A Brief Review of Albert Camus' "The Possessed" by Chuck Trunks (Trunks Art)

Nampa, Idaho - August 31, 2026 - Imagine how impactful a novel must be if it was written and published in Russian by a renowned writer in 1872, then rewritten in French as a three-part stage play by another famous writer in 1959, followed by its translation into English so a not-so-famous writer could read it in 2026. These were my thoughts as I read Albert Camus’ The Possessed, a theatrical adaptation based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Devils, a fictional story based on real events about the corrosive nature of political violence, ideological extremism, and absolute nihilism, which both authors felt were the root of all evil. Dostoevsky and Camus were influenced by the turmoil of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, but as you’ll read in the following sample from The Possessed, this same scourge is alive and well in the present century:

LIPUTIN: Yes indeed. He proposes dividing humanity into two unequal parts. About a tenth will have absolute freedom and unlimited authority over the other nine tenths, who will have to lose their personality and become like a flock of sheep. Kept in the state of complete submission of sheep, they will, on the other hand, achieve the state of innocence of sheep. In short, it will be Eden, except that men will have to work.

SHIGALOV: Yes. That’s how I achieve equality. All men are slaves and equal in their slavery. They can’t be equal otherwise. Hence it is essential to level. For instance, the level of education and talent will be lowered. Since men of talent always tend to rise, Cicero’s tongue will have to be torn out, Copernicus’s eyes gouged out, and Shakespeare stoned. There is my system.

LIPUTIN: Yes, Mr. Shigalov discovered that superior faculties are germs of inequality, hence of despotism. Consequently, as soon as a man is seen to have superior gifts, he is shot down or imprisoned. Even very handsome people are suspect in this regard and must be suppressed.

SHIGALOV: And even fools, if they are very notable fools, for they might lead others into the temptation of glorifying in their superiority, which is a germ of despotism. By these means, on the other hand, equality will be absolute.

Camus’ theatrical adaptation of Dostoevsky’s The Demons is about the burgeoning socialist movements growing in Russia during the 1860s—decades before the Russian Revolution in 1917 following WWI—but The Possessed is more of a cautionary tale warning us that as long as we allow nihilistic despots to claim power and control, we cannot advance as a species. Camus’ words spoken during his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 give me hope to continue my own writing: “Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, the nobility of our craft (writing) will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain: the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression.”

-Chuck Trunks

“This work was written independently by the author without the use of generative AI.”

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Trunks Art moved from Columbia, South Carolina, to Nampa, Idaho, in 2025 and has made this city his home and writing inspiration.

To see more of my work, please have a look at more posts or email me at chucktrunks@gmail.com. Or, visit my website at www.trunksart.com.  Also, you can find me on Instagram (chucktrunks) and Facebook (Chuck Trunks).