The Stranger

by Albert Camus, Matthew Ward (Translator)

book data

30,732 ratings, 3.91 average rating, 1,922 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		31%
4		38%
3		22%
2		5%
1		1%

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published

March 13th 2008 (first published 1942) by Vintage

binding

Paperback, 129 pages

characters

Meursault, Raymond, Marie

setting

Algeria

isbn

0679720200 (isbn13: 9780679720201)

description

Translated by Matthew Ward.

The Stranger is not merely one of the most widely read novels of the 20th century, but one of the books likely...more

[close] Translated by Matthew Ward.

The Stranger 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 The Stranger, however, is that it's not mired in period philosophy.

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.

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. --Ben Guterson

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06/28/08

Trevor rated it:

I don’t know what to do with these stars anymore. I give stars to books and then I think, ‘god, you give five stars to everything, people will think you are terribly undiscriminating’ – so then I give four stars or even three stars to some books. Then I look back and it turns out that that I’ve given four stars to Of Human Bondage and honestly, how could I possibly have thought it was a good idea to give that book less than five stars? It is the absurdity of human conventions that h...more

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05/05/08

Chris rated it:

Read in May, 2008

If every few words of praise I’ve seen for “The Stranger” over my lifetime materialized into small chunks of rock in space, there’d be enough sh!t to conjure up the Oort Cloud. Much like this distant collection of debris bordering the outer solar system, I can’t really comprehend the acclaim heaped on this story, but luckily, like the Cloud, it’s usually out of sight, out of mind, and has absolutely no discernable current influence on my life. And just like the Oort can occasionally...more If every few words of praise I’ve seen for “The Stranger” over my lifetime materialized into small chunks of rock in space, there’d be enough sh!t to conjure up the Oort Cloud. Much like this distant collection of debris bordering the outer solar system, I can’t really comprehend the acclaim heaped on this story, but luckily, like the Cloud, it’s usually out of sight, out of mind, and has absolutely no discernable current influence on my life. And just like the Oort can occasionally spit a chunk of sh!t at the earth and devastate all life upon it, so too can I hear/read some lip service paid to “The Stranger” resulting in my transition to Freak-Out Mode, resulting in me slapping someone in the face, usually someone I have to deal with again at some point in time (if only in court).

Personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. Armed with a 100-word vocabulary, a meager 123 pages to bore one with, and a character who simply doesn’t seem to give much of a damn, Camus somehow shook the world of literature with this inane garbage. I haven’t sat down to conduct a thorough analysis, but using some reasonable guesstimation I will say that the average sentence in this book is about eight words long. I’m not asking that every sentence in a book run the length of a page, but the end result when employed by Camus was that either a twelve year old or some sort of retarded robot wrote this. (Cue robot voice) It struck me as strange. The sentences were so short. It was very peculiar. This could be read very fast. I began to read this on the train on my in to work. I finished it on my way back home.

Who the hell writes like that? More importantly, who the hell reads a book like that and suspects therein lay some complexity? Each time I noticed how condensed everything was it occurred to me that somehow the literati had spent all this time adoring the published equivalent of a commercial.

Here’s a snapshot of the dude we’re supposed to give a hoot about. He doesn’t readily assimilate to or accept the conventional mores everyone else seems accustomed to. He’s not overly concerned, but he seemingly knows there’s some kind of disconnect. He’s also not out to go f#ck with the system for lack of anything better to do or in some attempt to make a statement. He’s pretty emotionless, he shows some genuine concern for himself at times, but even those close to him really aren’t too significant in his grand picture. His testicles are extremely small and sterile, and he fondles them often.

Not long after the death of his mother, Our Hero is chilling on the beach when some Arabs come around looking to start sh!t with an acquaintance of his, and after a small skirmish earlier in the day, Our Man goes back down to the beach and shoots an Arab. He gets arrested and pretty much just goes with the flow, he rolls over and let’s the prosecution have their way with his scrawny white ass. The whole time he pretty much just thinks it’s all pretty ridiculous and isn’t too concerned with the proceedings.

I wasn’t too concerned about the book. More than anything I was just bored with it. There was no build up, there was no action, there was no climax. There was nothing funny, nothing exciting, nothing interesting, and nothing to really take away from the book; just the same words repeating over and over, grouped in strings of seven or eight. The longest sentence in the book was also the only thing which I found even remotely amusing: “Finally I realized that some of the old people were sucking at the insides of their cheeks and making these weird smacking noises”. That isn’t particularly funny, but compared to the rest of the book it was comedic gold.

