classics

Mersault is a "stranger," identifid as a person who does not feel remorse for anything: He does not cry at his mother's funeral, kills a man, and even shows apathy toward his own death. The most fascinating part, to me, is the ending where Camus provides a question of "human justice." It is individuals who give meaning to what they believe is important. Yet the society labels what is "right" and "wrong," which is often difficult for some people to accept. The society and its human justice sometimes is what makes the world absurd. However, we shall never function as a country, as a group, if there were no rules for us to follow.

If you find this book difficult to understand, I would recommend that you read The Myth of Sisyphus or A Happy Death. As you continue to read Camus's work, you shall come to understand his quesions, the questions toward absurd societies, the questions to which Camus struggled to find answers yet did not find satisfactory ones.

Albert Camus is one of my favorite writers.

The Stranger was the first novel of Camus' labeled "absurd," and it defines Camus for most Americans. The plot is quite simple, with none of the diversions common in popular literature. The main character is not a hero, has no "true" love affair and the pursuit of money and power never enters the story. The Stranger is an honest atheist, waiting for life to happen.

The title l'Etranger, has been poorly translated. The U.S. title, The Stranger, implies that the main character, Meursault, has been viewed as a "strange" or "odd" person for some time. The other possible meaning is that no one knows him. Meursault is a stranger even to those who think they know him. These definitions do not seem adequate. The U.K. title, The Outsider, only serves to confuse readers even more.

Meursault is the archetype of a middle-class man. He works as a clerk, rents an apartment and draws no attention to himself. He is, if anything, very ordinary. Meusault might even be boring. He lacks deep convictions and passion. If he is estranged from any aspect of French society, it is religion--he does not believe in the symbols and the rituals of faith.

Estranged? "Cela m'est égal."

Along with the title, Camus took care in naming the main character. Meursault's name is symbolic of the Mediteranean sea. Mer mean "sea" and soliel is French for "sun." The sea and the sun meet at the beach, where Meursault's defining actions occur.

Meusault is an anti-hero. His only redeeming quality is his honesty, no matter how absurd. In existential terms, he is "authentic" to himself. Meusault does not believe in God, but he cannot lie because he is true to himself. This inability to falsify empathy ultimately condemns him. Meursault has faith only in what he, himself, can see or experience with his other senses. He is not a philosopher, a theologian or a deep thinker. Meursault exists as he is, not trying to be anything more or less than himself.

Why did Camus' readers recognize Meursault as a plausible character? After two World Wars and much suffering, many people came to live life much as Meursault does. Or at least they tried to do so. These people lost the will to do more than exist. There was no hope and no desire. The only goal for many people was simple survival. Even then, the survival seemed empty and hollow. We learn how empty Meursault's existence is through his relationships. He is not close to his mother; we learn he does not cry at her funeral. He does not seem close to his lover, Marie Cardona. Of her, Meursault states, "To me, she was only Marie." There is no passion is Meursault's words or in his life.

What sets Camus apart from many existentialists and modern philosophers in general is his acceptance of contradiction. Yes, Camus wrote, life is absurd and death renders life meaningless--for the individual. But mankind and its societies are larger than any one individual person.

Set on the northern coast of Algeria, THE STRANGER is more a
psychological novel than a hard-core crime read. The story opens with the death of the protagonist's mother in a distant old people's Home. The young man, to whom Camus never gives a first name, is a mild-mannered, unambitious office worker, who treats Life as a spectator sport. His calm and cool demeanor during the all-night vigil and subsequent funeral surprise and repel the residents who knew his mother. Dazed by lack of sleep and dizzy from the long walk to the village church in blistering heat, Meursault says little and remains outwardly unemotional.

Back in Algiers he spends a pleasant weekend with his casual girlfriend and agrees to help an acquaintance from his building write a warning letter to his unfaithful Moorish mistress. The plot is barely visible up to this point, when the gender and racial feuds become a serious vendetta. Emotions escalate as tropical passions erupt in both premeditated and implusive violence.

If Part I may be called The Crime, Part II proves the Aftermath. The unnamed anti-hero can be described as the prisoner and later as the defendant. His vauge, controlled responses confound his interrogators and dismay the earnest Catholic chaplain. More concerned with adjusting to the harshness of prison life, Meursault devises a mental stategy to cope with deprivation: women, cigarettes and personal freedom.
Even hs court-appointed defense council often despairs of him during the long months before the actual trial.

This novel provides interesting contrast between French and American
courtroom prodcedure. But why is the strange prisoner--almost outside the pale of normal human emotions--really on trial: for the murder of an Arab who was stalking his friend, or for not being a good son? Was his "Crime" against society in general more shocking than a beachside shooting practically in self-defense? Narrated in the more intense first person, THE STRANGER offers insights into social (or emotional) deviants--examining how civlization seeks to justify or punish them. Camus
deliberately ends his story prematurely--leaving readers to fill in their own denouement. Is society truly in danger from the dark tides of one man's soul? How could this Sizzling Sands murder have been prevented? Just what has the prisoner learned
from his experience with French Justice?