The Stranger
Ratings1,016
Average rating3.9
Being oblivious is dangerous.
Being self-aware will keep you in line with the heard.
There's safety in conformity, whether it's fair or not.
“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.
it was fascinating to see how the events of a casual day could come back to bite you in the future. it was an interesting read but to be fair, it got a bit boring by the end and i just stopped caring. maybe i am just not smart enough to read the message conveyed by the book or i just dont care enough to
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.
“People's lives have no grand meaning or importance, and their actions, their comings and goings, do not affect the world.”
“One always has exaggerated ideas about what one doesn't know.”
This book affected me. I cannot get it out of my head and couldn't read anything else while I was reading this one. Few books stay with you forever and this is one of them!
There are tons of great reviews so I will suggest going through them and definitely read this book, it changes you!
J'ai trouvé ce roman très intéressant. La description des personnages, des scénarios et des scènes représente une image claire de ce qui se passe à l'extérieur et à l'intérieur de l'indifférence de Meursault. C'est un très bon travail.
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?
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 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.
After finishing this, I feel like a need to go find a time machine and go back one of my college English Lit classes and chat about existentialism, narcissism, indifference and depression until we're going in circles.
Overall, an interesting and well written read. I get why it's considered a classic, why it's important in literature and why so many people feel so strongly about it. And yet, I was bored (that is when I wasn't depressed). Books with very little plot, lots of randomness, absurdity and no meaning to life are apparently not my cup of tea.
This is probably the main work of Albert Camus. He was one of the great minds of the 20th century.
A great youtube introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97gSwtbBI-w
I rest my case.
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,
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.
Actually I didn't know what to expect from this book cuz this was my first fiction philosophy book
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.
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.