With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, Camus’s masterpiece gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. Behind the intrigue, Camus explores what he termed “the nakedness of man faced with the absurd” and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life. … twentieth-century life.
First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.
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It has been years since I read this in French. But this translation seemed to relate the atmosphere and emotions nearly as well as the original.
This is a hard book to read. It is existentialist literature, but an interesting genre for someone looking for something not typical.
I know this book is a brilliant exposition of the author’s philosophy of absurdism, but honestly it leaves me cold. I can accept the premise that God does not exist, but I cannot wrap my head around the idea that nothing has meaning. The book does, however, brilliantly communicates that philosophy. So while I didn’t like or relate to the book, I …
It was thought provoking.
I read this for book club and struggled with this one. The story is told in first person with Mersault the man who I would guess is a sociopath based on his lack of feeling. I found it hard to connect with any character in this book. For me I did not understand the dynamic of what Mersault did and there seemed to be some history, probably in …
Stranger in a strange land
When you start reading the first chapter of The Stranger, it is a bit baffling. A protagonist, only identified indirectly as Meursault, gives a very thorough first-person account of his mother’s funeral… There isn’t much happening for the moment, but the language used to convey so little in such excruciating detail is …
Camus’s novel The Stranger ranks among the most original and important books of the 20th century. The story takes place in a coastal town in Algeria, the country of Camus’s birth. The protagonist is a Frenchman, Meursault, who leads an ordinary, dispassionate life, stripped of religion and personal ambition. When he becomes the assailant of a …
A man who was once ambitious has lost his taste for ambition, drama, the turbulence of emotions. Now he floats through life, even at his mother’s funeral. What meaning does life have? Why live it?
I thought I had read this before, but I hadn’t. I liked it, as I also liked The Plague, although I related more to the main character from The Plague. …