The Stranger

English language

Published June 7, 2016

ISBN:
978-1-68177-135-9
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4 stars (9 reviews)

The Stranger (French: L'Étranger [l‿e.tʁɑ̃.ʒe]), also published in English as The Outsider, is a 1942 novella by French author Albert Camus. Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of Camus' philosophy, absurdism, coupled with existentialism; though Camus personally rejected the latter label.The title character is Meursault, an indifferent French settler in Algeria described as "a citizen of France domiciled in North Africa, a man of the Mediterranean, an homme du midi yet one who hardly partakes of the traditional Mediterranean culture." Weeks after his mother's funeral, he kills an Arab man in French Algiers, who was involved in a conflict with one of Meursault's neighbors. Meursault is tried and sentenced to death. The story is divided into two parts, presenting Meursault's first-person narrative view before and after the murder, respectively. In January 1955, Camus wrote this:

I summarized The Stranger a long time ago, with a remark I …

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don't care

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I read this for French practice. It did do its job of being simple in language and short, while being a whole serious "classic" book for adults.

I'm not the type of person for philosophical debates. I know the answers and/or don't care. You shoot someone for no reason -> you go to jail so that you don't do it again. I don't have time for what exactly what might be wrong with this guy or whether he loves his mother.

But maybe I missed the point because I don't even speak French?

Review of 'El extranjero' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Definitivamente Camus tiene lo suyo. Cuando leí La Peste se convirtió en uno de mis autores favoritos. Con El extranejero no es la excepción.

“Desde que uno debe morir, es evidente que no importa cómo ni cuándo…”

El extranjero no es una novela para Televisa o Televisión Azteca, es una novela que te hace recapacitar, ante la anhedonia, el desinterés, la apatía. Cuando pasaba sus hojas me quedaba pensando acerca de ¿cómo era posible que alguien pueda decir que le es indiferente la muerte de su madre? Sobre todo si él mismo refiere que tampoco había tenido problemas con ella. Pero no sólo eso, Meursault es indiferente hasta su propia muerte.

Ya en 1942, cuando Albert Camus escribía esta obra, denunciaba la clase de seres humanos que la sociedad estaba creando, en donde se olvida de su valor individual y la pertenencia a una comunidad. ¿Qué pensaría ahora en donde …