The Monkey Pushing the Boulder

[Camus x Sun Wukong]

[A work born of the author's madness]

In 1930, seventeen-year-old Albert Camus began a life intertwined with tuberculosis.

When he struggled to breathe, he saw a monkey in a half-dreaming, half-waking state.

In 238 BCE, the Handsome Monkey King, dead drunk, broke into the Hall of Hell and stole the Judge's Book of Life and Death, smearing ink all over it.

In his drunken haze, he saw a foreigner through the pages of the book.

[The gods are right. They believe there is no more terrible punishment than futile and hopeless labor.]

As Camus wrote about Sisyphus, the monkey on a futile journey was on his mind:

The monkey who knew the ending from the start, yet still set out on the journey to obtain the scriptures.

Theme: Philosophers and mythology