The title l'Etranger, has been poorly translated. The U.S. title, The Stranger, implies that the main character, Meursault, has been viewed as a "strange" or "odd" person for some time. The other possible meaning is that no one knows him. Meursault is a stranger even to those who think they know him. These definitions do not seem adequate. The U.K. title, The Outsider, only serves to confuse readers even more.

Meursault is the archetype of a middle-class man. He works as a clerk, rents an apartment and draws no attention to himself. He is, if anything, very ordinary. Meusault might even be boring. He lacks deep convictions and passion. If he is estranged from any aspect of French society, it is religion--he does not believe in the symbols and the rituals of faith.

Estranged? "Cela m'est egal."

Along with the title, Camus took care in naming the main character. Meursault's name is symbolic of the Mediteranean sea. Mer mean "sea" and soliel is French for "sun." The sea and the sun meet at the beach, where Meursault's defining actions occur.

Meusault is an anti-hero. His only redeeming quality is his honesty, no matter how absurd. In existential terms, he is "authentic" to himself. Meusault does not believe in God, but he cannot lie because he is true to himself. This inability to falsify empathy ultimately condemns him. Meursault has faith only in what he, himself, can see or experience with his other senses. He is not a philosopher, a theologian or a deep thinker. Meursault exists as he is, not trying to be anything more or less than himself.

Why did Camus' readers recognize Meursault as a plausible character? After two World Wars and much suffering, many people came to live life much as Meursault does. Or at least they tried to do so. These people lost the will to do more than exist. There was no hope and no desire. The only goal for many people was simple survival. Even then, the survival seemed empty and hollow. We learn how empty Meursault's existence is through his relationships. He is not close to his mother; we learn he does not cry at her funeral. He does not seem close to his lover, Marie Cardona. Of her, Meursault states, "To me, she was only Marie." There is no passion is Meursault's words or in his life.

What sets Camus apart from many existentialists and modern philosophers in general is his acceptance of contradiction. Yes, Camus wrote, life is absurd and death renders life meaningless--for the individual. But mankind and its societies are larger than any one individual person.


The original slacker...   January 2, 1999
 21 out of 27 found this review helpful

When I shut Camus' "The Stranger", my mind was hushed. It was a very odd book that made me think. Unsure of the books meaning, I read some of the reveiws here, and, slowly, and opinion began to form in my mind. First off, Mersault, the narrator, is the most passive, static symbol I've ever encountered in literature. The nearest analog would be Billy Pilgrim from Vonnegut's "Slaughter House Five", I suppose, but Mersault is a different animal all together. His entire world is bloodless, and, using modern brain theory, left hemispheric; lineal, rational. Yet, it is this very bloodless existance that Camus is objecting to, at least in my reading of the novel. Mersault is a slacker, neither good nor bad. He is simply there. Sure, he's intelligent, but he's got no insight. He's caught in a reality beyond his control, a material reality that never changes. He's pleasent, interested in others, but unemotional and detatched. The only thing he responds to are changes in his material organism; heat, low blood sugar. That sort of thing. In a way, Mersault is no different from the other characters in the novel caught in life's games. The judge and lawyers, society at large, all seem to condem him, as easily as they'd have accepted him if there hadn't been a murder. Mersault's main problem is that he does not move a finger to change his life. Like a pure Aristotle, filled with cold scientific detatchment, he simply observes, never interfering with a reality that has become a lifeless, bloodless, material trap. Even though he sees the lawyers playing a game with his life that could result in his death, he does nothing to stop it. We, who've seen the murder through his eyes, understand that Mersault felt treatened by the Arab and his knife. We know he did not pre-meditate the murder. Yet he murdered. He did it coldly, but not in cold blood. Yet he doesn't make a move, becomes a pawn in a pointless 'game' between the self-righteous magistrate and the less talented defender. The question that troubled me time and time again, and probably everyone else who's read the book, is why? Why not take an impassioned stand? Why not inveigh against the absurdity of reality, why not fight for life? Why be happy to be imprisoned in society's little game of good versus evil? Why would Mersault not feel sad during his mother's funeral? Mersault simply allows life to work on him, observes what he sees coldly and accurately. His observations about the foolishness of the law, the fact that even the most self-important 'doormen' in this life are still inmates, all ring true. He notices how opposites fit together, yet depend on the other for their existance; Salmano and his dog; the magistrate and the defense; good and bad. Remeber how dejected Salamano felt after his dog, the cur he'd despised, was lost...This strange, dialectic stasis holds the world together. In some way, since Mersault is neutral, he is beyond it all, yet, like all men, is caught in its web. In the end, he becomes serious about the game, and secretly hopes that his execution will be attended by a crowd of spectators, howling in execration. In effect, what I feel Camus is trying to do in the "Stranger" is much more involved than the reading most others here have given the book. He's giving us a symbol of the limits of rational, Aristotilean thought. Pure science has given us the bomb, turned humans into machines. It has made western man maybe a little more intelligent than the animalistic Raymond, but at the expense of depriving him of a reality deeply alive, awash in blood and emotion. Our intelligence has made us robots, unable to see the face of God in the stones that imprison us, which the preist, probably the only truly passionate and sympathetic character in the book, hopes that the listless Mersault, the most modern of men, could see.


