Ed Rothstein looks at the connection between one of my favorite authors, Albert Camus, and modern neoconservatives. But only real similarity—that Camus had been an intellectual of the left who turned on Communism—suggests at best a parallel with the original group, not so much with the current version of what’s going by the name of “neoconservatism.” But I have been waiting for the revival of Camus that Paul Berman suggested was in the offing in Terror and Liberalism. Rereading The Rebel for the first time since 9/11, I was forced to agree that it has a renewed relevance. I recently zipped through The Plague, and I’m thinking it’s high time I got to the rest of his oeuvre—maybe The Fall next.

Camus’ essays, though, are always a bit of a reproach—I always find myself thinking (perhaps presumptuously): This is the sort of writing I ought to be doing. (Should I be consoled or despair that he felt similarly?) Maybe if I keep reading, I’ll finally be too ashamed not to do better…