The Stranger

“the nakedness of man faced with the absurd”

A marvelous tale of an unassuming man dragged into insanity, or perhaps perfect indifference, in a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. Meursault, the main character, is a man without feelings and 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 the friend can invite his ex-girlfriend back so he can beat her up. Mostly they are revealed when he shoots a stranger - an Arab – after an altercation on the beach. Five shots: first one, a pause, and then four more. The “four more” is what eventually gets him convicted.

At his trial for the murder, he feels that the prosecutor and his lawyer are arguing in a way that has nothing to do with him. He has a surge of feeling that he is dying to say something but then thinks “But on second thought, I didn’t have anything to say.” When he’s convicted and sentenced to death, he also acts as if it’s no big deal. This creates the breathtaking climax as the protagonist gets into an emotionally charged argument with a Preacher on the night before his execution on the topic of religion and salvation.

The book is a classic early modern work of alienation and a general indifference to life. It’s also perhaps a spin-off of my personal favorite, Crime and Punishment. Like Crime and Punishment, The Stranger feels incredibly claustrophobic and uneasy. The novel is also quite a quick read which helps convey the extreme depth wrapped in relative simplicity with it being able to be read in an afternoon. Overall this was a fantastic novel that I would 100% read again.