The Stranger

2 stars for the first-half, 3 stars for the second.

“Podría morir ahora mismo o en veinte años, de cualquier manera voy a morir”.

Leer a Camus siempre es un deleite, y no dejo de sentirme identificado con la filosofía del absurdo. 
De la misma manera que Meursault se percata, a punto de ser ejecutado, que no importa morir, sino haber vivido y exprimido al máximo nuestro tiempo en este mundo, yo intento vivir mi vida sabedor de que no es relevante en absoluto para el resto del mundo.

Estemos dispuestos a vivirlo todo de nuevo.

A quick read with one of the most relatable protagonists I've read about, sans murder of course. I have brothers that are autistic and strangers to society in their own way so it hit a bit close to home, especially the trial knowing that even now those with Asperger's/autism and the like eccentricities are used against them. “I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else.”

3.5 ⭐️

Honestly, I didn't get it.

It had such an interesting point of view of pretty a pretty ridiculous series of events with various characters filing in and playing their absurd part in what is a silly court case.

But some of the things the main character chose to do didn't make sense as something a person with the barest of rationals would do and he didn't explain them sufficiently.

I want to understand, and that's possibly the point, that it's all nonsense and nothing really matters at the end, but my mind doesn't gel to well with that entirely.

I still enjoyed it, I can say that, but it didn't provide me with any revelations that left me in awe or anything like that.

I have to think about the book a lot because I have pretty mixed feelings about this. I think I don't vibe with existentialism philosophy properly which is probably why every existentialist philosophy book(except crime and punishment) gives me a pretty hard time understanding them properly without the least prejudice. So I am giving it 2.5 stars The depiction of existentialism here is borderline nihilism IMO, the way he thinks that nothing has meaning in life, everything is an endless void that just gives me an emo teen who hangs out on r/nihlism vibes. maybe I'm thinking this too much rationally or scientifically(and maybe I'm a very noob in philosophy) but looking at his sexual impulse towards his fiancee(ig) and thinking about how our hormones and neurons control our brain so much I was kinda hoping his sense of right or wrong should've been developed a little bit. Morality and ethics aren't only a religious construct, it's also a social contrast even animals have a sense of protective ness and duty towards their tribe and family which shares their genes. On the other hand, I liked the religious talk(or should I say one-sided lecture) between him and the police constable/the pastor. It shows most people's morality is maintained to attain the doors of heaven. It also shows how the protagonist's view toward his punishment. When we exist in a world devoid of meaning, why is it that our actions still bear so much weight?

I found this book to be strangely deep yet easy to read. It makes a reader ponder over social construct and moral identity through a story that seems simple enough but isn't quite. I could see myself as the narrator and empathise with him, yet concurrently, I could also uncover certain inhibitions that I hadn't questioned before.

This book made me want to read more of Camus' works and explore the concepts of Nihilism and Existentialism.

It scared me a little. Reading this book echoed some of the sentiments I've felt, over these years - albeit rationally less intensely (or honestly) than the protagonist (or I want to believe that), in a very precise and seemingly casual way. Something I have mostly not been prepared to do. “...that my nature was such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings...”, saying something like this is so stark, and simple, and accessible. I don't like monologues, but I really like this short of a long monologue. And the absurdity of the existing questioned in a way of explaining.

3.5.

This book leaves me with a feeling really hard to describe. Nonetheless, I believe those are the best books. At first, I didn't know where the book was heading, and made little sense to me. Now that I have read it and watched analyses on it (I'm new to reading philosophy) and I'm absolutely mesmerized by this piece.

Wow. Pretty amazing how Camus was able to transmit somehow complex philosophical concepts in an easy and upbeat language. A really worthwhile read! :)

اولین باری که اسم این کتاب رو شنیدم حقیقتاً یادم نمی‌آد. مدتی بود که بین کتاب‌هام داشتمش و خیلی علاقه‌ای به شروع کردنش نداشتم. شاید به خاطر این بود که قبلش «مرگِ خوش» رو خونده بودم و راستش خیلی دوستش نداشتم.
صحبتِ دوباره با یه دوست نسبتاً قدیمی باعث شد تصمیم بگیرم بخونمش. (توی لیست کوتاه کتاب‌های مورد علاقه‌ش در کنار یه سری اثر کلاسیک دیگه بود.)
یه سری صحنه‌های بیگانه آدم رو یاد مرگ خوش می‌ندازه. ولی در کل خیلی جذاب‌تره. (گویا مرگ خوش قدیمی‌ترین اثریه که از کامو به جا مونده و بعضی‌ها می‌گن چرک‌نویسِ بیگانه ست.)
علی رغم چیزی که فکر می‌کردم، خیلی روون بود و خیلی راحت و سریع تموم شد. به قدری جذاب بود که همش دلت می‌خواست ادامه بدی به خوندنش. خیلی به اندازه بود و حس می‌کنم چیزی اضافه نداشت.
شخصیت موسو برام قابل درک بود. و می‌تونستم مسخرگی دلیل و برهان آدم‌ها رو برای محکوم کردنش حس کنم.
راستش خیلی مطمئن نیستم از ۴ ستاره بودنش و یکم می‌ترسم به خاطر جوّ و این که بقیه خوب می‌دوننش باشه :)، ولی فکر می‌کنم ۴ اوکیه.

