The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

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Author QuotedAlbert Camus
Title QuotedEtat de siège
Date (Year/Month/Day)1966/11/01
Imprint 
QuotationFinished reading Camus's L'Etat de siège. It is really lamentable. A disaster. It began OK, and the idea is good enough, but it is mechanical, arbitrary, full of trite moralizing - none of which is redeemed by the fact that "his heart is in the right plac" etc. It is just downright bad - the moralizing and melodrama of 18th century bourgeois theater, or 20th century agit prop [pro-Communist propaganda]. All the good ideas go astray. A very sad job.
Quotation SourceLearning to love: exploring solitude and freedom. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 6, 1966-1967.; Edited by Christine M. Bochen. / [San Francisco] : HarperCollins. 1997, p. 155
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