“The Stranger” is some seriously weak shit. I’ve gotten more enjoyment from looking a map of Kentucky.
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05/22/08

Ryan Rudder rated it:

bookshelves: favorites

Read in May, 2008

The book is simply written and a rather quick read, but the depth Camus manages to convey through this simplicity is astounding. I think a problem a lot of people have with this book is that they fail to look beyond the whole "what is the meaning of life" message. While an interesting question, the book raises so many other philosophical questions beyond this. What I found the most interesting of these is "what truly defines humanity or makes someone human?" During Meursault'...more

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12/01/07

Danny rated it:

Read in November, 2007

The Stranger is considered by many to be one of the most important philosophical novels of the 20th Century. In most college courses on Existentialism (a philosophy which holds that human beings create the meaning and essence of their own lives) The Stranger is usually the first thing you will read. If you're interested in philosophy, or Existentialism specifically, The Stranger is a great place to start.

Camus describes Meursault, the main character, only sparingly; and for the major...more

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02/02/08

Dustin rated it:

Read in February, 2008

The narrator, Meursault, is a fascinating character in that he has an incredible sense of material resignation about him. He absolutely rejects all concepts of importance to the absurd trivialities of life while at the same time living with such simple pleasure that one can't help but smirk reading the descriptions in the first half of the book.

His indifference to the way he is perceived leads him to a very level-headed but unsympathetic countenance regarding his friends and acquainta...more The narrator, Meursault, is a fascinating character in that he has an incredible sense of material resignation about him. He absolutely rejects all concepts of importance to the absurd trivialities of life while at the same time living with such simple pleasure that one can't help but smirk reading the descriptions in the first half of the book.

His indifference to the way he is perceived leads him to a very level-headed but unsympathetic countenance regarding his friends and acquaintances. The terrible irony of his character is that he rejects the false certainty of religious sentiment and other such realms of impossibly dubious nature, rejects them along with an understanding and statement of love (which he continually denies to Marie, his girlfriend, who asks him if he loves her periodically), along with material possession and the "bitch goddess" success (he turns down a promotion for "no reason" whatever), Meursault rejects all these common sentiments and yet replaces them with nothing, nothingness, in fact.

He constantly flees from all manifestations of false knowledge, finding them arbitrary. The trial following his murder of an Arab resulted in the victor of the most skillful lawyer instead of whether or not he was guilty, Marie vainly prodded him to proclaim his love for her, to which he replied that the question is nonsense, the priest, assuming that Meursault valued the physical, things of the world, asked him relentlessly why he valued these things and why he doesnt seek God for help in his time of trouble, to which he replied by grabbing him by the cossack (half expecting him to disappear in his hands)and describing the impossibility of being sure of such things, described why he could not believe the same notions, "From the dark horizon of my future a sort of slow, persistent breeze had been blowing toward me, all my life long, from the years that were to come. and on its way that breeze had leveled out all the ideas that people tried to foist on me in the equally unreal years i then was living through."

All is helpless and arbitrary and what can one do but relish that which one is sure of.

"It might look as if my hands were empty. Actually, i was sure of myself, sure about everything, far surer than he; sure of my present life and of the death that was coming. That, no doubt, was all i had; but at least that certainty was something i could get my teeth into - just as it had got its teeth into me. I'd been right, i was still right, i was always right. I'd passed my life in a certain way, and i might have passed it in a different way, if I'd felt like it. I'd acted thus, and i hadn't acted otherwise; I hadn't done x, whereas I had done y or z. And what did that mean? That, all the time, I'd been waiting for this present moment, for that dawn, tomorrow's or another day's, which was to justify me."

"It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, i laid my heart open to the benign indifference of teh universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration."(less)

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06/21/07

chris rated it:

bookshelves: taught-books

Read in June, 2007

I remember loving this book as a teenager, and re-reading it this week, I have felt the same. Meursault is one of the most fascinating characters I've ever read, and at the same time I've always felt a certain kinship to him. Why isn't it okay to not care as deeply, or in the same way, as others, especially on the subjects of love and death? Is there any possible connection we can have with the feelings of another? How would we ever know if we were talking about the same thing? His reaction...more

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01/30/08

Davide di Cagno-Hagen rated it:

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Davide by: My Mom
recommends it for: Everyone

