The Fall

The Fall is Albert Camus's final novel, published in 1956. It revolves around Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a former Parisian lawyer who leads a successful and respected life until a series of incidents cause him to question his self-proclaimed virtue and altruism. The novel takes the form of a dramatic monologue, with Clamence recounting his fall from grace to a stranger in an Amsterdam bar.

Clamence's crisis begins when he witnesses a woman's suicide but fails to intervene, leading him to confront his own hypocrisy and selfishness. He attempts to shed his reputation through public acts of derision but ultimately withdraws from society into a life of debauchery. During World War II, Clamence is arrested and interned in a concentration camp, where he is chosen as a mock "Pope" and gains power over his fellow prisoners, further eroding his sense of innocence.

The novel culminates with Clamence's possession of a stolen panel from the Ghent Altarpiece, symbolizing his belief in universal guilt and the impossibility of innocence in a world without objective truth. He adopts the role of a "judge-penitent," confessing his sins while persuading others of their own unconditional guilt, offering a paradoxical idea of freedom through submission to suffering.

The Fall is not just a narrative about individual moral decay but also a poignant critique of post-war society's ethical failures. Celebrated yet often misunderstood, the novel remains a critical meditation on the complex interplay of justice, guilt, and redemption. Affirming the novel’s intricate narrative and existential depth, Jean-Paul Sartre described The Fall as "perhaps the most beautiful and the least understood" of Camus’s works.