Exile and The Kingdom

I have always interpreted the quote, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” as a metaphor, denying the worldly meaning and focusing on the discrete sense it creates. But not until I read the book “Kingdom and Exile” by Albert Camus. Judging by the title, it establishes a scenario of a king ruling in his kingdom with absolute power and authority. But owing to certain reasons, he was compelled to exile and relinquish his power. That’s how I correlated the book with its title.

I was totally left bemused when I started reading it, flapping one page after the other and realizing the book isn’t like how its title says; it’s different inside. It’s actually a collection of six intriguing stories, each with different lessons.

This book, which contains amusing stories, was written by Albert Camus, a French author and philosopher. He narrated and published his book in 1957, and soon after, he died in a car accident in 1960. For his magnificent write-up, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in literature.

‘Kingdom and Exile’ is a book of 126 pages, completed within approximately 6 days without making us invest more time in it. The flow of stories makes us read them in no time.

Each of the stories revolves around a new protagonist with different roles as a character in the story. I enjoyed reading all 6 stories, but I was more absorbed with the first story of the book, “The adulterous woman,” who follows her husband on his business trip when she is asked to.

Undoubtedly, her husband loved her and made her existence real, but more often than not, she realized he was more involved in his business, which made her wonder about the probability of his affection. It eventually made certain boundaries between them where she kept her uneasiness to herself, making her feelings isolated within herself. But at the end of the day, he was her husband who always made her feel valued, so she ended up accepting the meager way of being valued.

The other five stories were relinquishing; they always made me wonder about the end of them. But woefully, I was baffled by the ending most of the time because I thought there must have been a better ending. Though the book is interesting, it could have been in its best version if it had emphasized explicitness. I was actually finding it hard to understand because of the vocabulary.

Overall, it made me willing to read it because I wasn’t bored and stayed focused. The best part of reading it was becoming involved as an invisible character in these stories who secretly observed the characters playing their roles.

Since it is always better to surround ourselves with print media, read new things, and expand our domain of learning, this book is relevant to all those who are sluggish enough to start reading. It will keep us interested and focused throughout each story.