The Stranger

by Albert Camus

Other authorsStuart Gilbert (Translator)
Hardcover, 1973

Status

Available

Call number

F Cam

Call number

F Cam

Barcode

281

Publication

Knopf (1973), 155 pages

Description

When a young Algerian named Meursault kills a man, his subsequent imprisonment and trial are puzzling and absurd. The apparently amoral Meursault--who puts little stock in ideas like love and God--seems to be on trial less for his murderous actions, and more for what the authorities believe is his deficient character.

Media reviews

It is quite a trick to write of life & death, as Camus does, in terms of an almost total social and moral vacuum. He may get philosophical satisfaction from it. Most readers will call it philosophic doodling.
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"The Stranger,” a novel of crime and punishment by Albert Camus, published today, should touch off in this country a renewed burst of discussion about the young French writers who are at the moment making more unusual literary news than the writers of any other country.

Original publication date

1942-05-19

User reviews

LibraryThing member baswood
Meursault, the anti-hero of Camus masterpiece L’etranger continually puts the reader on the back foot: as he appears as an intensely self-interested man, but also an innocent abroad, he can be an extremely sensual man, but also a callous individual, he seems to be both a rebel and a man
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desperately trying to conform, above all he is an absurd man and we witness his growing self-awareness of the world around him that he struggles to come to terms with. The novel takes the form of a bildungsroman, as we witness his growth through adversity following the choices he makes in a life, which he comes to believe is absurd.. I read this back in the 1970’s and found I could identify with Meursault the sensual self-interested young man of part 1 of the novel, however I could not get to grips with his seeming acquiescence to his fate in part 2, putting it down to the establishments vindictiveness towards a young man, who appeared to rebel against society. Re-reading it again last week I discovered along with Meursault, that his fate is signposted from the start and it his own intellectual acknowledgement of his variance to all the people that he comes into contact with, that leads him to accept his destiny..

Camus takes us into the mind of Meursault relating his story in the first person, right from the arresting first couple of lines: “Mother died today, Or maybe , yesterday; I can’t be sure”, until the final paragraph of the novel where he says “No one, no one in the world had any right to weep for her” In between Meursault is launched on a bildungsroman that is so beautifully crafted in just over 100 pages that the reader can look back with ease to the relevant issues in an extraordinary life.

Meursault is a man who does not understand how to fit into the society in which he lives. From the opening scene of his travel and attendance at his mother’s funeral, his missteps are many and his embarrassment leads him to shut himself off from other people. He remains true to his feelings but his inability to adapt to the conventions of daily life forces him to lie to himself and to others. It is Camus skill which enables us to almost see the workings of a mind in turmoil and yet be sympathetic to his struggles. It is Meursalt’s behaviour at his mother’s funeral that will come to haunt him when he is on trial for murder.

The singular event that leads to Meursault’s epiphany is the killing of an Arab on the beach. This is the start of his awareness of who he is and Camus ends part one of the book with some marvellous prose:

“And so with that crisp whip-crack sound, it all began. I shook off my sweat and the clinging veil of light. I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of the beach on which I had been happy. But I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace. And each successive shot was another loud fateful rap on the door of my undoing.”.

Part 2 of the novel describes Meursault’s imprisonment and trial for murder, where his past is examined to ascertain/prove that he is an outsider and as such a monster: a danger to the society in which he lives. Our sympathies are all with Meursault as he stumbles towards an understanding of his situation, that he can do so, is the triumph of this novel. His approaching death forces him to reflect on his life and he realises that he is living in an absurd world. His actions have been that of an absurd man and it is now when he can recognise this fact that he can be free. He says when under immense pressure from a priest to finally believe in God:

“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 have felt like it……….. From the dark horizons of my future a sort of slow persistent breeze had been blowing towards me, all my life long from the years that were to come”

Camus has taken the reader into the absurd world: A world where life has no meaning and we are all at the mercy of an irrational unfeeling universe. It is only when we can finally accept this and our imminent death that we can truly be free. Free that is to live to the utmost in the years up to our death, because our reason tells us there is nothing else.

