false 49552 117 Translated by Matthew Ward. <I>The Stranger</I> is not merely one of the most widely read novels of the 20th century, but one of the books likely to outlive it. Written in 1946, Camus's compelling and troubling tale of a disaffected, apparently amoral young man has earned a durable popularity (and remains a staple of U.S. high school literature courses) in part because it reveals so vividly the anxieties of its time. Alienation, the fear of anonymity, spiritual doubt--all could have been given a purely modern inflection in the hands of a lesser talent than Camus, who won the Nobel Prize in 1957 and was noted for his existentialist aesthetic. The remarkable trick of <I>The Stranger</I>, however, is that it's not mired in period philosophy.<p> The plot is simple. A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. The trial's proceedings are absurd, a parsing of incidental trivialities--that Meursault, for instance, seemed unmoved by his own mother's death and then attended a comic movie the evening after her funeral are two ostensibly damning facts--so that the eventual sentence the jury issues is both ridiculous and inevitable.<p> Meursault remains a cipher nearly to the story's end--dispassionate, clinical, disengaged from his own emotions. "She wanted to know if I loved her," he says of his girlfriend. "I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't." There's a latent ominousness in such observations, a sense that devotion is nothing more than self-delusion. It's undoubtedly true that Meursault exhibits an extreme of resignation; however, his confrontation with "the gentle indifference of the world" remains as compelling as it was when Camus first recounted it. <I>--Ben Guterson</I> 3324344 book 1942 The Stranger total:36105|5:11134|4:13718|3:8282|2:2239|1:752| 36105 140540 44777 2212 4 28 false false Sat Jun 28 15:42:24 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 29 01:26:39 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 21 false false Wed May 07 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon May 05 18:15:20 -0700 2008 Sun May 11 15:20:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 18 false false Mon May 26 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu May 22 20:22:02 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 02 21:31:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 11 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Dec 01 03:45:56 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 21 03:17:26 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 5 false false Sat Feb 02 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 02 20:43:40 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 02 21:23:18 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 5 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 21 18:04:12 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 23 13:28:09 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 3 false true Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 30 18:38:01 -0800 2008 Thu Apr 03 19:02:06 -0700 2008 The Stranger by Albert Camus, I was apprehensive about it. Most of what I had heard was that it was "absurdist fiction" and all these terms which at the time, I felt pretentious (now knowing better). In January, I wanted to read something short after havin...more...]]> 3 3 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 15 08:53:05 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 15 09:00:24 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 3 false false Mon Jul 02 09:53:52 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 03 01:31:40 -0700 2007
Unfortunately, this was one of three assigned to our AP class for summer reading one year, and the inspiration for everydimwitteddogooder"ihaveasensitiveside" asshole in my grade to suddenly "discover" the concept o...more...]]> 5 2 false false Thu Aug 21 00:53:47 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 21 01:38:39 -0700 2008 نویسنده ای است با مکتب ادبی اگزیستانسیالیسم که خود یکی از سردمداران این مکتب است.
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داستان روایت زندگی سرد و ساکت شخصی بنام مورسو است که می توا...more...]]> 4 2 false false Mon May 31 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Wed Dec 19 16:07:21 -0800 2007 Mon Mar 03 21:00:37 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 3 false false Tue Jul 24 19:52:14 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 24 19:52:14 -0700 2007
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the power of the narrative voice is so strong!...more...]]> 5 3 false false Thu Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sat Jun 02 12:08:33 -0700 2007 Mon Jun 04 11:58:09 -0700 2007 Resistance Rebellion and Death," and "The Myth of Sisyphus," was one of the great novelists of the 20th century. This book, relatively short and quick reading ...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Mar 20 07:20:03 -0700 2007 Thu Apr 05 14:57:01 -0700 2007 The Stranger. In many cases, I've found that the most popular book isn't always the best, and tends to lead to a bad relationship with the author. Having read The S...more...]]> 5 2 false false Sun Jun 10 17:00:25 -0700 2007 Sat Apr 04 21:30:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 3 false false Thu Sep 04 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 18 15:58:23 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 13 07:16:37 -0800 2008 more...]]> 0 4 false false Sat Aug 16 22:39:29 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 16 22:40:03 -0700 2008
SPOILER ALERT!!!]]> 3 1 false false Wed Aug 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 09 10:54:57 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 13 00:34:20 -0700 2008 The Trial and Death of Socrates in structure. And Mersault was a pat, familiar anti-hero: if he were alive today we'd call him asperger's and shuffle him along. He's a man with marvelous faculties for developed thought and reason and absolutely no emotion.
I spent some time tryi...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=3774030