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

When I was first handed a copy of 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 having spent time reading longer novels, thus at 130 pages, this seemed like a likely candidate. The first night I read the first 50 pages, and finished it the next day.
The book is about Meursault, a...more When I was first handed a copy of 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 having spent time reading longer novels, thus at 130 pages, this seemed like a likely candidate. The first night I read the first 50 pages, and finished it the next day.
The book is about Meursault, a young Algerian whose mother dies very early on in the novel. He goes to her memorial, where he spends the night. The novel goes on to describe his relationship with a woman in the neighborhood. One day they decide to go to their friend's beach house. While there, Meursault and his friend run into a group of Arab teenagers who Meursault's friend has problems with. The glare and each other and keep walking. Later, after lunch, Meursault goes out by himself while the others are napping. He takes his friends gun, which was never explained. As he's walking he comes up on one of the Arabs sleeping. Without any explanation, he murders the sleeping man. The rest of the book goes into his imprisonment and trial. The trial is extremely important in the book because the lead prosecutor claims the murder was premeditated because Meursault showed insensitivity on the day of his mother's death. He is sentenced to death by guillotine. The final chapter of the book is dedicated to his thoughts of the execution and the existence of God. The story ends with the bold quote:

"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself — so like a brother, really — I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."

I enjoyed this book very much. I loved how it was written and the language. The short span of life we see of Meursault was great. I generally agree that this is one of the greatest books I've ever read. A must read.(less)

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09/15/07

Cindy rated it:

Read in September, 2007

I started this book, finally, understanding that it was an example of existentialist philosophy but knowing little else. I began reading and immediately felt lost in the randomness of it all, in the detailed descriptions of settings and the truncated passages dealing with human exchanges. It was like I was a pinball, being randomly thrown about, much like the protaganist (though he had more input than he would likely admit). I finally had my lightbulb moment, realized that this was the point,...more

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07/02/07

AJ Griffin rated it:

recommends it for: anyone who wants to feel deep and troubled and needs a vehicle to express it

Yeah yeah, I liked this book just like everyone else.

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 of existentialism.

Suddenly, having nothing better to worry about besides the utter pointlessness and/or meaning of life was the hippest thing since Capri Sun. The phrase "I'm a big fa...more

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08/21/08

Reza rated it:

(review of other edition)

کامو
نویسنده ای است با مکتب ادبی اگزیستانسیالیسم که خود یکی از سردمداران این مکتب است.
کتاب بیگانه
داستان روایت زندگی سرد و ساکت شخصی بنام مورسو است که می توان آن را به تنهایی و انزوای آدمی بعد از جنگ جهانی دوم تعمیم داد.
خواننده ناخودآگاه در نگاه اول احساس می کند با ...more

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12/19/07

Will W rated it:

Read in May, 2004

Shocking and powerful. The story in some ways is a reflection of thoughts and feelings I have myself. Camus creates a portrait of an ordinary person stuck in a moment any of us might find ourselves in as well. It is painful to read--like a dream when your body is responding in sort of the opposite way that your mind is telling it. I know I need to re-read it to get more out of it.

Some quotes that ripped at me:
“I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bulle...more

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07/24/07

افشار rated it:

(review of isbn 9644480570)

این کتاب داستان یک مرد درونگرا به نام مرسو را تعریف می‌کند که مرتکب قتلی می‌شود و در سلول زندان در انتظار اعدام خویش است. داستان در دههٔ ۳۰ در الجزایر رخ می‌دهد.

داستان به دو قسمت تقسیم می‌شود. در قسمت اول مرسو در مراسم تدفین مادرش شرکت می‌کند و در عین حال هیچ تاثر و احس�...more این کتاب داستان یک مرد درونگرا به نام مرسو را تعریف می‌کند که مرتکب قتلی می‌شود و در سلول زندان در انتظار اعدام خویش است. داستان در دههٔ ۳۰ در الجزایر رخ می‌دهد.

داستان به دو قسمت تقسیم می‌شود. در قسمت اول مرسو در مراسم تدفین مادرش شرکت می‌کند و در عین حال هیچ تاثر و احساس خاصی از خود نشان نمی‌دهد. داستان با ترسیم روزهای بعد از دید شخصیت اصلی داستان ادامه می‌یابد. مرسو به عنوان انسانی بدون هیچ اراده به پیشرفت در زندگی ترسیم می‌شود. او هیچ رابطهٔ احساسی بین خود و افراد دیگر برقرار نمی‌کند و در بی تفاوتی خود و پیامدهای حاصل از آن زندگی اش را سپری می‌کند. او از این که روزهایش را بدون تغییری در عادت‌های خود می‌گذراند خشنود است.