Meursault becomes an absurd hero, because he no longer fears death and can get on with the rest of his life, however long or short that might be. An understanding of Camus thoughts on an absurd sensitivity adds much to an understanding of L’etranger.

Albert Camus has written a beautiful thought provoking book which has layers of meaning, but on whatever level you come to it I don’t think you can fail to be moved by the fate of Meursault. I was when I first read it and again for different reason on my recent re-read. I say beautiful because of the powerful descriptive writing that makes us see the town in Algeria where this takes place. We feel the malevolent and benevolent power of the sun; another key theme in the novel as it seems to cajole and then goad Meursault into action and non action. The opening chapter describing his mother’s funeral is a masterful piece of writing. At the end of the novel Meursault has come along way from the man who near the start of the novel confessed that he “didn’t like Sundays”

I read the penguin modern classics edition, which has a translation by Stuart Gilbert dating from 1961. I cannot recommend this as I feel that Gilbert takes too many liberties with the text, for example his translation of the title of the book is The Outsider rather than The Stranger. I read it alongside the original French text and thought that Camus’s words speak for themselves and so a more modern translation like that of Mathew Ward may be better.

A 20th century classic and a must read 5 stars.
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LibraryThing member cammykitty
I read this in translation, and certainly need to read it again. It is a deceptively simple book, but dense with things to think about. I work with kids with autism, so the way I read the book may not be the way many people read it. To me, something was off with Meursault. Not quite autism, but his
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brain doesn't function the way most people's do. He lives in the moment with very little value judgement. He doesn't dwell on what is past and can't be changed. He doesn't predict much of what will happen in his future. He follows the path of least resistance, agree when he doesn't care, eat when other's offer food, lie when it seems to be no good reason not to.

The way he interprets the world is in stark contrast to those who are judging him. I know this book is one of the pillars of existentialism, and Meursault's personality is quintessential existential, but on some level he read as disabled to me. I kept seeing an alien mind being judged by those who were not his peers. It of course raises the question of justice for those who aren't neurotypically normal. Of course, it also brings up wonderful issues of the way we interpret and experience our world, especially if the personal end is near.

I enjoyed this book immensely and hope to go back to it because I'm sure it will reveal more of itself to me in the future.
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LibraryThing member TheCriticalTimes
For the first time I've read a book I completely misinterpreted. Or maybe that's the whole point of the short novel The Stranger by Albert Camus. Even now I still don't really know what to think of it. Sure, I've read the Wikipedia entry and the introduction, the foreword, the analysis, companion,
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etc, but it still doesn't quite sit well with me. It's a good book. In fact it's a superb book and the Nobel Prize for literature that Camus received for his work is more than deserved. But it still doesn't sit quite well with me, and that, I'm convinced, is the entire point.

The short story describes a number of strange events in the otherwise boring life of the main character who we only know as Meursault. It becomes rapidly clear that this personage has a rather peculiar view on life. It's not that he's manic depressive. He can't even be labeled depressed at all, but somehow this man goes through life empty with his only interest the sensory stimuli provided by the beach, the sea and his mistress. Then again he is not a pure hedonist. It is these odd internal conflicts which I believe makes readers quite uncomfortable reading the story. Of course all of this is to prove a point.

At first I believed that the pivotal point in the book revolved around Meursault apparently killing a man without any reason at all other than that the sun was in his eyes. For a while this event appears to represent the theme of absurdity which Camus tried to instill in the novel. Only after reading the later parts a few times did I realize that the responses to the crime of those around Meursault were what constituted the real absurdity. Meursault is questioned about his motives by the representatives of the law but they are more concerned with the fact he did not show the expected emotions at his mother's funeral as they seem to be with the odd murder. All the secondary characters are trying to make sense of the world while the protagonist takes life an sich.

