Monsieur Meursault is a French-Algerian: his mother (Maman) has just died and he attends her funeral. That event is the axis about which the story turns - not so much the physical attendance or even the external events of the funeral, but rather Meursault's psychological reaction to her death. The reader is left to deduce their own 'connections' between the death of Maman and the events that follow - which will ultimately lead Meursault to the guillotine.
The story is full of metaphor and discovery: the sun and light and heat bristle throughout the pages of the story. "She said, 'If you go slowly, you risk getting a sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you work up a sweat and then catch a chill inside the church.' She was right. There was no way out"
The book is short (125 pages) and written in the short sentence, staccato style of writers like Hemingway. The read is easy but the meanings are deeper than the words on the page. By the end the effect is a story told in the detail of two or three times the pages that Albert Camus uses. It is clever and thought provoking and well worth the read!
(Matthew Ward translation)
The Stranger Paperback – 13 March 1989
by
Albert Camus
(Author)
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Product details
- ASIN : 0679720200
- Language : English
- Paperback : 144 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780679720201
- ISBN-13 : 978-0679720201
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- 1 in European Literature
- 5 in Psychological Thrillers
- 5 in Psychological Fiction
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"The Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Ward's translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camus's stoical anti-hero and -devious narrator remains one of the key expressions of a postwar Western malaise, and one of the cleverest exponents of a literature of ambiguity." -from the Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie
From the Back Cover
Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." First published in 1946; now in a new translation by Matthew Ward.
About the Author
Born in Algeria in 1913, Albert Camus published The Stranger-now one of the most widely read novels of this century-in 1942. Celebrated in intellectual circles, Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. On January 4, 1960, he was killed in a car accident.
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Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars
1,231 reviews

VA Duck
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Maman died today"
20 June 2017 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
64 people found this helpful

Brett Williams
4.0 out of 5 stars
Campus writes a metaphor to see ourselves in
11 November 2018 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
The first novel I’ve read in ages, I was exposed to Camus by a Goodreads reviewer. Much later a bracing audio series by The Great Courses and Robert Solomon arrested my interest. Without both, I’d not have liked the book as much.
Camus writes a metaphor. With exception of the value nature has for the main character, Meursault—colors in the sky, smell of the countryside, sea spray in the air—the metaphor is for meaning in life through emphasis of its absence. “Marie came by to see me,” says Meursault, “and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted. Then she wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way…that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her…[but] if she wanted to we could get married.”
Then there was the obliviousness of Meursault. While listening to a lawyer prosecute him for murder, Meursault thinks to himself, “Of course, I couldn’t help admitting that he was right. I didn’t feel much remorse for what I’d done. But I was surprised by how relentless he was. I would have liked to have tried explaining to him cordially, almost affectionately, that I had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything. My mind was always on what was coming next, today or tomorrow.”
But the trial isn’t really about the murder, so much as it is about Meursault, and how dangerous is his potential to show people they invent meaning, and that they can just as easily uninvent it. As the lawyer says of Meursault’s empty heart, it is “an abyss threatening to swallow society.”
Finally in prison, awaiting “my head cut off in the public square in the name of the French people,” Meursault begins to realize what gives life value is its brevity. He never thought much about death, other than when his father returned home from an execution (funeral?) to vomit from the experience. “I blame myself every time for not having paid enough attention to accounts of execution. A man should always take an interest in those things. You never know what might happen…How had I not seen that there was nothing more important than an execution, and that when you come right down to it, it was the only thing a man could be truly interested in?”
According to the audio series, Camus meant to create a mirror for the reader to see themselves. It worked.
Camus writes a metaphor. With exception of the value nature has for the main character, Meursault—colors in the sky, smell of the countryside, sea spray in the air—the metaphor is for meaning in life through emphasis of its absence. “Marie came by to see me,” says Meursault, “and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted. Then she wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way…that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her…[but] if she wanted to we could get married.”
Then there was the obliviousness of Meursault. While listening to a lawyer prosecute him for murder, Meursault thinks to himself, “Of course, I couldn’t help admitting that he was right. I didn’t feel much remorse for what I’d done. But I was surprised by how relentless he was. I would have liked to have tried explaining to him cordially, almost affectionately, that I had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything. My mind was always on what was coming next, today or tomorrow.”
But the trial isn’t really about the murder, so much as it is about Meursault, and how dangerous is his potential to show people they invent meaning, and that they can just as easily uninvent it. As the lawyer says of Meursault’s empty heart, it is “an abyss threatening to swallow society.”
Finally in prison, awaiting “my head cut off in the public square in the name of the French people,” Meursault begins to realize what gives life value is its brevity. He never thought much about death, other than when his father returned home from an execution (funeral?) to vomit from the experience. “I blame myself every time for not having paid enough attention to accounts of execution. A man should always take an interest in those things. You never know what might happen…How had I not seen that there was nothing more important than an execution, and that when you come right down to it, it was the only thing a man could be truly interested in?”
According to the audio series, Camus meant to create a mirror for the reader to see themselves. It worked.
29 people found this helpful

