If you believe in nothing you will swallow anything.

books:


	• The Stranger Albert Camus Vintage, 1989 - 144 pages average customer review:based on 519 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Meursault is Nuts...

"The Stranger's" theme is that from the moment we are born we are already fated to die and there is no escaping this, so life is largely pointless. Yes, this book is a classic European existentialist-angst downer. The main character, Meursault, is one of those too-cool-to-live guys that just sits in a chair all afternoon and smokes cigarettes blankly--as he does in the book.

Meursault, however, is a post-war Western man. This description may not have been Camus' intention. But the lack of feeling or concern for anything, whether the fact that his "Maman" (a term of affection?) just passed away or that a girlfriend loves him enough to think of marrying him, clearly crosses the line into sociopathy. Meursault goes wherever the events of the day may take him. It might be sitting on his balcony all afternoon or working or shooting a guy to death on a beach. Either way, it doesn't make much difference to him.

Camus' "The Stranger," after this first reading, seems to be an introduction of Western man's inner self after World War II: shiftless, unbelieving (in anything larger than himself), devoid of any intimacy or emotion; utterly uncaring about anything around him. The theme of "we're all dead anyway" is clearly revealing and is much food for later thought. "The Stranger" is a book that will require lengthy revisiting despite its brevity. Just don't revisit it during the holidays.

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The Stranger was no stranger to me! by G.F. Savery

I was required to read this novel in my English class and I am ever so glad that I had too. This story works on so many levels that most people will find one aspect of the story to love. Each of the characters is original and intriguing and makes you think. It is an easy read at only 144 pages but you will finish it wishing that there were more. I highly recommend reading Albert Camus's The Stranger because it is a thought provoking book that will satisfy even the causal reader.

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If you believe in nothing you will swallow anything.

Camus' The Stranger gives us a portrait of the logical extremity of Nihlism in his character who goes through life with a detachment that is quite disturbing. A numbing look at life as experienced as a series of disconnected episodes without meaning, without commitment , without love.

Does this short novel deserve the critical and academic acclaim and analysis it has received for the last 50 years? Maybe not as literature but as a reflection of the philosophical climate of postwar Europe in which it was conceived and written it still resonates.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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