As a reader you feel yourself stepping away from all those characters around the protagonist who are trying to either tell him how he should feel or who are trying to obtain some form of confession or meaning. It is the view of the main character of the events in the later part of the book that makes this such a fantastic story. It is as if you're in a slight psychological earthquake in which you find yourself re-orienting after the tremors stop. In that sense the absurdity of life that Camus first and foremost tried to convey is very well presented and represented. So much so that at some point the irrationality of the crime Meursault commits fades into the background.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
I suppose part of the putative virtue of this book is that it cuts to the heart of the matter, but nnhhh, when we've got existentialists-of-the-absurd like Kafka and Genet out there, to say nothing of Camus's own The Plague, this starts to seem like kind of thin broth. It was influential for me as
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a young, as it almost had to be, just because of its position in what we used to call the counterculture, for teens trying to figure out if they were causeless rebels or incipient sages or hollow men or what they were--cf. the same old suspects, Kerouacs Salingers Burroughses and Vonneguts, few of which I have more than a mild interest in ever revisiting. Meursault is frozen, inert, very very far from the authentic life and for an axe to break the ice all he has to hand is a gun and the famous always-already-killed Arab (this isn't just a postcolonial novel either, by the way, guys, this is like a type of alt-alt-right (in that M. isn't political and doesn't know he's racist) nihilism avant la lettre, Meursault as a weird missing link between Raskolnikov and Dylann Roof)--well. I'm no doubt just as far from the authentic life but I'm full of weird feelings and a strong vested interest in feeling them, and that's largely why I never warmed to this b, I think. Flat affect, pedantic insistence that IT'S gonna tell YOU what the only thing is that could possibly be of real interest to a human being (spoilers, it's an execution). If this is actually the shitty choice the bro-ey existential literature of the twentieth century is forcing on us, give me the ones who are mad to live and mad to kill Arabs, I guess--but more, give me Margarita's flight on her broomstick or Borges's infinite library or Ballard's infinite city or Calvino's barone rampante or, yes, Ice-9 Holden C.'s peaked hunting cap Interzone and Dr. Benway, yes, f*ck*ng dingledodies, the infinite crenellations of a sexy convict's *ssh*l*, let me wake up as a large bug and watch the death machine that is life shake itself all to pieces as it pulls off my bug legs/head/thorax. It all gives you more soreness than Camus gives you here, and even if you too still end up condemned it's better to count your blessings that you were here at all to wink into consciousness, go "Is this ... me!" and wink out than to waste your time hoping the guillotine will malfunction (they keep it in pretty good order I hear).
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LibraryThing member fuzzy_patters
The Stranger is about Meursault, an unemotional, rational man who shoots and Arab on the beach. After the shooting, he stands trial and is sentenced to be executed by the guillotine. He spends the latter part of the novel dealing with his impending death, which is the heart of the novel. How do we
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deal with death, and how do we become free from our fear of death and living?

I loved The Stranger, but I shouldn’t have loved the stranger. As a Christian, I should have been appalled at Camus’s insistence, through the story of the condemned criminal Meursault, that life is meaningless and the world is absurd. Yet, I did love it. Regardless of religious beliefs, it is impossible to escape and fail to appreciate the rationality of Camus’s point. Regardless of when we die, we are all going to die eventually, and the world will go on without us. Our existence has no great purpose, and there is nothing to fear in death. Freedom comes from accepting these premises. While I may not agree with the underlying warrants in this viewpoint, it is difficult to disagree with these conclusions if you accept these warrants. For this reason, I loved the novel. Camus’s entire philosophy of the absurd was portrayed beautifully in an engaging story that was difficult to refute if one first accepts Camus’s underlying beliefs.
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LibraryThing member sparklegirl
I didn't get this novel. Just not my style. I understand that it's part of the style of the book, but it's very blah: I walked home. I ate dinner. I watched people out my window. I smoked. I ate some more. I killed a dude. I was completely unconnected to the story. Which is kinda the point, but I
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didn't enjoy it.
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LibraryThing member StephenBarkley
Have you ever dreamed that you committed murder only to awake in a panic about the consequences? The Stranger is a short, simple, and strangely disturbing philosophical novel of casual murder and its consequences. I mentioned dreaming because as you read the work, you almost get the impression that
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the main character is dreaming his way through his life and crime. It feels to casual to be real.

