The Stranger by Albert Camus

A friend of mine, Tai--who is banished (or exiled) in the lone star republic--recommendedThe Stranger, by Albert Camus, author and existentialist, after I complained about being lonely. Oh, was I lonely the week we talked. No arms around me body. Just awful. That feeling, however, has changed…more about that later. So, about this book. In his first novel, Camus presents readers with the not-so interesting life of a French man living in Algiers named Meursault. The book opens with Meursault receiving news of his mother’s death. He goes to her funeral, and then he returns home. He eats, sleeps and occasionally hangs out with a woman named Marie. Little else appears to happen. Meursault, our narrator, exposes readers to the inner sanctum of his mind, which is arguably very little. When his life takes a series of bizarre turns and in the end, he has only a few thoughts about it. These thoughts are fairly humorous. Camus is considered an absurdist. Consider this a recommendation. Below is an excerpt from The Stranger:

“It might look as if my hands were empty. Actually, I was sure of myself, sure about everything, far surer than he; sure of my present life and of the death that was coming. That, no doubt, was all I had; but at least that certainty was something I could get my teeth into--just as it had got its teeth into me. I'd been right, I was still right, I was always right. I'd passed my life in a certain way, and I might have passed it in a different way, if I'd felt like it. . . . And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still."

--Meursault of The Stranger

Friday, August 15, 2003 @ 07:26 PM