Neuroexistentialism: Camus’ La Chute

Although Camus's La Chute (1956) is not a popular choice, even among some Camus specialists, Margaret Atack considered it to be one of the finest works of modern French literature. This complex novella is the story of a man purporting to evaluate his own life. As such, it privileges modes of cognition, yet readers are often frustrated as they wrestle with a text in which the usual modalities through which a human life is given substance are undermined. Recent developments in neuroscience allow for a more precise understanding of how individuals make sense of the past and of what determines their choices and actions. This article will draw on Gazzaniga's notion of ‘the interpreter of experience’ (2018) and Smith Churchland's work on altruism genes (2011) to shed new light on the presentation of self, and on the legacy of trauma, in La Chute .