Hemingway And Camus

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of letters in Meursault's name times the number of letters in `Albert' times the number of letters in `Arab' you get 216. Add to that the 6 of `Albert' and multiply by 3 (which is the number one gets when dividing the number of chapters in Part one (6) by the number of books (2) that make up The Outsider) and surprise of surprises: the meaning revealing number `666' once again emerges!
Clearly, when seen in this light, these two novels take on new meaning, and this pattern discovery provides a conclusive way to counter all earlier critics who have failed to see this talisman of interpretation, this key to understanding the complexities of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and Camus's The Outsider. `666' offers a key to understanding in that it clearly refers us back to the text which these texts are "playing" with and are in some way about, if "aboutness" is a viable concept and if they are about anything at all.
"Wait a minute, here!" shouts Bickford Sylvester, "there is some ...

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is a text that generates a wide array of divergent readings" and certainly on that criterion both of these novels are to be counted as masterworks. In the same way that science seeks a unifying theory to account for and predict from events in the world in a broad general way, so too do these two works offer a broad and general theory of the human condition and the human hunger for meaning.

What would count as "a broad and general theory of the human condition and the human hunger for meaning"? At the most general level only two readings are possible: we humans are special and are a part of a meaningful divine plan which is unknown to us in detail but is hinted at in various ways and ...

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