This novel gripped me in a couple different ways:

1. The apathy and lack of engagement in life on the part of the protagonist echoes the way we live life on the surface today. Camus nailed that attitude over 60 years ago.

2. The protagonist's atheism, especially as it clashed with the prison chaplain's worldview, forces the reader to contemplate death and the afterlife. I found it profound that a clash with religion (even to reject it) was the major cathartic moment in the killer's life.

This novel deserves its fame. If you want to reflect on life as you live it, The Stranger will get the gears spinning.
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LibraryThing member Cecrow
The original title of this novel "L'Etranger" does translate literally into English as "The Stranger", but this novel's context has also led to its translation as "The Outsider". The difference between the two words in fact draws a line between interpretations of the novel. This is the story of a
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murderer. Either he stands outside of the society the rest of us count ourselves members of, someone vile we can examine from a comfortable distance, or else he is one stranger among all us who are strangers, none of us mattering to the universe - a creepier version that defies you to offer real counterargument as it sets up and tears apart religious and judicial arguments.

I'm a firm believer that where non-fiction teaches us facts, fiction teaches us about emotions. What to do then, with a novel's protagonist who is so dispassionate? The absence of a thing can teach us the value of its presence. Meursault has dismissed everything that makes life worth living as being irrelevant to what life is, but then, of what stuff is life? He doesn't say - or rather, he denies it has any substance. There are times we find ourselves not feeling what we think we ought to, feeling unaffected, feeling like the stranger in the room. It's another thing entirely to justify remaining stuck there and refusing to budge, embracing permanent hopelessness and adopting it as one's philosophy. Filed among "books to ban from the house when depressed."
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LibraryThing member bongo_x
OK, laugh all you want, but I had never heard of this book and had no idea it was so popular or influential when I read it. I just saw it and picked it up and read it. And was blown away. Certainly not the feel good book of the summer, but it did affect me strongly and I recommend it, if there is
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anyone else out there who hasn't read it yet.
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LibraryThing member DK_Atkinson
An example of absurdism, this novel and it's main character left me cold. I can usually find something to connect with, but the disconnect of the main character is so complete I can't relate to him in the slightest.
LibraryThing member FolkeB
I really wanted to enjoy this book. I had heard good reviews from friends, and had seen it on many “Must Read”-type book lists. However, these reviews must have went to my head, since my expectations were not met after reading the book.

The Stranger is translated from Camus’ original French
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and holds an important place in the philosophical realm of existentialism. It is arranged in two parts – before and after a major turning point for the main character, Meursault – that have two distinct writing styles. The first has short and concise sentences, which, although making it easier to read, often left me feeling distanced from the main character (perhaps this was Camus’ objective?). It is in the second section where Camus becomes more lyrical with his sentences, allowing Meursault to express his thoughts and feelings about this turning point.

While I did find some of Meursault’s existential ponderings interesting and valuable, I think I was too rushed to finish the book to see what happens to his character instead of taking time to examine his ponderings more slowly. I plan to read it again, though, which is why I give it three stars.

