The Stranger

In the book The Stranger, the main character Muersault has no feelings for the world around him. I really did not like this book as much as others because I did not like his attitude. When his mother died he acted like he did not care and regretted to go to the funeral that was held for her. When he gets back into town, his girlfriend ask him if he loves her and he says yes then he says I am not sure all the way about that. He just thinks that love is a name for something and does not believe it is there for him.

During the book there is violence. For example, there is a man that owns a dog and walks him past the restaurant, that Muersault eats at and when the dog walks too fast for the man or too slow then he curses and beats the dog. There is a guy that beats his girlfriend and does not even think twice about beating her. He says that she deserves it and continues repeating that. At the middle of the book which would be the climax, Muersault murders a Arab man and gets caught for it. Muersault thinks that he did not commit a crime for what he did because he has no feelings.

Even though I did not like to read this book because of the character's attitude for life, you might like it. I think you should be happy with your life and the things around you.


Ben Pace
Landrum High School
Landrum, SC

This book is required reading in many high schools - I'm grateful that I'm a long-time out of high school, and nobody required me to read or even understand this short and depressing novel.

The story is about a man (early thirties?) named Meursault. In the beginning, he finds out that his mother has died. He isn't sure exactly what day she died, or even how old she was and it doesn't seem to matter much to him. He confesses that he wasn't sure if he loved his mother and shows no appropriate emotions at her funeral. Soon after he admits that, he's not so sure he loves his girlfriend either. He thinks that at one time or another, all normal people wish that their loved ones were dead. He tells a friend that it is his nature to let his physical needs get in the way of his feelings. What feelings? Then claims that he is like everybody else.?

Near the end of the story he declares that he has never been able to truly feel remorse for anything. It is only in facing his own demise that he displays any emotion.

Okay, so Albert Camus is trying to communicate his belief that there is no absolute truth, that everything is relative and that reality is only found in those things that we experience physically. I can buy into everything is relative theory, but without emotions, feelings and spirituality, is there any such thing as physical reality?

I was required to read this novel in my English class and I am ever so glad that I had too. This story works on so many levels that most people will find one aspect of the story to love. Each of the characters is original and intriguing and makes you think. It is an easy read at only 144 pages but you will finish it wishing that there were more. I highly recommend reading Albert Camus's The Stranger because it is a thought provoking book that will satisfy even the causal reader.

I hated, hated, hated this book. It came highly recommended and I voluntarily (and rather enthusiastically) picked it up. There has never been a main character I have been more disgusted by, a storyline that has been less interesting, and a writing style that has been more obnoxious. I would burn it if it weren't borrowed.

"The Stranger's" theme is that from the moment we are born we are already fated to die and there is no escaping this, so life is largely pointless. Yes, this book is a classic European existentialist-angst downer. The main character, Meursault, is one of those too-cool-to-live guys that just sits in a chair all afternoon and smokes cigarettes blankly--as he does in the book.

Meursault, however, is a post-war Western man. This description may not have been Camus' intention. But the lack of feeling or concern for anything, whether the fact that his "Maman" (a term of affection?) just passed away or that a girlfriend loves him enough to think of marrying him, clearly crosses the line into sociopathy. Meursault goes wherever the events of the day may take him. It might be sitting on his balcony all afternoon or working or shooting a guy to death on a beach. Either way, it doesn't make much difference to him.

Camus' "The Stranger," after this first reading, seems to be an introduction of Western man's inner self after World War II: shiftless, unbelieving (in anything larger than himself), devoid of any intimacy or emotion; utterly uncaring about anything around him. The theme of "we're all dead anyway" is clearly revealing and is much food for later thought. "The Stranger" is a book that will require lengthy revisiting despite its brevity. Just don't revisit it during the holidays.