review Foundation, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Olivier Todd, (New York: Knopf, 1997) 434 pp., $30, cloth.
It's a mantra: Why can't we be debonair, like the French, about the private pleasures of public figures? As we were fussing over what Orrin Hatch described with pinched mouth as our very first case of "Presidential kanoodling," the French amusedly told us about President Mitterrand. Lucky Francois. Mais, attention. Mitterrand cheated not only on his wife and mistresses (including a mother and daughter, so it is said) but also on Marianne - la Republique. He collaborated with Vichy, defended war criminals and committed every crime imputed to Richard Nixon. We, at least, got rid of Nixon, eventually. The ...