The Philosophy of Existentialism   March 1, 2000
 20 out of 24 found this review helpful

Albert Camus' novel The Stranger is a wonderful piece of literature that takes you into the depths of a human consciousness that embodies the essence of existentialism. Meursault's, the main character, plight is caused by his obvious differences with society and societies morals. Society as a whole has a belief in a divine being that guides their life and gives bounds to their actions. They believe they are here for a reason and this keeps them sane. Meursault does not share this belief and he believes that life is meaningless and therefore he believes it does not matter what he does, he can either do something or not do something. If you like book about spicy love affairs and books that require little though this book probably isn't for you. If, however, you like a book with a clever idea written by one of the literary worlds great writers then this is the perfect book. The Stranger is an absurdist work that shows us a person who is so immersed in existentialist beliefs that he actually feels no emotion; he lives solely for physical pleasure. This lifestyle is only not hedonistic because Meursault doesn't really care whether or not he does something. He can either go to the beach or not go to the beach, either way he is fine. The reason for this behavior is that Meursault believes that life in meaningless so it really makes no difference in the scheme of things whether he does one thing or does something else. This entire thought-provoking concept creates a great novel that people of all beliefs will enjoy.


A powerfully disturbing and bleak novel   February 17, 2004
 20 out of 23 found this review helpful

Although Albert Camus had achieved some fame as a journalist in his native Algiers in the thirties and as a writer for the French resistance during WW II, he first achieved an international critical reputation with the publication of this classic novel in 1946. The portrait of the detached, unfeeling, uncommitted, amoral, perpetually abstracted Meursault is one of the most haunting in 20th century literature. For many, it is the supreme 20th century literary depiction of nihilism. Unquestionably it is one of the premier literary efforts of the century, though Camus managed several other books just as powerful and superb in their own way, in particular THE PLAGUE, THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS, and THE FALL.

Meursault reminds me so much of figures from the paintings of Manet. In painting after painting, Manet depicted individuals alone in crowds, failing or refusing to interact or even acknowledge the others in the frame. In one famous painting, a lower middle class girl sits alone in her own little orb, sitting beside an upper class gentleman, neither acknowledging the existence of the other, both self-contained, seemingly detached from the busy world surrounding them. Behind them, a barmaid drinks a beer, equally oblivious to everyone and everything around her. They might all be on separate desert islands. Manet repeats this in painting after painting. Meursault seems almost as if he had stepped out of one of those paintings. He can at least communicate with others, socialize with them, but he cannot express strong moral sentiments or develop affectionate (as opposed to sexual) attachments.

This is not a happy book. The story deals with Meursault's almost accidental killing of an Arab whose sister had been harmed by one of his acquaintances, but the novel trivializes everything--the killing, his subsequent arrest, his imprisonment, his trial and conviction, and his sentencing. The closest the novel comes to a happy sentiment is near the end when Meursault imagines how much nicer it would be to witness an execution rather than be executed, to have to puke in revulsion than to literally lose one's head to the guillotine.

Camus would never write such a despairing book again. THE PLAGUE the next year would come close, but not close, while THE FALL would seem almost optimistic and upbeat in comparison. But for those who want to find perhaps the quintessential expression of what we like to think of as existentialism, this could stand as the premier literary instance.


Case study or story?   May 4, 2000
 14 out of 17 found this review helpful

This novel came highly recommended by a friend. I bought it at a used book store, fearing the worst and then regretting paying full price for a work of trash.

Boy, was I wrong! The Stranger is one of the best books I've ever devoured. Albeit, it could have gone into more detail, given the story and the characters more 'meat', however, I can't complain about it's poignant quality.

Mersault: Idiot? Victim? Extraordinary? This is left up to the reader to decide, which I loved. Mersault's actions made me think of the isolation that comes with being different and indifferent. Mersault did not CHOOSE to be indifferent, he was naturally. Or so I assume, because there never was an explanation for his decidedly rotten behavior toward the people close to him.

I think this book's length was a factor in letting the reader make their own judgements regarding Mersault and his place in the theories of nihilism and existentialism. I STILL, after having read the book months ago, haven't made a definite decision. Hopefully, the conclusion won't come any time soon. I'm enjoying mulling the story over in my mind and talking about it with my book-loving friends.

I recommend this book to anyone who is beyond the idle fluff of such writers as Dean Koontz and Jackie Collins. Feed your brain some oxygen. You'll never think the same way about life again. ...