Robert's post which mentions totalitarianism leads me to think that this could be a purpose of Camus': to portray the totalitarian mentality. It doesn't matter that religion is the vehicle; it has been before, after all. The striving for a perfect order is a mark of totalitarian intellectuals.

I like that phrase "totalitarian mentality." Camus might be saying religion doesn't matter, but I think DWill's comment expands that idea into something more substantial.

Tom, thanks for providing insights into Camus and religion. I'm starting to agree that the importance of religion in this story is that it's not important. Like DWill, though, I have trouble containing this story in the neat box of allegory. Perhaps parts of it are inexplicable, like human nature.

And of course, the last line. I noticed it too. It seems to be the first point where Camus comes right out and tells the reader what to feel, rather than letting him/her infer from the renegade's perspective. Did people think it was necessary for him to do that?

The story felt quite visceral to me, great writing! I got a few thoughts and questions after reading it.

Thomas Hood wrote:Will, Taghaza is a real place, but apparently a ghost town since 1591

I'm curious where in time would you place this story? Camus wrote it in 1957, but that's surely not the time of the story. Taghaza is already extinct and the Fetishism, the salt trade and the Christian missionary activity in Algeria-Mali, means that this story would've happened several decades or even centuries earlier.

Thomas Hood wrote:This quote from Ibn Battuta is too good to miss:

Thanks a lot Thomas for this find, it was delightful to read about this forgotten place in the memoirs of a real traveller. Also, the details in the story make so much sense now.

But, I wonder who the masters and the slaves in Taghaza are? Are they both native Africans? If yes, different tribes or races?

Finally, I'm surprised with the steadfastedness with which the renegade switches his religion or faith. I doubt people in real life can switch so resolutely without questioning or holding on to some bits of their former religion. All the more since this renegade was a missionary!

DWill wrote:Random comment: Camus decides to break narrative tradition by having the final line delivered by an omniscient third person.

It is possible that the renegade is already dead while his mouth is being filled with salt. (Could it be a funeral custom of the people of that region?) And so the voice of the last sentence could be the soul of the renegade ... just a possibility

yodha wrote: I'm curious where in time would you place this story? Camus wrote it in 1957, but that's surely not the time of the story. Taghaza is already extinct and the Fetishism, the salt trade and the Christian missionary activity in Algeria-Mali, means that this story would've happened several decades or even centuries earlier.

The story could be in the 1920's or 30's or later. To get part way to Taghasa (Taghaza) the renegade takes a bus on the Trans-Sahara line from Algiers to the remote south. Then he completes the journey by means of a thirty-day hike with a guide who robs him when they reach the city of salt.

Taghaza is apparently an uninhabited area, but it is likely to have been inhabited from time to time by nomads. French missionaries and anthropologists were (I believe) especially active in the Mali area in the 1920's and 30's, and the mystique of Mali is (I think) part of the modern French imagination. The Dogon, their art and Sirius cult, and the depth of learning in Timbuktu make Mali a mythical place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Temple
Temple is a believer.

http://www.csicop.org/si/7809/sirius.html
Ridpath debunks the Sirius myth.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/world ... 7mali.html
books in Timbuktu

"A surge of interest in ancient books, hidden for centuries in houses along Timbuktu's dusty streets and in leather trunks in nomad camps, is raising hopes that Timbuktu

Thomas Hood wrote: It's the Patty Hearst syndrome. A captive who is isolated and brutalized may quickly take on the values of captors. It was called "brainwashing" in Korea. The same thing happens in cults. It explains why abused women and children defend their abusers. Probably it happened repeatedly in France during the German occupation.

That's possible, although if the captors treat the captives with a modicum of respect (or at least not the outright cruelty shown by the Taghasans), that result might be more likely. Brainwashing, if it works, is more of an educational effort than was directed toward our fallen seminarian. At any rate, I don't mean to dispute this as much as to draw attention to the way Camus portrays our hero, so singleminded in his quest for the supreme spiritual power. It seems that he would not adopt the values and agenda of his captors unless there was this strong appeal to his ideal of absolute power. It's almost an esthetic thing with him. The love of the Christian religion didn't turn out to be so potent a tool for conquering as the evil of the Taghasans (although one sees a twisted, perverted application of Christianity in him even in the beginning.) This guy was quite a mess overall, but I'd like to credit him at least with a maniacal focus that hardly ever wavered. It seems to be wavering towards the end of his life.
DWill

Thomas Hood wrote:It's the Patty Hearst syndrome. A captive who is isolated and brutalized may quickly take on the values of captors. It was called "brainwashing" in Korea. The same thing happens in cults. It explains why abused women and children defend their abusers. Probably it happened repeatedly in France during the German occupation.

It is more commonly known as the Stockholm Syndrome.

DWill wrote:That's possible, although if the captors treat the captives with a modicum of respect (or at least not the outright cruelty shown by the Taghasans), that result might be more likely.

That's true of genuine conversion. (The narrator says--and I think Camus agreed--that conversion is more powerful than destruction.) However, I think here the narrator's fanatical mindset (what you called a "totalitarian mentality," DWill) is so eager to commit to any dogma, without reservation or reflection, that it can't count as true conversion. Tom's examples are apt; it's just easier when you're overwhelmed to box yourself into the given way of thinking. Camus seems to regard this as a weakness of character. I think that explains why the narrator's "maniacal focus" appears to waver at the end: that strength of focus really just hides the abominable weakness of a mind that's ready to cling to anything. That may also explain the last line for me; I can't help but feel that the last line is as objective a voice as Camus is likely to take on in this story, and it is full of contempt for the narrator's ultimately false convictions--like houses built on sand.

To revise my last post: perhaps "full of contempt" is harsh, since I'm not sure an author would invest in a voice for which he could only feel contempt... But he does mock his narrator's conviction rather than admire it.

The story is a puzzle to me still, but I like your ideas about it. Is it possible at all that the "slave's" ending is redeeming for him? He seems never to have possessed the spirit of love. Now, at his death (one feels) and despite his most strenuous efforts, this mock-Christ is taken over by the power opposite to that of the Fetish. But you're right, the voice in the final line doesn't give him much slack. My translation has "garrulous slave," too.
DWill

It's not an easy read; now that I've read your comments, I can go through it again . . . sometime . . . not now.

Too much like work!