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The Stranger

Albert Camus

Start date: February 1, 2016

Finish date: February 29, 2016

Discussion: Short Story/Novella Collection

Why we're reading this: Monthly Short Story Read, February 2016
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Short Story/Novella Collection

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last updated Sep 01, 2015 05:35AM

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What Members Thought

May 01, 2016 Alex rated it it was amazing

Staring at the Pacific and remembering the novel, I get it. We are all strangers to ourselves.

6 likes · Like · see review

Oct 06, 2020 Ketutar Jensen rated it really liked it

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. ...more

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May 13, 2014 Tom Britz rated it really liked it

This is a story of apathy. A man that has no concept of right or wrong. Who thinks that life is meaningless. He likes the pleasures but doesn't count them as meaning anything. Has no concept of God or even morality. Live in the moment for the moment won't last, seems to be his motto. He commits a senseless murder and then goes to a senseless trial only to be convicted and sentenced to have his senseless life snuffed out. ...more

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Jan 19, 2021 TheAccidental Reader rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

I have no idea how to rate something like this, so I go with my standard 3 Star Rating. I read it because it's a classic, and because it was available entirely on www.lingq.com, which provides not only the entire text in French, but also the facility to look up each word you don't know. At that point, you can create a LingQ, adding the word to your vocab list, and making that word available to you with the touch of a mouse, so that the next time you encounter the word, you can click to refresh y ...more

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