the stranger
by albert camus
★★★★★
dates read: 12/15/22 - 12/16/22 ! this review contains spoilers !
"Published in 1942 by French author Albert Camus, The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed 'the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.'"
tw: murder, sexual assault, domestic abuse, death, racism
i will often write reviews relatively soon after finishing a book, but with the stranger, i wanted to take some extra time to sit with my thoughts.
this book is complex. had i not known the focuses of camus' novel, i definitely would've felt as if he left me in the dark. there is a lot more that is said between the lines of text than the lines themselves. while the existential components of the stranger are subtle, once you realize what the book is about, they become pretty heavy handed. the stranger is a great book to read for a book club or to discuss within an academic setting since there are a vast number of different interpretations of camus' short book. none of them are incorrect in the same way that none of them are the singular right answer. when i finished, this book was the only thing that i could talk about. there is so much commentary that camus has on human existence, absurdism, and just existentialism in general.
the main character of the stranger is a french man named meursault. he is detached from the world and the people around him, often appearing indifferent and withdrawn. in situations that would typically elicit some sort of emotional reaction, he has none. at the death of his mother, the abuse of a woman, and the mistreatment of an animal, he could not care less. there comes a point in the book where the reader has to ask whether meursault is even human. and he is human, but he is also a nihilist. nothing matters to him because everything ends in death. so what's the point?
“Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don't know.”
on the subject of death, which is ultimately what the stranger is centered around, camus establishes death as non-discriminatory. if there is one universal truth about life, it is that at one point or another, we are all going to die. regardless of when or where, it is coming. while that sounds morbid, it's true. there is no difference between meursault who becomes a murderer, and someone who has lived an average life. both meet the same end. death is capable of making life equal, even salamano's wife and his dog. regardless of being different species, they will both end up as a void of nothingness. all life shares the same dark, indisputable, and depressing fate.
with that being said, it's definitely easier to see where meursault's carefree attitude derives from.
however, people's reactions to meursault's lack of feeling and detachment brings up an interesting conversation on what it means to be a human being. morality is an important aspect of what it means to be human, knowing what is wrong and right. in addition to morality, there is also emotion. the two concepts will always be interconnected. while meursault is physically and biologically a human, he also possess short moments of humanness where he reminisces aspects of his life that he loves or misses. there is evidence that he is person of the human race and yet when he is tried for murder, he is not seen as a person, but it is not more so because he has murdered somebody but because he did not react to the passing of his mother. humanity is complex, that is no surprise, but is there a right way to be?
meursault survives the imprisonment of a life destined for death through his detachment and the blind acceptance that nothing matters, because the inevitability of death is a fundamental facet of being alive. but on the other hand, a rather large component of humanity is morality, which is often illustrated through individual choice and emotion. meursault's nihilistic attitude does not coincide with the ability to express some sort of humanity, so he doesn't. therefore, people who do possess humanity are uncomfortable by what meursault represents.
one of the biggest elements of this novel has to do with the prison and meursault as its prisoner. i feel as if meursault's acknowledgement that death is inevitable, leads to this figurative imprisonment. there is a restricted freedom in knowing that there is nothing one can do to change their fate. if it is anything, it's a punishment. there is a part of the novel where meursault mentions how his mother believes after a while one can get used to anything, alluding to both his nihilistic tendencies and his imprisonment, literally and figuratively.
regardless of the fact that meursault may be facing death sooner than expected, from the death penalty, he contemplates ways of escaping the literaly prison he is forced into. however, meursault also understand that it is impossible to escape death and even comes to the realization that to die sooner is no different than to die later. camus then demonstrates the satisfaction that arises from accepting one's death rather than rejecting it.
the ending paragraph of the stranger has a a lot of different interpretations. so here are my two cents on the ending! perhaps camus sought to emphasize how for the first time humanity's desire to uphold morality, actually aligns with meursault's desire to die. these two contrasting entities are actually in agreement. both reactions are elicited from an acceptance of death. with that being said, in their intentions there is a juxtaposition despite desiring the same outcome. the crowd of spectators see his death as punishment while meursault sees his death as a form of liberation. to one, death is punishment, while to the other it isn't.
there is just so much packed into such a small novel. the stranger is definitely a book that i will be reading again and again and again. i'm obsessed.