The Stranger

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:32:22 -0500

This was a short story about a man who seemed to float through life mostly detached. You could almost say a stoic not by philosophy but by personality. Most things that attach people to this life didn’t seem to be there for him. A French man living in colonialized Algiers. Meursault is like Dostoevsky’s Idiot. He tells the truth, but instead of having a good heart, Meursault’s heart seems indifferent. Written by Albert Camus while Hitler occupied France, this book places the character in the most extreme of human situations. Meursault and the reader are forced to realize they are condemned to death and to try to find a way to enjoy the time they have in the face of absurdity and meaninglessness. I liked this book because just when you think you have a handle on it you remember a new detail that makes you look at it from a different angle. It is similar to no country for old men in that sense and in the fact that the ending leaves it up to the reader to write the conclusion. This book was not written from a place of answers, the character is just as clueless as the reader. That is valuable and leaves it open to many interpretations. Camus had this one sentence summary:

Colonial_algiers on George's Blog

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