L ETRANGER Mass Market Paperback – January 1, 1972

I read this masterpiece in French, but would not insult the crystalline clarity of Camus' prose by attempting a review in the same tongue. Indeed, a review of such a classic is pointless; all that is possible is a personal reaction.I found myself held in horrified fascination as Meursault sleepwalks through the burial of his mother, his job in Algiers, his girlfriend's embraces, and his neighbor's scheme to teach his own mistress a lesson, all under the heat of the desert sun. Even had I not known in advance, I could feel that something bad was about to happen, and it was almost a relief when it did. At least then there would be time to seek some meaning in such a barren life.The meaning comes in the penultimate paragraph when Meursault rails at the priest who visits him in his condemned cell. In a long diatribe, filled with a passion that had been missing in the book so far, the young man proclaims that, compared to the uncertainties of religion, he at least has lived in the surety that the life he has lived from moment to moment has been his and his alone, and that the one validating certainty is the death that comes to us all. Dark though it may be, this comes across as a triumphant cry of self-possession. Camus has written that Meursault is the man who can only tell the truth, who has never mastered the little lies that the rest of us use daily to simplify our social lives. Unwilling to play the game, he remains the outsider, the Stranger. The last word in the book is "haine" -- the hatred he expects from those come to watch his execution; Meursault wears it as a medal of honor.All the way through my reading, I felt my intellectual responses kicking in. The simple style of short declarative sentences, which I gather Camus based on American writers like Hemingway, also seemed to presage the obsessive detail of the nouveau roman. The succession of almost-random events looks forward to the theatre of the absurd. The many similarities to JMG Le Clézio's first novel, LE PROCÈS VERBAL, only underlined the fact that while the later author is full of emotion, Camus describes even love-making in a manner bleached of all emotive content.But all this was a smokescreen to hide my sense of being there with Meursault and hating being there. I somehow missed reading Camus when my college friends were doing so in the late 1950s, so I am astonished to see how totally he captures the spirit of that time that was not even his own. Or perhaps it is a young man's thing, this living for the moment, making choices on a whim, and above all this inability to feel emotion. At any rate, I was there then, and Camus makes me live it all again. At the time, however, it was not self-possession but anomie. It sent me to mental hospital, but also made possible a long search for deeper meaning in how I lived. Camus' terrible masterpiece takes me right back, but at least now I can watch with the knowledge that death is NOT all there is to life.

I bought this book after listening to it on tape. I just wanted to keep a copy because the story touched me deeply. It captured me from the start. This man lives in the now, unaware or unwilling to perceive the consequences of his actions, of his words, of his thoughts. He appears devoid of feelings, unusual in his behavior and analyses. I fell in love with this character and have wanted to "save" him from his poor decisions and mistakes so many times. I was troubled by the unfolding of the story and I wanted to re-read it to make sure I didn't miss something that would change the feeling I had once I read the last word.To say more would be to tell you the story and yet, this is a book everyone should read (or listen to).

This is a story I read many years ago, and it is a must-read. It is very well built, Camus is one of the greatest and this story is also amazing. The Kindle edition is not good. I had problems with the letter size especially, and with the definition of the print, a problem I had never had before with their editions.

It is a grim novel. The last word is “hate.” And, in part, it concerns the conflict between the Arab and white European worlds. Albert Camus was a “pied-noir,” a French Algerian of European descent. He was their most famous writer, and would win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. This was his first novel, published in 1942 and set in the 1930’s. The title literally means “stranger,” but is often translated as “The Outsider.”The protagonist is Meursault (the name of a famous wine from the Burgundy region) who requests permission from his boss to attend his mother’s funeral in the town of Marengo (now Hajout), 80 km southwest of his home in Algiers. She had been living in a home for the elderly. Both his decision to place his mother in the home for the elderly (due to limited financial resources) as well his failure to cry at her funeral would mark him as an “outsider,” that is, outside societal norms and an indicator that he refuses to “play the game” (of life). This status would literally have fatal consequences for him. Camus quick, sharp description of the funeral itself reminded me of the pointillism painting technique of Georges Seurat.Meursault has a clerical job, and seems to be drifting through life, self-absorbed, yet without insight into his condition. His girlfriend is Marie, and there are some delightful scenes at the beach, and swimming in the Mediterranean together, filled with the foam, the sun and the salty water. He agrees that he will marry her, but true to form, states that he does not love her.Camus details Meursault’s interaction with a couple of the residents in his apartment building, including Salamano, who mistreats his dog, and Raymond, who mistreats his wife, by beating her, claiming that she is “cheating” on him. His wife is Arab. That fact is the critical catalyst for all that will follow. Raymond’s wife’s brother (and a couple buddies) commence to follow Raymond when they go to the beach. Meursault will ultimately shoot and kill one of the (unnamed) Arabs, adding an extra four bullets into his body for good measure, with a different catalyst for his actions: the sun.The second half of the novel relates to how this plays out in a court of law, with Meursault’s stubborn insistence not to “play the game” dooming him. For example, he proclaims his status as an atheist to a judge who clearly was not. Time and again, Meursault reminded me of the role Tom Courtney played in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Given how often that those in the more powerful position are absolved of their crimes, it was somewhat of an anomaly for Meursault to be convicted. However, the valid argument could be made that Meursault was merely a “foot soldier” of the powerful, and these pawns are occasionally sacrificed.The French publisher, Actes Sud, has recently published Kamel Daoud’s novel Meursault, contre-enquête (Domaine français) (French Edition). It won Goncourt’s award for a first novel. It has also been issued in English as The Meursault Investigation. It tells the story Camus related from the Arab point of view. The two novels are instructive tales for our time. In the spirit of “a butterfly wings flapping in China, causing that tornado in Kansas,” which denotes the long, seemingly random links between cause and effect, what of an Arab woman’s face slapped, in the 1930’s, leading inexorably to the latest terrorist attack in Brussels?5-stars for Camus’ novel, and his initial insights into the matter.

By this time in my life, I should have read this book. But books have a tricky way of comming to your hands. This was an unexpected great read. I say this, because I started reading this book as an assignment for my french class. I was immediately taken over, by this story and its author. This book gets inside your mind and depending on your stage in life (I'm currently 41), it helps you ask yourself some deep questions about life and the choices you make. I don't want to spoil anything, but I highly recommend that you read this book.