Search - The Stranger

The Stranger is not merely one of the most widely read novels of the 20th century, but one of the books likely to outlive it. Written in 1946, Camus's compelling and troubling tale of a disaffected, apparently amoral young man has earned a durable popularity (and remains a staple of U.S. high school literature courses) in part because it reveals so vividly the anxieties of its time. Alienation, the fear of anonymity, spiritual doubt--all could have been given a purely modern inflection in the hands of a lesser talent than Camus, who won the Nobel Prize in 1957 and was noted for his existentialist aesthetic. The remarkable trick of The Stranger, however, is that it's not mired in period philosophy.

The plot is simple. A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. The trial's proceedings are absurd, a parsing of incidental trivialities--that Meursault, for instance, seemed unmoved by his own mother's death and then attended a comic movie the evening after her funeral are two ostensibly damning facts--so that the eventual sentence the jury issues is both ridiculous and inevitable.

Meursault remains a cipher nearly to the story's end--dispassionate, clinical, disengaged from his own emotions. "She wanted to know if I loved her," he says of his girlfriend. "I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't." There's a latent ominousness in such observations, a sense that devotion is nothing more than self-delusion. It's undoubtedly true that Meursault exhibits an extreme of resignation; however, his confrontation with "the gentle indifference of the world" remains as compelling as it was when Camus first recounted it. --Ben Guterson

Easily one of my favorite books. It was required reading in my high school French class, and so I struggled through it, of course missing most of the meaning. I picked up the English translation a few years later. This time I was left with a raw feeling inside, now better understanding Meursault. It's hard to describe the appeal of the book, but it has definitely been an eye-opener for me, in more ways than one.

I hated, hated, hated this book. It came highly recommended and I voluntarily (and rather enthusiastically) picked it up. There has never been a main character I have been more disgusted by, a storyline that has been less interesting, and a writing style that has been more obnoxious. I would burn it if it were anything other than a book.

Thankfully, the beauty of books is that like people, you won't love every one you come across. So I hope you're one of the many who WILL enjoy this -- because I am vastly outnumbered! :)

I hated this book. I read for a college class and it couldn't be done fast enough. The plot, the characters, the writing style, ug. It was written like Dick and Jane with amoral characters.
I know it is a classic but there are so many more out there worthy of the title.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn just for a couple of choices.

This is the story of a quite ordinary man who is content with his quite ordinary life. When his employer asks if he would like a change and move to Paris to work in a new branch of the business he says it doesn't matter as he is quite content with his life as it is. But life has a way of throwing curves at people sometimes and this little man finds himself quite unexpectedly committing a murder. He is, of course, arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. The story began with this little man attending the funeral of his mother. Like his mother, he thinks, he is quite ready for the next stage - death. What an interesting and memorable little story!

Starts with his mother's death and gets more depressing from there. It's a short book, because the main character never has anything to say, or chooses not to.