Albert Camus
La Caduta

Down the glass, once more. Toc, the sound of the glass landing on the counter again, becoming almost familiar. Another glass? Better not. Better take a walk. Outside, the dead landscape of sunset, when life begins to fade. The river waters still trying to reflect the light of a waning sun, birds flying home and those glasses that simply make us more talkative with an affectionate stranger willing to listen to the confessions of someone who, perhaps, has understood something hideously insane, terribly true. 

"All is vanity, only vanity..." sang Branduardi, and it is more or less this that we find in Camus' book. The monologue (actually a dialogue, in which the interventions of the unknown interlocutor are practically absent, except for some implied ones) is the confession of the lawyer Clamence, a man who managed to achieve everything in life: implacable and admired lawyer, crème de la crème of society, passionate and elusive lover. It is precisely on these three aspects of human life that his confession dwells, trying to investigate and understand the sad and sordid vain nature of every act performed by man, in an attempt to meet life models that are nothing more than cages that each desires so as not to have the possibility to do anything outside their own model and feel freely compelled not to do what is feared, absurdly deriving great prestige from it.

"I never cross a bridge at night. Because of a vow. After all, suppose someone jumps into the water. One of two things: either you go after them to fish them out, and in the cold season, you risk the worst! Or you abandon them, and the dives returned sometimes leave strange rheumatisms." 

The moment will come when someone will jump, but one will not be able to face the situation. It will not be a stance; it will simply be fearful indifference, because one is not able to deny oneself with enough strength, but, on the other hand, is not able to face the chill of the waters. Indifference that generates strange rheumatisms, the laughter that Clamence will hear when he tries to lead his life model as if nothing were different, in indifference, precisely, are symptoms of a disease; it could be likened to the Dostoevskian disease of conscience: Clamence is a sort of re-elaboration of the underground man who, because of indifference, progressively withdraws from social life, unable to wish and act, taking refuge in the underground of a twilight Holland and is heard by the few patrons of a tavern in his outbursts. The vanity that led Camus' lawyer to impose himself as a social model is the same that drives Dostoevsky's underground man to mock Liza, socially inferior, pretending to be a virtuous man, and precisely because of the intimate knowledge of this, the two protagonists are driven by their diseased conscience to fold more and more into themselves, one rejected even by his slave (the Russian), the other now unable to leave his room (the Frenchman). This is it, an image game that always leads the most cunning to rise, to try to fly with the help of lies over equally deceptive, but indifferent and inactive men even more than those in front of them. Until someone throws themselves into those icy waters, then indifference and falsehood become almost madness, an understanding of oneself.

The terrible sensation of feeling like pawns, of always feeling directed by some invisible force towards some equally invisible model, a terror that even today throws man into panic (experts have called it "Truman Syndrome", after the protagonist of the famous film "The Truman Show") and that books like this turn into a reflection that, unfortunately, some of us endorse and others (out of vanity?) reject.

The warmth of a tavern and the power of the liquid in our glass, that's what is capable of deluding man into not fearing the icy waters or unexpected dives. An unexpected dive, and man loses his vanity, his vainglorious satisfaction, every social cage. Sick, in a hotel room, at the brink of madness, but out of any human issue. The utmost indifference that intoxicates with superiority, but wakes up with the awareness of not even being able to be insects and the abject remorse of "what if...".

"Maiden, throw yourself again into the water so that I may once more have the chance to save us both!" A second time, eh, what imprudence! Suppose [...] they take us at our word? One would have to decide. Brr...! The water is so cold! But let us reassure ourselves! Now it is too late, and it will always be too late, fortunately!"

P.S.: I included an "atmospheric" sample, this kind of music came to mind as I read. Perhaps you too will have the same effect.