همسایهٔ مرسو که ریمون سنته نام دارد و متهم به فراهم آوردن شغل برای روسپیان است با او رفیق می‌شود. مرسو به سنته کمک می‌کند یک معشوقهٔ او را که سنته ادعا می‌کند دوست دختر قبلی او است به سمت خود بکشد. سنته به آن زن فشار می‌آورد و او را تحقیر می‌کند. مدتی بعد مرسو و سنته کنار ساحل به برادر آن زن(«مرد عرب») و دوستانش برمی خورند. اوضاع از کنترل خارج می‌شود و کار به کتک کاری می‌کشد. پس از آن مرسو بار دیگر «مرد عرب» را در ساحل می‌بیند و این بار کس دیگری جز آن‌ها در اطراف نیست. بدون دلیل مشخص مرسو به سمت مرد عرب تیراندازی می‌کند که در فاصلهٔ امنی از او از سایهٔ صخره‌ای در گرمای سوزنده لذت می‌برد.

در قسمت دوم کتاب محاکمهٔ مرسو آغاز می‌شود. در این جا شخصیت اول داستان برای اولین بار با تاثیری که بی اعتنایی و بی تفاوتی برخورد او بر دیگران می‌گذارد رو به رو می‌شود. اتهام راست بی خدا بودنش را بدون کلامی می‌پذیرد. او رفتار اندولانت (اصطلاح روانشناسی برای کسی که در مواقع قرار گرفتن در وضعیت‌های خاص از خود احساس متناسب نشان نمی‌دهد و بی اعتنا باقی می‌ماند- از درد تاثیر نمی‌پذیرد یا آن را حس نمی‌کند) خود را به عنوان قانون منطقی زندگی اش تفسیر می‌کند. او به اعدام محکم می‌شود. آلبر کامو در این رمان آغازی برای فلسفهٔ پوچی خود که بعد به چاپ می‌رسد، فراهم می‌آورد.(less)

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07/24/07

Jonathan rated it:

bookshelves: life_and_other_atrocities

Has a copy to sell/swap

Je ne l’avais jamais lu, mais j’en avais entendu parler. Je l’ai donc découvert avec une forte attente, et je n’ai pas été déçu. Je me contenterai ici de rapporter le commentaire de Camus lui-même qui fit la préface d’une édition universitaire américaine de ce roman. J’ai adoré. C’est peu de le dire.

"J’ai résumé L’ Étranger, il y a longtemps, par une phrase dont je reconnais qu’elle est très paradoxale : ’Dans notre société tout homme qu...more Je ne l’avais jamais lu, mais j’en avais entendu parler. Je l’ai donc découvert avec une forte attente, et je n’ai pas été déçu. Je me contenterai ici de rapporter le commentaire de Camus lui-même qui fit la préface d’une édition universitaire américaine de ce roman. J’ai adoré. C’est peu de le dire.

"J’ai résumé L’ Étranger, il y a longtemps, par une phrase dont je reconnais qu’elle est très paradoxale : ’Dans notre société tout homme qui ne pleure pas à l’enterrement de sa mère risque d’être condamné à mort.’ Je voulais dire seulement que le héros du livre est condamné parce qu’il ne joue pas le jeu. En ce sens, il est étranger à la société où il vit, il erre, en marge, dans les faubourgs de la vie privée, solitaire, sensuelle. Et c’est pourquoi des lecteurs ont été tentés de le considérer comme une épave. Meursault ne joue pas le jeu. La réponse est simple : il refuse de mentir. Mentir ce n’est pas seulement dire ce qui n’est pas. C’est aussi, c’est surtout dire plus que ce qui est et, en ce qui concerne le cœur humain, dire plus qu’on ne sent. C’est ce que nous faisons tous, tous les jours, pour simplifier la vie. Meursault, contrairement aux apparences, ne veut pas simplifier la vie. Il dit ce qu’il
(JPEG)
L’étranger

est, il refuse de masquer ses sentiments et aussitôt la société se sent menacée. On lui demande par exemple de dire qu’il regrette son crime, selon la formule consacrée. Il répond qu’il éprouve à cet égard plus d’ennui que de regret véritable. Et cette nuance le condamne.

