ABSTRACT
This last chapter of Part I, through another main novelist of the 20th century, who is also – like Broch – a trained philosopher and a major thinker, returns to the heart of the question of real absurdity, and absurd reality. Focusing on The Plague, which certainly has particular timeliness, it captures the problem of how life and reality can be stolen almost imperceptibly in a timeless manner, it will serve as a prelude to the central argument of the book, which will present the permanent liminality of modernity as not only a Trickster Land, but also as Absurdistan. A central figure of this modern absurd is the rebel (see The Rebel), who requires the utmost paradox of rebelling against rebellion, a paradox similar to Tom Boland’s paradox of critiquing critique, and the inability to act in the right way at the right moment. While Camus is not using the term trickster, with his focus on the limitlessness of the revolt, it comes close to identifying the trickster-animated nature of the modern revolt.
