There is at times a Faulknerian quality to the syntax and the deliberate blurring of past and present. Love of sun and sea, a need for friendship and games, a passion for soccer, these were only normal for the schoolboy eager to escape the grim confinement of his home. More telling is his early enthusiasm for the world of artisans, their dedication and solidarity. Camus describes his visit to the cooperage where his uncle worked and where he would watch with fascination the pounding on hoop-drivers and the boisterous dance of hammers. It is this kind of respect for the dignity of work that separates Camus from the Parisian intellectuals who merely theorized about the proletariat.
Larger themes acquire new meaning in the autobiographical perspective.
His lifelong aversion to capital punishment was, it would seem, the only concrete bond with the dead stranger, his father. He had been deeply impressed by the story of how his father attended the public execution of a criminal and returned home choked with nausea and horror. If Camus became, so to speak, the conscience of his time, it is because he refused all his life to side with the executioners, even when the victims were guilty. Death is a constant presence in the life of Camus, who, as an adolescent, spat blood and later had recurrent bouts with tuberculosis. But so is the joy of convalescence and health.