Mordant, brilliant, elegantly styled, The Fall is a novel Of the conscience Of modern man in the face of evil. In a seedy bar in Amsterdam, Clamence. an expatriate Frenchman, indulges in a calculated confession. He recalls his past life as a respected Parisian lawyer, a champion of noble causes, and, privately, a libertine—yet one apparently immune to judgment. As his narrative unfolds, ambiguities amass; every triumph reveals a failure, every motive a hidden treachery. The irony of his recital anticipates his downfall — and implicates us all.