Lovee
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Translation is a Good Example of Existentialism
26 July 2018 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
I originally read this book in French, so I know that the grammar patterns and the way it flows in it's simplicity are all part of the works message about life. All that goes with his worldview that the lead character naturally adopts is uncomplicated. He feels this way about life, because that is what he sees. He doesn't choose it out of convenience. His dreary existence is sincere.
I gave it three stars, because of all this. I don't agree with it, but I felt sorry for him. The French version would have merited four stars. No writing this depressing merits five stars in my book. So I recommend the translation to people who don't read French and are looking for an example of French existentialism. I'm still looking for my original French copy. The language is almost like main character.
I gave it three stars, because of all this. I don't agree with it, but I felt sorry for him. The French version would have merited four stars. No writing this depressing merits five stars in my book. So I recommend the translation to people who don't read French and are looking for an example of French existentialism. I'm still looking for my original French copy. The language is almost like main character.
19 people found this helpful

Quinn
5.0 out of 5 stars
And I think that is one of the most wonderful achievements of this great book
3 May 2018 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
An enigma that unfolds as a thriller as it unfolds the hero’s final moments that, in the end, unfolds the reader’s personal philosophies.
The book left me with so many unanswered questions, questions that — when it really mattered — became irrelevant as the final pages of the book revealed his final moments. And I think that is one of the most wonderful achievements of this great book: In the end, does any of it really matter?
The book left me with so many unanswered questions, questions that — when it really mattered — became irrelevant as the final pages of the book revealed his final moments. And I think that is one of the most wonderful achievements of this great book: In the end, does any of it really matter?

5.0 out of 5 stars
And I think that is one of the most wonderful achievements of this great book
Reviewed in the United States on 3 May 2018
An enigma that unfolds as a thriller as it unfolds the hero’s final moments that, in the end, unfolds the reader’s personal philosophies.Reviewed in the United States on 3 May 2018
The book left me with so many unanswered questions, questions that — when it really mattered — became irrelevant as the final pages of the book revealed his final moments. And I think that is one of the most wonderful achievements of this great book: In the end, does any of it really matter?
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17 people found this helpful

Ned D Ferguson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Things do matter
15 July 2019 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
At 57, this is my first reading of Camus. I'm sure a lot of ink has been spilt in analysis by others more knowledgeable than myself. My impression is that The Stranger is the story of a man whose life is like the proverbial leaf floating down the stream, the current taking him wherever it will, the man having no power to resist and it wouldn't matter if he did. I am aware that Camus is said to be an existentialist, and the story pretty much sums up the philosophy. The only time, strangely, that the protagonist becomes passionate is when a priest challenges his worldview. So, evidently in spite of himself, some things matter after all. I can only agree with Chesterton on the absurdity of such indifference : "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."
5 people found this helpful