THE STRANGER/THE OUTSIDER by ALBERT CAMUS

Personal rating: 9.5/10

"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 the 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."

- Meursault, The Outsider, Albert Camus.

There are times when a man feels absolutely motionless and emotionless. He stares stark through the horizon trying to grasp the meaning of it all. He thinks hard and wonder and even tears up his hair but he finds no meaning at all. And at that very moment the life, the joyous, colourful and delightful life at once loses all its essence.

That is when a man comes face to face with reality.

There is literally no sense in searching for a meaning in life, as what Camus tries to portray.

Here, the protagonist of the story, Meursault, a guy in his thirties, faces the death of his mother and embraces it with rather cold hands. He utterly fails to show any emotion at all,let alone grief. He doesn't even tries hard to blend in with the society, its not because he's lazy or he's given up, but its because "there's literally no point to it".

He thinks that people will perish one day or the other; be it in their thirties, forties or hundreds and even slowly as time passes their memory will fade as well. Its only a point of time.

Meursault is a very logical fellow, intelligent and highly educated. One day he commits a murder without any reason, which later makes him face a death sentence. His life in prison is rather very philosophical.

I think through Meursault, Camus tries to portray the absurdity of the nature of his philosophy. Meursault's actions are those of a man who merely exists without any reason, solely because of cause and effect. The story dwells in those parts of human psyche that we ourselves are ashamed to ponder upon.

What makes his novel stand out from the others is totally the absurdity of it, and it really got me thinking.

The actions and ideologies of Meursault are enough to cause an outburst in any normal human who cannot yet grasp the point of it all and is still living a lie, a fantasy; and why won't he? What is even the point of going on if atleast we don't even comfort ourselves with whatever lies we can!?

Thank you for reading it❤️