Meursault pour moi n’est donc pas une épave, mais un homme pauvre et nu, amoureux du soleil qui ne laisse pas d’ombres. Loin qu’il soit privé de toute sensibilité, une passion profonde, parce que tenace, l’anime, la passion de l’absolu et de la vérité. Il s’agit d’une vérité encore négative, la vérité d’être et de sentir, mais sans laquelle nulle conquête sur soi et sur le monde ne sera jamais possible." "On ne se tromperait donc pas beaucoup en lisant dans L’ Étranger l’histoire d’un homme qui, sans aucune attitude héroïque, accepte de mourir pour la vérité. Il m’est arrivé de dire aussi, et toujours paradoxalement, que j’avais essayé de figurer dans mon personnage le seul christ que nous méritions. On comprendra, après mes explications, que je l’aie dit sans aucune intention de blasphème et seulement avec l’affection un peu ironique qu’un artiste a le droit d’éprouver à l’égard des personnages de sa création."

[http://jonathan.touboul.free.fr/article.php3?id_article=43](less)

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06/19/07

lisa a. rated it:

(review of isbn 0881032476)

Read in June, 2007

this book blew my mind. i haven't had one like this in a while - a book i've heard of mostly in passing, one i know little about - and it exceeds any expectations i have for it. i'm still trying to work out the notorious existentialism of it.

the power of the narrative voice is so strong! i found myself siding with meursalt, the narrator even when he did things that are obviously immoral or societally wrong. why could i so easily identify with his train of thought and the ironically i...more

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06/02/07

Rebecca rated it:

(review of isbn 0881032476)

bookshelves: thingsilove

Read in March, 2007

recommends it for: grown-ups

Albert Camus, the French Algerian author of this book, as well as two of my favorite collections of humanist essays, "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 for as much as it tells and does, is a complex psychological portrait of a killer. But Marceaux is not a weird, twisted, evil killer, but a killer whose major failing is his inability to recognize th...more

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03/20/07

Aly rated it:

I usually avoid the most famous book by a particular author when I begin, and so I'd liked what I'd read of Camus before, but I avoided 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 Stranger now, I think it would have been alright to begin with it, maybe even beneficial. In reading The First Man and The Plague, I'd acclimated to Camus' style, but I don't think I would have needed ...more

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06/10/07

Dot rated it:

(review of isbn 0881032476)

recommends it for: people who don't care that existential crises are de rigueur

I, like everyone else, was 17 when I read this book. And I had just gotten done reading Madame Bovary and Return of the Native, so when I opened this and he's talking about catching a bus, I was like "OH MY GOD! They have buses in this book! It's not a zillion years old!" and was just so happy I was reading something that had been written that century.

Everybody knows the story. French dude kills an Arab dude, goes on trial, existentialist shit. I haven't read the other tran...more

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03/18/08

Maggie rated it:

bookshelves: 2008, classics

Read in September, 2008

Call it existensialist, call it pessimistic, or just flat out boring, but no matter what you call it, this is one of the most affecting novels I've ever read. It encourages free thinking, as the narrator doesn't give you any direction on how to feel or what to think about events over the course of the novel. As Tina would say "it's a thinker."

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08/16/08

Lilac added it

i learned to never shoot an arab

SPOILER ALERT!!!

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08/09/08

Farren rated it:

Read in August, 2008

Reminded me of 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 trying to figure out why the high school english teachers like this book so much. I did some googling. And the liberal and injudicious employment of the word "absurd" without a real definition ...more

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Vote for a BotM for JULY; the category is Books You Could Finish In A Day. Thanks for participating!

The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse

1 vote, 4.3%

Like Water for Chocolate A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies by Laura Esquivel

5 votes, 21.7%

The Stranger by Albert Camus

2 votes, 8.7%

Silk by Alessandro Baricco

2 votes, 8.7%

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

1 vote, 4.3%

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

2 votes, 8.7%

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

2 votes, 8.7%

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

6 votes, 26.1%

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

1 vote, 4.3%

Monster by Walter Dean Myers

1 vote, 4.3%

23 total votes

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quotes from this book

"What really counted was the possibility of escape, a leap of freedom, out of the implacable ritual, a wild run for it that would give whatever chance for hope there was. Of course, hope meant being cut down on some street corner, as you ran like mad, by a random bullet. But when I really thought it through, nothing was going to allow me such a luxury. Everything was against it; I would just be caught up in the machinery again." More quotes...