The Stranger (1942)

Until the very end of the book, I didn't have much of a reaction to it. Part of that was because it's about a guy who also doesn't have many reactions to things, and also because this felt like one of the fastest reads of my life, like I'd barely even begun before it was suddenly over.

I don't have much insightful to say about the plot since it's extremely straightforward (though one point that did stand out to me is that it's unclear exactly how Mersault got arrested, since there don't seem to be any witnesses around when he shoots the Arab and he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would voluntarily turn himself in), but I was intrigued by the impact of the famous final sentence on me: "For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration." It's the "howls of execration" that does it for me; after the mostly affectless main character has spent the entire novel being alternately bored, bemused, or simply uninterested in what others think of him, that his final moments are animated solely by the desire to be hated is somehow much more compelling to me than most of the rest of the work. The contrast between the deliberate blandness of the prose and that one burst of feeling at the end is well-done, and enough for me to not have felt like the book was just an overlong short story.

As far as the philosophical aspects of the novel go, I'm not much interested in existentialism, and even less in absurdism per se, so I guess all I can really say about Camus' themes about life and meaningless and so on is that it seems like he got across what he was intending to. Yet he does manage to make a good deal of the conversations between Mersault and everyone else funny in their own way, and the ending dialogue with the priest is a high point. ( )

I went into The Stranger not really knowing what to expect. I only knew that the author was a philosopher who believed in absurdity. This work gave rise to the popularity of absurdism, a belief which the dictionary defines as "the belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe."

Our protagonist is a man named Meursault, an indifferent man who seems content to live life one day at a time. He seemed emotionless to me and didn't seem to care much for things in life. The story begins with this mother passing away, and he neglects to show any emotion about her passing. He doesn't shed any tears. When asked by the pall bearer for her age, he doesn't even know that.

The rest of the story continues in this fashion, with Meursault narrating every event that takes place in his life with an uncaring and lethargic attitude. Certain events unfold and it's not until the end of the story where we see him become passionate about his belief that we should all just live life and not worry about trying to solve issues because in the end we all die anyway. Nothing will ever change the fact that life will end.

That's the impression the book left me. I think this a work that requires multiple readings for the moral to reveal itself. Maybe it's subjective and everyone comes to a different conclusion, sees the story in a different light and comes to their own understanding.

I feel like I shouldn't have read other readers' interpretations before reading it, so I feel I may have tainted my experience unfortunately. I owe myself a re-read in the future. ( )

The name of Camus is one of the most widely-mentioned in some meme groups I'm in.
Honestly, I was intimated by his name alone.
I was thinking that books by people like him are full of words that I find too pompous or... pretentious (or whatever you call it).
He was able to make me see the world in the perspective of the protagonist (or shall I say "antihero"?).
Special thanks to the translator for making my reading journey as smooth as can be.
Will read more of his works.
(may edit later) ( )

Bleak. ( )

This is the story of a man who is living the life of the “absurd” as described by Camus in the Myth of Sisyphus. However, it is only his senseless and unintended murder of an Arab and his subsequent imprisonment and trial which brings him to a full appreciation of his life and how he has led it.

In the first part of the book, Meursault is shown as both separated from and indifferent to life. He does not cry at his mother’s funeral, he agrees to become the “copain” of his disreputable neighbor, Raymond Sintes, because he can think of no reason not to, and he assents to Marie’s desire to marry while recognizing that he does not actually love her. This indifference does not prevent him from living the ordinary day-to-day life and going through all the proper motions, including performing well in his job.

But then he shoots the Arab on the beach, and the best explanation he can make is that thirst and the heat of the sun caused him to do it. While in prison and in the course of his trial he begins to reflect more on his life. Rather than reject the life he has led, he becomes more aware of himself and embraces his life. Because he remains true to himself, he is ultimately condemned to death. He does not want to die but in his last days in prison he is at peace with himself and regrets nothing (other than that he had not learned more about executions).

Meursault is thus an example of the absurd man described in The Myth of Sisyphus. Almost instinctively, he recognizes that life is meaningless and that religion, love and ambition cannot change that reality. His patron offers him a promotion to work in Paris, but Meursault turns him down. He enjoys and needs his physical relationship with Marie but has no illusions about love or marriage bringing meaning to life. The chaplain in the prison (as well as the investigating judge and his lawyer) tries to bring him to God, but Meursault is unbudgeable in his atheism, nor will he express remorse for his mother’s death or regret for the death of the Arab.

The funeral of his mother is the first event of the book. But he comes back to his memories of her throughout the book until his final moments in prison. While he says that she cried to be put in the elder home (which is a long bus ride from Algiers), in most respects she seems to be the model for her son’s attitudes. He says that she too did not believe in God. She always said that one adapts to everything. (At first, prison was a punishment for him because of his cravings for women, the sea and cigarettes, but ceased to be so when he ceased to have the cravings.) Just like his mother took a fiancé at the end of her life, he also wants to continue to live.

He feels like an intruder at his own trial. He feels he is being tried for being indifferent to his mother. The prosecutor links the murder of the Arab to the burial of his mother. Meursault recognizes that death is inevitable, but it galls him to lose twenty years of life. At the end he does not feel despair but he has fear of death. Opening himself to the “tender indifference” of the world, he realizes he had been and still is happy. His last thought is that he hopes he will have a “grand” execution with many spectators who welcome him with cries of hate. ( )