The Stranger

I have a feeling I would have preferred Gilbert's translation. Ward, in his American initiative, becomes almost unartistic. But I overindulge fancy language.

I think Meursault is neither wicked nor decent, even in a world assigning such attributes worth. The prosecution is baffling, but, despite Meursault's rhetorical privilege as narrator, so is his crime. I often sympathize with his indifference, but not his ineffectiveness when he does desire something. For example, I don't fault him his moral apathy surrounding the trial, but why is he so incompetent toward an outcome he acutely prefers, walking free? Even when his perception is spot-on, and he feels earthly desire, he fails to actualize. He trips on his environment while transcending it.

I'd like to read more commentary, but I didn't notice much novelty in The Stranger, from my millennial seat. Apathy is familiar. Camus admitted Americans did brief blunt syntax first. I did enjoy the story though. I like a distillation. Start with the Hollywood cut and then remove everything that gives away the point. Then remove everything that amplifies or prolongs an emotion that's already stated. State emotions, themes, and events briefly, with reservation. Yet I said I overindulge fancy language... Dylan Thomas balances both paradigms in the first third of his Collected Poems. His language is sacred without becoming dramatic; between banter and Bronte. Camus via Ward is a little dead, besides occasional exquisite digression.

What's more absurd: murder by sunstroke or death penalty by not crying at your mother's funeral? Camus commentary is all about the Absurd, and both events feel improbable, but which is the crux, and is it really absurd? So much for "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" if Meursault is the absurd one, with plenty of opportunity to save himself. Besides his godless meaningless universe, which isn't very absurd at all, Meursault's life isn't that bad, if he could just avoid approaching an adversary with his senses disoriented and a gun in his hand. This isn't Meursault vs. Universe, it's Meursault vs. whatever social and sensory abnormalities he's enduring. That doesn't seem quite so existentialist. Again, the prosecution is borderline absurd, but so is the crime, so I question the existentialist theme beyond the obvious (hardly existentialist anymore) atheism/nihilism.

I wonder Camus's purpose. I called it a distillation because it didn't beat any dead horses, but it did beat a lot of horses. This isn't a work of philosophy, with all that narrative detail. It's a philosophically apathetic novella. For that, I liked some of the descriptions, and I liked meditating on Meursault's mindset. Obvious it is, but challenging, therefore worth prolonged confrontation.