In Search of the Champagne Life
by Jennifer Barnick

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It Began with a Laugh from Behind (8/3/04 No. 27)

            Normally the books I write about I heartily encourage you to read, however, with this one I simply dare you.   In a fit of emptiness I pulled out a yet-to-be read book from my motley library.   It was The Fall by Albert Camus.   It was a charming copy…paperback from the fifties…with cover art not unlike my countless record albums from the fifties.   The pages were thick and yellowed and stiff, yet still amazingly pristine.   It was not a book read by many.

            My library is overwhelmed with unread books due partly to my optimism, partly to my fondness for used books, and partly to my fondness for gents who read.   And this never read book, a book that no doubt blinked at me for over ten years was not mine, but rather a lover's.   Funny thing about keeping a library is that over time it evolves beyond its curator, and my library is no exception.   Borrowed books of friends, books given as gifts, and yes, abandoned books of lovers line my shelves almost as convincingly as my own choice picks.

            Books from lovers are curious (and a little dangerous) because they deliver three stories all at once.   And now as I pen this rather drawn-out introduction I sense Camus' leaden truffle of a novel (short and heavy—I devoured it in two hours—yet most likely will not digest it until the Fall of next year).   I sense that my lover had been digesting more than our complicated relationship—for I asked and he answered that he, in fact, had read The Fall as a young man.   And I sense my lover as wholly apart—as just a young man and not my anything (for he had read it before he had met me).

            Then, I must admit, after those three stories drifts in one more.   I sense my own self as separate left to tread the whole above mentioned mess alone.   And this, my dearest patrons and sailors is what a really brilliant Frenchman can do to you!   (As for you gents, I assure you you are not so safe…Albert Camus spares neither the tender-footed nor the broad shouldered!)

            Judgment.   Judgment.   Judgment…as one glides merrily along being as good and proper as one can, eating all our vegetables and keeping from vice, thinking (maybe even knowing) we are surely well on our way to realizing The Champagne Life….   Then one night we overhear a small cluster of souls chatter and laugh all at the expense of the eves-dropper, and all in one moment we realize that others are not only not seeing our nearly-enlightened status they are mocking our (no doubt) earnest efforts.   In short, Camus suggests in The Fall that no one is really going to love us as we love ourselves, and this phenomenon causes the world much grief.   Camus posits that judgment is humanity's addiction, jailor, and leading cause of one's eventual downfall.   And mind you, Camus manages to water your mental garden with this idea with such grace, sincerity, and genuine engrossing entertainment that one finishes the book with a subtle knowing (and later, a not so subtle knowing) that one will most likely see dawn.

            Camus does leave us with a tiny crumb of hope or at least relief, and that crumb is regret.   Yes, really, regret.   Not a bitter regret caused by misfortune, however, but a sincere wish that one could have done differently.   And it is within this regret that one feels the grace of remorse…ahhh, grace…finally.   You see, Camus offers up a world driven so feverishly on judgment and self-preservation that after awhile one feels rather cold (frightened even), yet in the end, not even Camus can hang on to this rope wholly.   For our over-cooked hero (or anti-hero—it's a tough call) leaves us with an admonition of regret—of remorse.   I do not really understand or know how to explain this, but through the whole process (or novel, I should say) his simple mention of true remorse felt like a sweet drop of rain on the tongue.

            Can we stop judging others? (I do not know.)  Is remorse a way to withstand this human bane that judgment inflicts? (Yes, well at least at this time of the night.)   And how healthy is self-cherishing? (This is cause for consideration.)   And furthermore, is reading lover's books—dear and frighteningly heavy—a suggested summertime activity? (Yes, absolutely.)

Tomorrow we release the new Vacation Issue!