y'know it's quite impressive that Camus managed to write a whole novel from the perspective of that guy who you always avoid at house parties.

A short review because there are so many other good reviews of this classic. When I first read this eons ago, I assumed “the stranger” was the Arab man that the main character kills on the beach. (It’s set in Algeria.) Not so. Meursault, the main character, is a man without feelings and one incapable of feeling remorse. Those deficiencies show at his mother’s death when he does not cry and does not even seem terribly upset. They show again when he agrees to write a letter for a friend so that th...

Albert Camus’ 1942 classic. Here are the opening lines: “Mother died today Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY.” A telegram, not a personal phone call or someone on staff from the old people’s home actually making the hour trip in person to inform her only son, but a terse three line businesslike telegram – cold, insensitive, almost callous; a telling sign of the mechanized times.Then first-person narrat...

Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.الحياة لا تساوى أي عناءهذا هو الشعار الأعظم لفلسفة اللامبالاةتلك الفلسفة التي يتمسك بعضنا بها كطوق نجاة أخيرتلك الفلسفة التي أتمسك أنا بها كطوق نجاة أخيرلا يعرف أبدا أي بشري هذه الفلسفة حتى يتألم ألما عظيماإما أن يقضي عليهوإما يعيد بعثه من جديدوميرسو هنا وضعه مختلفإننا لا نعرف ما الذي أصابه ليصير هكذا‏إنه يحمل كل أوجاع البشرية وكل سؤال أطلقه الانسان في ‏الفراغربما لم يصبه شيءربما ولد كبش فداء ‏ربما جاء إلى هذا العالم ليفعل ما لم يجر...

‘It was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.’Even if we exist in a world devoid of meaning, why is it that our actions still bear so much weight? The crime and punishment of Nobel Prize winning author Albert Camus’ academically canonized The Stranger depicts the ironies of enforcing meaning in a void and the absurdities that surround us as humans walking towards the same cold, lifeless fate. ‘Since we're all going to die,’ writes narrator Meursault, ‘it's obvious that when ...

الغريب بدأ لدي خلال السنوات الأخيرة هاجس قرائي مقلق، نوع من الشعور بالنقص كلما مر أمامي عنوان مشهور لم اقرأه بعد، فمن روايات دستويفسكي التي جمعتها ولكني لم اقرأ منها إلا كتاباً واحداً، إلى كافكا وشتاينبك وتشيخوف وغيرهم ممن لم اقرأ لهم شيئاً أو قرأت عملاً وحيداً، وهذا بسبب أن مرحلة القراءة الجوهرية لدي – الثانوية والجامعة – كانت فقيرة، فالمك��بات لدينا في الرياض كانت لا تعرض إلا النادر من الكتب في التسعينات وبدايات الألفية، كما أنني كنت حينها بلا خارطة قرائية، فلا مكتبة في المنزل، ولا قارئ مهتم ف...

If You Exist"The Stranger" dramatises the issues at the heart of existentialism.The same issues are probably at the heart of life, whether or not you believe in a god.Being JudgedIt's interesting that there has been a crime and now Meursault is being "judged".The judgement is symbolic not only of the justice system, but of God's judgement of humanity.Defending YourselfYou would normally expect the defendant to assert their innocence or plead not guilty in the criminal justice system (cue Law and...

I don’t know what to do with these stars anymore. I give stars to books and then I think, ‘god, you give five stars to everything, people will think you are terribly undiscriminating’ – so then I give four stars or even three stars to some books. Then I look back and it turns out that that I’ve given four stars to Of Human Bondage and honestly, how could I possibly have thought it was a good idea to give that book less than five stars? It is the absurdity of human conventions that has us doing s...

The book is simply written and a rather quick read, but the depth Camus manages to convey through this simplicity is astounding. I think a problem a lot of people have with this book is that they fail to look beyond the whole "what is the meaning of life" message. While an interesting question, the book raises so many other philosophical questions beyond this. What I found the most interesting of these is "what truly defines humanity or makes someone human?" During Meursault's trial, he is const...

If every few words of praise I’ve seen for “The Stranger” over my lifetime materialized into small chunks of rock in space, there’d be enough sh!t to conjure up the Oort Cloud. Much like this distant collection of debris bordering the outer solar system, I can’t really comprehend the acclaim heaped on this story, but luckily, like the Cloud, it’s usually out of sight, out of mind, and has absolutely no discernable current influence on my life. And just like the Oort can occasionally spit a chunk...