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Vous en avez oublié un, peut-être le plus important, celui que Bush a lu à Camp David et qu’il s’était fait expliquer, ce dont toute la presse américaine avait parlé l’été dernier, et en Europe la presse italienne notamment (j’étais alors en Italie) mais en France, quelques lignes seulement : “L’étranger” d’Albert Camus.

In a bit of shock news to me, I learned that President Bush picked up and managed to finish, in rather breezy time, the hallmark of absurdist literature, “The Stranger” by Albert Camus. Read on:
Here is what one aide had to say about it:
“He found it an interesting book and a quick read,” said Mr Snow. “I don’t want to go too deep into it, but we discussed the origins of existentialism.”

Furthermore, and what’s even more troubling to me:
in one of his speeches to the European leaders, stating : “We know there are many obstacles, and we know the road is long. Albert Camus said that ‘freedom is a long-distance race.’ We’re in that race for the duration,”  Bush said in those remarks.

There are moments in time when sanity is subverted as it was in that glorious scene in Orwell’s 1984 when the Party Member decrying war against one enemy declares war against another enemy within the course of one breath and no one in the crowd seems to care. There are times when something occurs that is so incomprehensible that either we do not believe it could happen in reality, or we shovel it back to places where senseless things go; or we call it fiction and move on. I only have this to say: Bush’s quotation of Camus and his reliance upon the precepts of Camus and existentialism cannot be comprehended rationally. This is fiction. I repeat: Bush mouthing the precepts of Camus is tantamount to the dissipation of reality.

... My disapproval of his appropriation has to do with the fact that Camus told us that it was in our methods of detesting and fighting evil that our true colors, our true moderation, had to manifest itself ... “We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.” This is the truth of existentialism: a man turned in himself before turned outwards.

... Camus’ “The Stranger” is an attempt to show that there are such moments - when nothing can be said; when hearts are at an end and time does not palpitate; and we feel as if we are looking at ourselves from the outside. That is the message of Absurdism. By putting Camus in his mouth; that is what Bush has given to us. Mersault was not a hero; he was an instruction. Perhaps it is symbolic that Bush breezed through the book. It only shows that the lesson Camus wanted to teach: there are men in this world who do incomprehensible things. Bush is one such man.

( Aug.15, 2006 Absurdity Of Bush Reading Albert Camus, Ali Eteraz, http://eteraz.wordpress.com/2006/08/15/absurdity-of-bush-reading-albert-camus/ )