The Fall is a long monologue, a confession, a methodical introspection. In contrast to the informal style of The Stranger, the language is classically pure. Where The Stranger abounded in the informal passe compose, The Fall has conditionals and subjunctives. It is ironic and sarcastic throughout, yet with a tragic note in Clamence's inability to escape guilt and evil. P.H. Simon states that one can hardly "resist the charm of this narration, which is dry without baldness, rapid without excessive tension, illuminated with percussive formulas, in a tone of humor that is sometimes slightly grating but more often of a luminous and biting irony: the idea, scoured and polished, shines like a steel blade."

The Fall has been characterized more as a prose poem than a novel. Camus's only work not set in a Mediterranean climate, it is also characterized by the absence of time. As Germaine...