The Stranger

A solid 4.5/5.

This isn't the kind of book that will initially blow your mind when you first read it, there aren't any crazy plot twists, but it's something that will stay with you for a long time after you're done with it, slowly seep into your brain, and resurface every so often whenever you think about life and its purpose.

There isn't much to say about the plot without being too spoiler-ish. The book follows our very blase and nonchalant narrator, Meursault, as he attends his mother's funeral, and then he goes on to live his every day life. We are introduced to his colleague-turned-girlfriend, his neighbours in his flat, and some other side characters, and their drab lives.

On paper, it may not sound interesting, may sound boring even, but there's something so hypnotic and addicting in the way Meursault drones on and on. Nothing ever seems to matter to him. He's unemotional when his mother dies, not even wishing to see her in the casket. He experiences sexual attraction to his girlfriend Marie, but when she asks if he loves her, he doesn't quite know what to say. He doesn't seem to have an opinion for any which way, or to care about much. He goes on and on as he has always does.

But then things take a turn in the second part of the book, and there is much to unpack there, so a majority of my thoughts will be under the spoiler tags:

Meursault kills an "Arab" who had been hounding his friend and neighbour Raymond, who had physically abused the man's sister a few days earlier for cheating on him. He's sent to prison, and we see him carry his non-emotionality over there. Five months pass in prison and he doesn't even seem to feel it, it's all one unending day to him. We go through a courtroom sequence, the verdict is passed, and Meursault is sentenced to be executed by guillotine. This is when Meursault's non-emotional facade finally cracks. He submits an appeal, and when he is sent back to his cell to await the result of the appeal or his fate at the guillotine, is when we see him at his most raw. He ruminates about how the thought of "twenty more years" of life was like "poisoned joy" to him. A chaplain enters, whom Meursault has already refused to see at least three times on account of the fact that he does not believe in God. The chaplain emotionally asks Meursault to reconsider. "I know you've wished for another life," says the chaplain. Then Meursault snaps.[The chaplain] wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man. Whereas it looked as if I was the one who'd come up emptyhanded. But I was sure about me, about everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my life and sure of the death I had waiting for me. Yes, that was all I had. But at least I had as much of a hold on it as it had on me.What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too.... for the first time in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself--so like a brother, really--I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again.The full force of Camus's nihilism comes through in this impassioned speech, and on some levels I already can relate. The universe doesn't care, the world doesn't care. Meursault's indifference to just about everything in his life only reflects how uncaring the world is. Whether or not he sees his mother in the casket or cries at her funeral doesn't change the fact that she has lived her life and now is dead. What did it matter if he testified to the police that Raymond's partner had cheated on him and that he got away with physically abusing her? What did it matter that he agreed to marry Marie even though he doesn't really care either way about her specifically? What did it matter that he fired four more bullets into the body of the man he had already shot once and was probably already dead at the time?The world goes on as it always does despite his decisions. The world goes on whether or not Meursault is pardoned or marches on to his fate at the guillotine. The world goes on no matter what, indifferently, uncaringly. And even if he makes decisions that affects the course of human society, what happens after that? When human beings go extinct, or when the Earth ceases to exist? The universe goes on, just as indifferently.I guess an appropriate way to end this review is to copy and paste choice bits of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.Mama, just killed a manPut a gun against his headPulled my trigger, now he's deadMama, life had just begunBut now I've gone and thrown it all awayMama, oohDidn't mean to make you cryIf I'm not back again this time tomorrowCarry on, carry onAs if nothing really mattersToo late, my time has comeSends shivers down my spineBody's aching all the timeGoodbye everybody, I've got to goGotta leave you all behind and face the truthMama, oohI don't want to dieI sometimes wish I'd never been born at all