Susan K.
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LibraryThing member mkboylan
- [The Stranger] by [[Albert Camus]] This was my first Camus, which choice is an interesting coincidence. I chose it simply because it was available as a free ebook. Little did I know just how apropos the topic would be. My mother, like the narrator's, is in an assisted living home and this plays a
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major part of the story. This book has been reviewed and the story discussed at least a million times so I'm bypassing that. I just want to describe my experience of reading it. Every year I spend a month or so in the Sonoran Desert. It takes me a few days to settle in. As I slow down, I begin to see the subtleties of color and the large variety of plants, cactus. As I continue to slow, the desert life begins to finally catch my eye and I realize I am surrounded by lizards, insects, bunnies, coyotes. That was the experience I had of reading this book. There was something about it (the writing duh) that drew me right in and made me want to keep reading, yet nothing much was really happening. I liked the narrator but I could not have told you why. I don't know how anything so empty and lifeless could draw me in, but it did, it stuck, and I am still thinking about it.
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LibraryThing member Carmenere
I truly loved this story as well as my introduction to Camus. It was weird, his writing style gave me the feeling that I was watching a B movie but not in a negative way. Having much of this book take place in Algiers gave it an esoteric and other worldly atmosphere. It gave the reader the
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impression of being an observer into the world of the protagonist, Meursault. He seems to be ambivilent about many things and virtually emotionless where others would certainly be affected. He lets the world pass before his eyes without being much aprt of it. He seems to be just an observer, as well, even when he commits an act that will change his life completely.
A real page turner and very thought provoking.
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LibraryThing member Sylak
Curiosity led me to reading 'L'etranger' (two months before my fortieth birthday) and being bilingual I decided to give the original French text a try. I wasn't too sure what to expect - it's hardly my usual taste in literature; but, for some reason which I still can't quite put my finger on, I
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enjoyed it immensely! It was much the same feeling as I got from reading J. D. Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye' - neither book, I thought, were particularly ‘mind blowing’, and yet there is definitely something there which stays with you! Meursault could be any one of us at one time or another during our lives - Lost and lacking any direction in life, drifting from day to day, situation to situation; he just allows fate to take him over and carry him blindly to it’s inevitable conclusion.
I’ve heard it said that ‘Life is a beach’. So consider this: No one should walk into the ocean and allow the waves to toss them about helplessly without putting up a struggle; or they shouldn’t be surprised to find themselves battered and drowning before very long - even on a seemingly calm sunny day.
That's what I got out of the book - anyway. But I am sure everybody has there own take on it.
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LibraryThing member frazier193
The Stranger is an excellent example of the existential novel. The story revolves around Meursault, who commits murder and awaits execution. Meursault is shockingly indifferent towards almost everything. Meursault verbalizes many of the fears that readers may hold, including alienation and
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religious skepticism. The philosophy that is found in The Stranger is interesting and engaging. Meursault comes to the realization that the universe is indifferent, and he finds solace in this. This rationale may be disturbing for many readers, but also highly provocative.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Albert Camus' novel. I found the philosophical nature of the novel absorbing. The indifference of the protagonist was shocking yet struck a chord with me. I intend to read more of the works comprising this genre.
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LibraryThing member jonbrammer
Is Merseault evil? His behavior and reactions disgust officials of the state, who seem to argue that he's totally lacking in emotion, as evidenced by his failure to weep at his mother's funeral. The central question is whether the reader is supposed to feel this same revulsion. Merseault's
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girlfriend, Marie, stands by him at the trial, along with his neighbors and acquaintances. But this doesn't change the fact that The Stranger is a world without a moral compass, where a man can abuse his dog and pine for its loss at the same time - similarly to Merseault's feelings about Marie?

I guess the absurdism is that the amoral, godless Merseault is being judged by the morality of a society that Camus sees as being a hollow facade. This novel is provocative for it cynicism about these moral questions.
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LibraryThing member Merleiv
A character type who is often referenced in culture...most recently, Don Draper in Mad Men!!!
LibraryThing member evanroskos
I like this book enough that I might just sell my current copy for this new cover version. Damn that's a fine cover!
LibraryThing member Stbalbach
Camus' third book and probably most famous - sadly on every high school reading list - is an ambiguous, paradoxical and open to endless interpretation novel - a perfect garden for literary trainees to play in a sandbox with no sharp corners and lots of possibility. Camus, a native Algerian, was
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just finishing his Philosophy degree in Nazi occupied Paris when it was published, an historical axis in place and time. Beneath the possibly derivative plot (see "Native Son" below) is an existentialist view on life, called "Absurdism", which had roots in the Enlightenment 16th century - truth is relative, believe what you can experience, God doesn't exist, life has no meaning. The kind of happy stuff we label "modern literature".

