Albert Camus: The Fall

I can think of no better endorsement of this novelette than to announce that I have found the epigraph for my memoir:

"But what do I care? Don't all lies eventually lead to the truth? And don't all stories, true or false, tend toward the same conclusion? . . . Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twlight that enhances every object. Well, take it how you like, I was named Pope in a prison camp" (340,41).

Aside from being a riveting panegyric thinly disguised as a narrative, this book has one other distinguishing feature: it is the only fiction work I can think of that is written in the second person. The possibilities that such a format offers opened before me as I read it, and they are considerable. It is strange that more authors don't make use of it--only Browning even toyed with it that I know of. Even here, Conrad only scratches the surface of the possibilities. So, I shall take more than Conrad's words for my memoir. I shall write it, at least partly, in the second person. It was never going to get published anyway--maybe not even written.