ALBERT CAMUS AND JEAN GRENIER

                                           

ALBERT CAMUS AND JEAN GRENIER 

The literary world has forgotten Albert Camus 's mentor, Jean Grenier (1898-1971). Jean Grenier was a professor of philosophy at the Algiers University when Camus enrolled there for his studies. The influence of the French writer and philosopher upon his student has been exceptionally profound. Grenier introduced Camus to Western philosophical traditions, as well as to the Eastern traditions of Hinduism , Buddhism, and Taoism . His own philosophical work is a blend of these traditions.Meeting the philosophy professor Grenier during the 1930-1931 academic year opened up a new world of books and ideas for Camus. It was Grenier who introduced Camus to the Upanishads and Bhagwad Gita and Advaita of Adi Sankara . 

Grenier introduced  Camus to the works of Russian author Dostoyevsky. Grenier was fascinated by Dostoevsky's work. Like Grenier, Camus was deeply affected by the historical implications of Dostoevsky's thought. The bond became exceptionally close from day one. Grenier also visited his pupil's home after Camus fell sick with a life-threatening bout of tuberculosis. In the posthumously published The First Man, Camus even describes Grenier as a substitute for his absent father .Grenier himself grew up fatherless , the child of divorced parents. He struggled with bronchitis, asthma attacks, and, like Camus, with lifelong precarious health. He must have recognised much in Camus's struggle with life and death. And Camus never hesitated to acknowledge Grenier as the primary source of his inspiration or intellectual upbringing. Grenier too didn't deny his role as mentor, but but also felt uneasy about his own work as Camus's fame grew. 

Once Camus wrote this to Grenier: 

"Thank you also for what you wrote me about La Poste. But I believe less and less that man is innocent. The thing is, my basic reaction is always to stand up against punishment. After the Liberation, I went to see one of those purge trials. The accused was guilty in my eyes. Yet I left the trial before the end because I was with him and I never again went back to a trial of this kind. In every guilty man, there is an innocent part. This is what makes any absolute condemnation revolting. We do not think enough about pain. Man is not innocent and he is not guilty. How to get out of that? At the very least, it seems to me that one must acknowledge it and move on. This is what remains for me to do. And it is then that I will have something less trivial to tell you perhaps. But it’s about solitude and I would like to be sure of my words. And in everything I intend to do, I would be at quite a loss if I could not turn to you. Write to me in spite of my silence. To you and yours, very affectionately."

 Camus provided the preface to a book of Grenier published in 1948 . He wrote :- " He speaks to us only of simple and familiar experiences in a language without affectation. Then he allows us to translate, each at his own convenience. Only in such conditions does art become a gift without obligation." 

 Grenier was Highly Influenced by the concept of Brahman in Indian Vedanta. In his book Le Choix, he explicitly linked the concept of the Absolute to Indian thought. He also published articles in the Nouvelle Revue francaise, where he discussed the merits of studying Indian philosophy, suggesting it could provide a middle path between Western dynamism and Eastern nihilism. In his article, The Charm of the Orient" published in 1925 ,Grenier discusses the benefits of Indian philosophy for the West. He argues that a deeper understanding of this foreign thought could help find a path between the "madness of indefinite change" in the West and the "nothingness" he perceived in Hindu doctrines. Grenier writes : "The Indian thinkers had indeed faced the same fundamental questions as the Greeks, and had come to a significantly different conclusion . Both perceived the dilemma of the human mind: but the Greeks gave more weight to the realm of time , of change, of human values, while their Indian counterparts refused to compromise the purity of the eternal Absolute." As a mentor to Albert Camus, Grenier's interest in Indian philosophy likely influenced his student as well. Sources indicate a clear connection between Indian thought and Camus's own philosophical development, particularly his ideas on the nature of life and the universe. 

(Avtar Mota )

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