The novel reminded me a lot of Richard Wright's "Native Son" (1940), unsurprisingly both Wright and Camus were minority authors -- replace the story of Bigger and racism, with Meursalt and Absurdism. Both are young men who operate outside the normal social conventions (or so it appears), both run into trouble with the law, both are put on trial and condemned to die for murder, both have a cell-room confrontation with a priest, both a final epitaph. The 1940's were an "absurdest" time in the world. "Strangely", George W. Bush, the U.S. President known for his anti-intellectualism, was seen reading this book in 2006.
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LibraryThing member JessicaSR
The Stranger isn’t what you would expect of a novel. It didn’t even seem like a novel at all; the story didn’t follow the plot diagram like every other tale. In part one of the story, everyone would judge this book as an easy read and a little boring, but that’s exactly what Camus wants you
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to do. He expects everyone to judge the protagonist and the way he doesn’t react like how we would. I’ll admit he caught me on that and that’s why I love this book. I’m the kind of person who really hates the stories with happy endings or the resolutions you can easily predict. They don’t make me think like The Stranger does. When I read the first page of this book I was getting mad at the narrator. I realized later I was only upset because he didn’t react like how I would have. He was so different and quiet that I couldn’t really connect with him; that’s what made me judge him. People always have to judge the weirdoes just because they don’t “fit” in the crowd. We all have relationships but only with the people that can somehow relate to us. It’s hard to admit but it’s true. It’s like the status quo we have in High School; you see these groups of people were they all dress alike and you can’t tell them apart. The ones that stand out are punished by being the losers. In The Stranger, (do not continue reading if you don’t want to spoil the ending) the protagonist didn’t cry when his mother dies and for that, the court agrees to use a guillotine on him in front of everyone.
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LibraryThing member malrubius
Great book. Intense plotting. Great narrator. Great characters. Thought-provoking. Deep.
LibraryThing member vandev11
A Frenchman named Mersault attacks and kiils and Arab man while on vaction in Algeria. He is then tried and goes to prison for his actions, where he ruminates on his life and the nature of his existence.

"The Stranger" is most effective as a discussion of philosophy, since the latter half of the
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book contains some pretty lengthy sections that can be analyzed from a variety of perspectives. Students should find this book to be an easy read, yet some of the language is a bit wordy and some sections are a little dry.
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LibraryThing member akmargie
Something about what was going on in my life lead me to a deep connection to this book I don't think I could replicate.
LibraryThing member nx74defiant
The flat unemotional reactions of Meursault the Autistic boy in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

I know that wasn't what Albert Camus intended. He never heard of the Autism spectrum. But, that is what Merusault reminded me off. The lack of emotional connection with people. The
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observing details of his surroundings. It was as he didn't understand the question when asked if he felt bad about his mother's death.
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LibraryThing member bakabaka84
Camus' famous book that explores the nature of the man confronting the absurd. While on the surface the story might seem commonplace, a man kills another and then I tried for it, yet the actual purpose of the story is an analogy of the Philosophy of the absurd. The basic gist of the absurd is that
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human lives have no rational meaning or order and that yet because we can't accept this we try and create structure and meaning in our life.

In the context of the book the trial is supposed to represent our attempt to make a rational explanation about a seemingly irrational act, the killing of the man with no apparent motive. There are also other themes that run through the book such as the arbitrary nature of justice and the reverence for the physical world.

Overall this short book has multiple layers of meaning and is well worth the read but be warned if you look at it only for the narrative of the story you might be disappointing.
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Rating

½ (8667 ratings; 3.9)

Pages

155
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