Part II saved this book for me, somehow. Part I was so tedious and pointless that I very nearly gave up. I still don't think that this is one of the greatest pieces of literature, but I can see it's value and contribution to modernism and Camus' philosophy.

3.5 ⭐️ if u like my year of rest and relaxation you'll probably enjoy this.

Camus never fails to strike the right chords; all I will say is that the last pages of the book sum up everything I aspire to be and everything I need to adopt to be at peace with myself. An unexpectedly engaging novel that purposely adopts a banal narrative to trigger the reader in reflecting upon other aspects of the story.

ive taken my time rating and writing this but i still have no major stance on this book except for i love it and i hate it. This is my favorite book because its so simple on the surface but supposedly has a much deeper meaning, and it does. god my mind is in scrambles every time i try to write out my thoughts about it. The reviews on it are funny and i enjoy them. It is so much and I think everyone should read it just because of how wild it is.

Interesanta perspectiva asupra vietii...

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

I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I admit was highly paradoxical: "In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death." I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.

Also, because he's an atheist. And sounds like an Aspie. He basically got sentenced to death because he refused to lie, pretend to be the way they expected him to be, and exaggerate his emotions.
Frankly, he sounds so much like an Aspie, that I, an Aspie, would accept this book as “book with a MC with Autism”
(And I went to see if Albert Camus had Asperger's, and found out that it's generally accepted that this book is the first with description of a man with Asperger's... :-D)

“The book rests entirely on the thoughts, words and actions of its central character, Meursault, and these were found to show impairment of social relationships, communication and interaction, with other traits diagnostic of the Asperger's subgroup of the autism spectrum disorder. It was then found that Camus had based Meursault on his close friend Galindo, and a search was therefore made for evidence of Galindo's character; this revealed him to be an intelligent but odd person, who exhibited the characteristic impairment of social and personal behavior of Asperger's syndrome. Thus, Camus had recognized and understood his friend's strange behavior before Asperger's syndrome had been defined; his use of it for the creation of Meursault is therefore the first published account of a man with this disorder.”
:-D

That article continues: “Many of the interpretations and ideas developed from Meursault's words, thoughts and actions must now be reconsidered, as they are a misreading of the words and behavior of a man with Asperger's syndrome”
Huh? How have their been considered before? Because I read this as Autistic person, and I fully understand how he thinks and reacts. Pretty amazing, if Camus himself wasn't Autistic.

Wow partes del libro me recuerdan a la película Trainspotting, dónde un grupo de amigos se inyectan heroína a manera de escapar de lo absurdo de la vida común, aquí el protagonista simplemente es indiferente y desganado, ¿Fue Meursault siempre así?

4,75 stars

Short, sweet, and absurd is Albert Camus ???The Stranger???. A nonplussed man performs a horrible crime all because of the sun. I found it quite easy to relate to this book, although I would not want to make myself seem like a nihilistic edge lord. The book lays out Camus absurd philosophy quite well and it becomes easy to understand that some of the most significant actions of our lives may be without purpose or rational motivation.
I would recommend it to you if you would like to find out more about Camus's philosophical ideas or are looking for an introduction to Camus overall.

111 sider uten et overflødig ord, banal naivitet tilsynelatende, men alt henger sammen, hver handling og hvert ord. Side 91:

“I have never truly been able to regret anything. I was always preoccupied by what was about to happen, either today or tomorrow. “

Som om det å ikke ha et forhold til fortiden gjør oss ute av stand til å tenke rettferdighet.

বেশি একটা ভালো লাগে নাই।

Camus helps to depict the machine of and our belief in society from a point of view that makes it seem completely alien. This in turn seems to be something that is created based by humans trying to find meaning in something that inherently has none.

Such clean, uncluttered prose (translated by Stuart Gilbert).