The Fall is a monologue (not a dialogue, as mentioned elsewhere), written in first person (not second, as, again, is enumerated several times in the course of reviews here). There is one character in the novel. He is a highly unreliable narrator, a point that is passed over in all the Amazon reviews. He is ostensibly a lawyer, yet his calling card says that he is an actor. Camus is practically yelling at the reader, telling him not to take anything the narrator says at face value: "You, for instance, , stop and think what your sign would be. You are silent? Well, you'll tell me later on. I know mine in any case: a double face, a charming Janus, and above it the motto of the house: 'Don't rely on it.' On my cards: 'Jean-Baptiste Clamence, play actor.'" The "Jean-Baptiste" is another clue, for if you are familiar with French literature it should ring a bell that Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was the famous playwright Moliere's given name. Not that Jean-Baptiste is that uncommon a name, but in the context, given the fact that the narrator refers to himself as an actor (Moliere acted in his own company), the referent is pretty glaring. So this is a story told by a comedian who is essentially improvising the whole thing, Commedia dell' Arte style. So if you're looking for referents, it has a lot more to do with Pirandello than with Kirkeggard.
The only reason for all this background is merely to make the point that this work should not be taken so seriously as it has been by a majority of Amazon reviewers, and by many in the literary community before them. Sure, Camus inserts a lot of angst-ridden, "life's a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing," passages, but it's clear by the context that he is parodying himself and his "compatriotes." This is an intentional shaggy-dog story. He is having us on.
Read it for fun. Just don't overtax yourself looking for "deep" meaning here. It's a literary tromp-l'oeil. If the ending of the book doesn't convince you of that, nothing will.
As he sits in the dimly lit bar, Clamence makes the locus of his telling a metaphor for the narrative to follow: "We are at the heart of things here. Have you noticed that Amsterdam's concentric canals resemble the circles of hell? The middle-class hell, of course, peopled with bad dreams. When one comes from the outside, as one gradually goes throught those circles, life-and hence its crimes-becomes denser, darker. Here we are in the last circle." It is a metaphor that resonates with existential imagery, reminiscent of Sartre's claim, in "No Exit", that "hell is other people." From this grim place, Camus writes a classic of Existentialist literature, building on this metaphor, writing an extended trope of unremitting self-examination, self-doubt and anguish.
Clamence was, by all outward appearances, both a virtuous and a modest man. His courtesy was famous and beyond question. He was generous in public and private, literally exulting at the approach of a beggar. He helped the blind man cross the street and the indigent defendant secure a reduced sentence. He ended his afternoons at the café with "a brilliant improvisation in the company of several friends on the hard-heartedness of our governing class and the hypocrisy of our leaders."
But appearances give lie to the truth, for the truth in "The Fall" is that life has no meaning, that it is full of ennui, and that people act unthinkingly, inauthentically, habitually. Thus, Clamence reflects on a man he knew, a man "who gave twenty years of his life to a scatter-brained woman, sacrificing everything to her," only to realize in the end that he never loved her. How does Clamence explain this? "He had been bored, that's all, bored like most people." And from this boredom, the man married and created "a life full of complications and drama." For, as Clamence suggests, "something must happen-and that explains most human commitments."
Clamence describes himself, too, as "a double face, a charming Janus," for his motives and feelings, his very psyche, belie his outward virtue. While outwardly supporting the poor and downtrodden, he is "well aware that one can't get along without dominating or being served, [for] every man needs slaves as he needs fresh air." While known as a defender of justice, a great Parisian lawyer, his "true desire" is not "to be the most intelligent or the most generous creature on earth, but only to beat anyone [he] wanted to, to be the stronger." While professing deep love and affection for the many women in his life, he is a misogynist who "never loved any of them." As Clamence cynically suggests, "true love is exceptional, [occurring] two or three times a century more or less. The rest of the time there is vanity or boredom."
"The Fall" is a little novel that makes the reader ponder big questions, questions of meaning and existence and death, of how we live our lives and of what motivates our actions. It is, in other words, a novel that articulates the open-ended questioning characteristic of the French Existentialism of the 1940s and 1950s. But it is more than that, for it is also perhaps the finest work of one of France's greatest Twentieth Century authors, a work that deserves to be read, re-read and pondered.