In 1946, French journalist and author Albert Camus discovered the Americas. In two separate speaking tours, he went to the northeastern American states and Canada. Later in the year, he went to Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. Travels in the Americas is collection of his journal entries. It’s no Lafayette in America, but he does give some perspective to how Europeans view the USA, at least.

The 33 year old Camus sees in the USA “Order, power, economic strength, they’re all here. The heart trembles before so much remarkable inhumanity.” That is probably the most profound opinion he has and it comes very early (as the ship docks in New York), making the rest of the book a quest to see anything even close to its equivalent. And failing in that quest.

He was surrounded by intellectuals, wellwishers and fans everywhere he went. His speaking engagement halls overflowed. His novels and his closeness to Jean-Paul Sartre made him a star before his arrival. The various French institutes and the embassy in New York provided him with companions and tour guides. He never seemed to be alone. He was forced to go for drinks after his talks, even if he didn’t want to. One of his new friends actually bought a used car and drove him to Montreal for his talk there, only to find it had been cancelled. America, it seems was starving for actual thinkers. In those days.

Camus was baffled by Americans’ denial of the tragic in life, something bred right into Europeans with all their wars, pestilence, poverty and autocratic governments: “This great effort (to be optimistic and forward-looking) is moving, but we have to reject the tragic after having looked it in the face, not before.”

He visited a library and was most impressed with the gigantic children’s reading room: “Finally a country that really takes care of its children.” If he only knew. On the other hand, “I look up philosophy in the card catalogue: W. James and that’s it.” As he should have noted himself: starved for intellectuals.

He observed that “no one ever has any change in this country, and everyone looks as if they’ve just stepped off a low budget film set.” Whatever that might mean. He was offended at entire stores selling men’s ties: “You have to see them to believe them. So much bad taste hardly seems imaginable.” Of course, it was the French who invented them, forcing 300 years’ of men to have to buy them – and worse, wear them. Seven days a week.

At several points in the book, Camus states his preference for Blacks, promoting them even beyond what they might merit, he acknowledges. He is also more at ease among Asians: “China Town. For the first time, I am able to breathe easy, finding real life there, teeming and steady, just as I like it.”

His trip to South America was more like that of a tourist, and not of an observer or an evaluator. One of the rare exceptions occurs in Brazil, where he says “Life is lived close to the ground, and it would take years to become part of it. Do I wish to spend years in Brazil? No.”

But for the most part, Camus is taken from religious ceremony to religious ceremony, as standard Roman Catholic is modified by traditional Brazilian. A lot of dances, costumes and sweat, everywhere he is taken. He is momentarily impressed, everywhere he goes. But ultimately, it is meaningless to him.

He finds the native women particularly disappointing: “French women make for good company. Lively, witty, the time passes quickly.” This smacks of colonialism, ten years before his own native Algeria rebelled against their colonial overlords – the French.

Lastly, in Chile, he learns they endure 500 earthquakes a year. His assessment: “Chileans are gamblers., spending everything they have and doing politics day by day.”

The book is very helpfully annotated by Alice Kaplan and its translator, Ryan Bloom. They provide brief footnote bios for all the people who Camus met and wrote about, was minded by and drank with.

The insights are not many or deep, when not totally wrong. The book is more of an insight into Camus’ own mind than anything else. He spent all his time suffering what called flu, which was in fact tuberculosis. It gave him massive headaches and fever pretty much the entire time, but never stopped him from smoking his Gauloises. If the tours proved anything, they proved Camus was just a middle class human.

David Wineberg ( )