This new book unravels recent history via the lives and works of three extraordinary thinkers: Albert Camus, Sigmund Freud, and Simone Weil, each one afflicted by catastrophe.
It’s not uplifting, but it’s interesting and persuasive. I will not forget it soon — like lockdown itself, Rose has made me think in a way that is both more sophisticated and destructive.
Rose’s excellence as a critic rests on how well she nurtures others’ ideas, how plausibly she treats them as her own ... Giving pause is for Rose an ethical imperative, one she accomplishes in her prose with a lot of soft punctuation.
Rose’s essays raise questions and spark thoughts, but they seldom arrive at cohesive conclusions. The author is best when she slows down to examine all sides of a passage from one of the authors she loves, bringing to light implications that might slip by in a cursory reading or, in the case of Camus, meditation on questions of translation.
