Absurdity: "comme un suicide de Dieu"

"Le monde n’avait plus de sens, n’existait plus: l’immobilité sans retour, là, à côté de ce corps qui l’avait relié à l’univers, était comme un suicide de Dieu." "La condition humaine" by André Malraux.

This book is an existentialist view of life set in Shanghai's failed communist revolution in 1927. I read it and the above passage was not more or less depressing than the rest of the book. But this made my professor cry uncontrollably during class. The whole subject was too heavy for undergraduate university so few were moved.

I think most people will refuse to think about the concepts in the book which are about absurdity and our escapism but set in a dramatic sad story. Though it is exciting, no movie has been made of this book.

But even the title is interesting because what the French words say on the surface is "the human condition" but gets translated as "man's fate" or "man's estate". It reflects the cultural differences where a more "in your face" or Latin way of dealing with negativity contrasts with Anglo-Saxon diplomacy.

I remember this because I now know why my professor cried. The quote is of what a father (Gisors) felt next to his son's body after suicide "The world had no meaning, it no longer existed:  permanent immobility, there, right next to the body that had given meaning to the universe for me, was like God himself had committed suicide." (My translation).

Absurdity is seeing no future or wanting a future that frightens us because we are afraid of what we do not see. Communist revolution may have been a reaction to the absurdity brought about by the international industrial age whose turmoil produced 2 world wars before I was born. I think as we are moving to a parallel world of international communications and industry, there needs to be new ways to deal with our human condition which fears yet is inclined to cause absurdity.

For me, my last 7 years has been confronting my fear that the world is meaningless without God who either left me or does not exist. I cry with Gisors (like my professor). And I'm finding God again.