Blood Dark (New York Review Books Classics)

Set during World War I, this monumental philosophical novel about human despair inspired Albert Camus' own writing and prefigured the greater existential movement.Blood Dark tells the story of a brilliant philosopher trapped in a provincial town and of his spiraling descent into self-destruction.

Cripure, as his students call him—the name a mocking contraction of Critique of Pure Reason—despises his colleagues, despairs of his charges, and is at odds with his family.