Camus and the toads

For a future post on Camus as an Algerian writer, I’ve been reading Olivier Todd’s biography. Though Todd argues convincingly that Camus was not the colonialist or imperialist he is sometimes charged with being, I found that I didn’t care much for his personality. His biographer has mixed feelings about him too, noting that “Despising people came easily to Camus, justifiably or not.”

One passage, though, did help me warm to him. In 1942 Camus traveled to the mountains in the Vivarais region of France, for his health. He stayed at a family hotel at a place called Le Panelier.

In good weather, Camus would sit on a stone bench in front of the hotel and listen to the toads; he found them pretty animals and enjoyed hearing their flutelike song in the evenings.