timeless themes of alienation and social apathy.........

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

Joe2 The Stanger

The Stranger is a book about a man named Muersault who kills a man he does not even really know. In the beginning of the book his mother dies and he goes to the funeral, but he does not seem sad about his mothers death; he does not even cry. After the funeral, he goes out with his girlfriend Marie, to see a movie. Muersault does not seem to care about anything in his life or any one else's for that matter. He just "skates through" and goes on not having a passion or a dream of what he wants to be or what he wants people to remember him by. He does not really like his girlfriend; he merely tolerates her presence in his life. She says that she wants to marry him but he does not care either way. He then finds this friend and lady's man named Raymond who got involved with this girl who he beats because the girl did something bad to him and he gets into trouble. He finally goes to this beach house and he finds the girl's brother of the one that Raymond beat he just shoots him for no real apparent reason. Then Muersault goes on trial for the crime of murder. The people of the jury and the judge were really harsh on him because they were trying him on principle and why he was not crying at his mother's funeral not the actual crime of the murder of the young man. The other details were of no real use to the actual crime at hand; they were extraneous details that were part of his life. He was tried and he was found guilty and he was put to death for the crime.

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Not existentialist - depressed!

I read The Stranger when I was young but didn't really get much out of it. I recently reread it and was struck by the lack of emotion on the part of the protagonist, Muersault. Forget existentialist - this man was depressed. He has all the hallmarks of it - doesn't care about anything, has no joy in his existence. It doesn't so much bother me that he didn't care about his mother's death; she was older, apparently not in good health and they weren't close. But what does bother me is the casual way he deals with the murder he committed. It seems almost beside the point- the man he killed had done nothing to Muersault justifying the murder. More than anything else, his flat attitude reminded me of the murderers in In Cold Blood. There were some serious mental health issues that this man had.

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Freedom is just another word

So said Janis Joplin. She could well have been describing the freedom of this book's protagonist. One can read it as death by apathy, suicide by executioner.

It starts with Meursault tonelessly addressing the facts of his mother's death. Even before that event, Meusrault had become anhedonic, judging the world in terms of its cost to him, not its value. Yes, he had straitened circumstances of a sort, but not dire. For whatever reason (and the irrelevance of that reason is itself striking), the scene opens on a man whose emotional fusebox is a scorched ruin. Whatever had once driven him, had long since burned out. In that state, even moral imperatives become mere habits - the cruise control of a mind that's lost its moral, feeling guidance. Then, possibly for valid reason, he kills a man.

Racial politics of the 1940s could be invoked, or valid self-defense. It seems likely, though, that Meursault shot him, repeatedly, because his deadened mind could think of no reason not to. His thoughts had shrunk into such small orbits that they no longer encompassed any sense of future or any sense of person, even his own.

A bizarre trial follows. The charge is murder, but the prosecution is about emotion. Meursault can not mount even his own defense in this capital case, to convince the jury that he is a feeling being. He is convicted, and awaits his transformation under the guillotine's blade. One last, devoted defender of faith and scourge of reason visits him in his cell. That final voice, entirely in tones and clothes of black and white, tries desperately to strike a spark on Meursault's sodden mind, and fails.

All that's left is all that's left. I guess that's true for anyone, though. If you see more, it's because you see what's in you. Meursault saw what was in himslf, and just didn't care.

Just couldn't care.

//wiredweird

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timeless themes of alienation and social apathy.........

I will never forget my introduction to Albert Camus' THE STRANGER. As an alienated twelve year old girl, the main character who ends up involved with shady people and their [equally] shady dealings was compelling and evocative to me. Here, our character finds himself pulled into a world of pimps, violence and love affairs where is emotionally detached and absent from any form of intimacy (other than in the physical sense). I can see why THE STRANGER has stood the test of time. It is truly timeless.......

Joe2 The Stanger

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