The Stranger
Ratings1,258
Average rating3.9
I’m not too sure what I just read. It really wasn’t much of anything. It wasn’t bad or good. Just…was. At least it was short.
A nice little story, but I couldn't get anything out of it. It's a bit too nihilistic for my taste.
I honestly can't remember why I liked this when I read it in high school. So. Depressing. And the protagonist is not even a real person, with actual emotions and motives you could relate to. I mean. I know that's also the point, but still. This book just makes me angry.
Read it first time in childhood to seem pretentious. didn't understand anything. Read it now again. Understood some parts but will pretend like I understood it fully. You should read it to sound like an intellectual.
Contains spoilers
man is realllyyy bad with dealing with heat. then prison teaches him how to have feelings. character development consists of this man learning how to say more than three sentences at a time.
not entirely sure what I read but it was vaguely entertaining i guess. second worst excuse for murder only after sorry officer I tripped and fell 😭
One sentence synopsis... An exploration of absurdity through the life of Meursault, a French Algerian whose apathetic responses to society's standards of behaviour lead him to his death.
Read it if you like... nothing. And dislike nothing. And have no feelings for anything at all. Perfect book for you. Far stretch comparison but at times Meursault gives off some very Patrick Bateman, dead-behind-the-eyes vibes.
Dream casting... I don't think a film version of this book makes any sense but somehow I'd trust Joaquin Phoenix to find a way to make it work.
A quick read, where the mundane details of life melt into an escalatiomn of tension. The protagonist narrates from a detached point of view, it is almost like he observing his own life and not fully engaged in what he is swept up in. Campus, who died tragically young in a car accident, hits it out of the park,
This was a required read during HS - I have not re-read it since then...I did like it at the time, but have little memory of the story.
I can’t say this held my interest for long after the turn. Sociopathic anti-heroes don’t tickle me like they did when I was younger.
Still, I admire the boldness of the text and its brevity.
Another gripping and absurd tale by Albert Camus. This is the story of Meursault, a man condemned not just for murder but for his indifference. After killing a man in a beachside altercation, he finds himself on trial—less for the act itself and more for his failure to grieve at his mother's funeral. His unemotional nature, his casual romance the day after her death, and his friendship with a pimp all serve as evidence against him, turning a case of manslaughter into a philosophical indictment of his character.
I had no idea what this was about before I read it, and I kinda still don't.
Il n'a pas une goutte de sang dans les veines, exaspérant. C'était un bon exercice de compréhension écrit et rien de plus.
I don't know what to do with The Stranger.
If The Stranger is Camus' exploration of the absurdity of existence through a sociopathic neurodivergent protagonist whose idiosyncracies represent the strengths and weaknesses of nihilistic worldviews, then this is a five star novel, worthy of its place in the canon.
If The Stranger is Camus' exploration of the absurdity of existence through a brave young protagonist whose disinclination to follow social norms is employed as a referendum against such passe conventions, and whose enslavement to his personal appetites is portrayed as an elevated consciousness, than I say this novel can drift in the way of all nihilistic thought: into circular, self defeating irrelevance.
The writing I enjoyed. The wrestling with authorial intent I enjoyed. The protagonist, Meursault, I did not enjoy in the least, and still am not sure whether or not that was Camus' intent.
It's short and sharply written – read and decide for yourself!
im droping this book
i havent read it again in a long time and last time i stopped at page 36.
this is book is good, maybe too good and too real for me
i want to read it again sometime later, maybe when im more mature and not afraid to be eaten with the idea of life is meaningless and things like that.
in this point in my life i feel that life is still need to be persuit
Summary: This story begins when Mersault gets news of his mother’s death and follows him as he meets a young woman, goes on a date, and…gets into some serious trouble with the law. One of the major issues that Mersault faces in the story is the way other people perceive his expression of his emotions and their questioning of his ability to feel normal emotions.
Final Rating: 2.5
Can appreciate the bigger picture the author was trying to present, but just found my self bored reading this.
As a religious person, it's hard to understand how a person can believe in absurdism. While this novel is a perfect way to describe and show what absurdism is, it's also a good way to see how people lose some of the most important morals, including not showing empathy or feeling guilty of murder. It's honestly sad that there's many people in this world who act like the main character in this book.
liked at the end the gulf between what he knows and what he feels but he closes it with ease as he confronts the clergyman and I don't think I'm quite there yet
Hardly anyone listened to Salamano either, when he recalled how I had been good to his dog and when he answered a question about my mother and me by saying that I had run out of things to say to Maman and that was why I'd put her in a home. "You must understand," Salamano kept saying, "you must understand." But no one seemed to understand. He was ushered out.
Actually I didn't know what to expect from this book cuz this was my first fiction philosophy book