Der Fremde (Ungekürzt)

Really short and simple book, but so good. Makes you think about life, time and what are we doing with it without making a big deal out it.

My memory of this book is less important to me than the memory of the context in which I read it. A year previous, the college where I worked announced it would be closing forever in 16 months. After watching my colleagues find new jobs and leave or get dismissed in several rounds of layoffs, during the school's final months, I found myself somehow still employed and put in charge of supervising the college's small library (because our librarian was one of those who found a job elsewhere) in addition to my increasingly nonexistent communications/PR work.

I was instructed to start preparing to shut down the library and to run a giveaway of all the books in its collection. I converted the study tables into book displays with their own themes and subjects. The Stranger ended up on the fiction classics table, and I eyed it for a few days before picking it up and reading the first two pages. I was fascinated by the tone and decided to sit down and read it since it was short and I didn't have much of anything else to do that day. I found myself increasingly annoyed by the words and actions of the sniveling weasel of a narrator, but I sat in my empty library and read it through to the end and threw it into the box of books I was setting aside for myself. A trophy of an empty afternoon at a soon-to-be-empty campus.

I'm sure there's irony in all this somewhere.

C'est la vie.

This book was a bit depressing - it had somewhat of an oppressive feeling that I just couldn't get out from under. It follows a man whose mother has died and he essentially just spends a lot of time wandering around and thinking to himself (at least, that's the gist that I got). It reminded me of a less motivated and purposeless Holden Caulfield, which I didn't know was possible. I didn't really enjoy it much but I did finish. So there's that.

The Stranger I have read many many times. It's a difficult book to review without spoiling it. I believe one only has to read the opening paragraph to understand this. In a way one has to read it to understand that what the writer did was portrait what is very common amongst us. Obviously that statement I just wrote, alongside the book itself, has been discussed and remains in discussion. I like books that seem taken out of a larger content, where you are left with a question of how much the author is involved in the writings. The Stranger is the perfect length. Don't give me 500 page make-me-feel-good books. I'd rather a short maze that leaves me puzzled at the end. I have someone laughing next to me as I'm writing this, saying that's because I write in the same way. Perhaps so but personally I think that is what makes a really good book like this. I still give it 5 stars although I wouldn't call it amazing.

1942, Algerian. I always thought Camus was French, but apparently he's Algierian. This little but bizarre book features a man condemned to die, at least partially because he didn't cry at his mother's funeral. I couldn't quite decide what the point was, but I think it was to show the criminal mind. He seems to have no moral compass and no strong feelings about anything one way or another. I wanted to feel sorry for him, but he really didn't seem human and I couldn't like him at all. I would have preferred to understand him. I don't believe criminals are necessarily monsters. I would have liked to be able to understand his motivation instead, but he doesn't seem to have one. Somehow he just passively had happened to murder someone and be condemned to death. He would perhaps prefer not to die, but he isn't that fussed about it either. Didn't like it, but it definitely had a kind of awesome feeling.

I re-read this book just this past month. I don't think I'll change my initial rating. It was a very well written story, compelling even with the translation. Although the main character is cold and sociopathic, the study itself is important and well done.

The first part was slow and I was having trouble understanding the purpose of this book. The only thing detailed was the everyday life of one man but I couldn't stop reading it. I felt that there was something more to his man and that there had to be a reason Camus felt it necessary to introduce the narrator with so much description and the need for the reader to understand the narrator. I'm glad I kept reading because this book really makes you think in a deeper manner than ever before.

Affected me greatly

Personified existentialism.

Excellent book - arguably Camus's best work. Interesting narrative style presented which really comes into its own by the end of the novel. Very readable for one's first foray into Camus's works.

The protagonist's name in this French classic is Meursault, a French Algerian. Meursault is estranged from his emotions and morality. He is apathetic about life events. He has friends and a girlfriend; however he is emotionally shallow. During a weekend vacation on the Algerian coast shortly after burying his mother who he had placed in a nursing home, he kills an Arab man. Although Meursault claims it was in self-defense, he finds him accused of murder. I thought his trial was less about whether he committed the crime or not, but rather on the character of Meursault's humanity. Meursault is the stranger referenced by the title, a man who is a stranger from his self and the rest of society.

The flat unemotional reactions of Meursault the Autistic boy in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-TimeI know that wasn't what Albert Camus intended. He never heard of the Autism spectrum. But, that is what Merusault reminded me off. The lack of emotional connection with people. The observing details of his surroundings. It was as he didn't understand the question when asked if he felt bad about his mother's death.

Very depressing; don't feel like it deserved the attention it got.

I think I'm going to go with 'benign indifference' as my reaction to this book. The main character is a sociopath who lives in the moment and can only focus on his own needs. He is certainly not the 'ordinary man' that the Goodreads book blurb claims.

I suppose part of the putative virtue of this book is that it cuts to the heart of the matter, but nnhhh, when we've got existentialists-of-the-absurd like Kafka and Genet out there, to say nothing of Camus's own The Plague, this starts to seem like kind of thin broth. It was influential for me as a young, as it almost had to be, just because of its position in what we used to call the counterculture, for teens trying to figure out if they were causeless rebels or incipient sages or hollow men or what they were--cf. the same old suspects, Kerouacs Salingers Burroughses and Vonneguts, few of which I have more than a mild interest in ever revisiting. Meursault is frozen, inert, very very far from the authentic life and for an axe to break the ice all he has to hand is a gun and the famous always-already-killed Arab (this isn't just a postcolonial novel either, by the way, guys, this is like a type of alt-alt-right (in that M. isn't political and doesn't know he's racist) nihilism avant la lettre, Meursault as a weird missing link between Raskolnikov and Dylann Roof)--well. I'm no doubt just as far from the authentic life but I'm full of weird feelings and a strong vested interest in feeling them, and that's largely why I never warmed to this b, I think. Flat affect, pedantic insistence that IT'S gonna tell YOU what the only thing is that could possibly be of real interest to a human being (spoilers, it's an execution). If this is actually the shitty choice the bro-ey existential literature of the twentieth century is forcing on us, give me the ones who are mad to live and mad to kill Arabs, I guess--but more, give me Margarita's flight on her broomstick or Borges's infinite library or Ballard's infinite city or Calvino's barone rampante or, yes, Ice-9 Holden C.'s peaked hunting cap Interzone and Dr. Benway, yes, fucking dingledodies, the infinite crenellations of a sexy convict's asshole, let me wake up as a large bug and watch the death machine that is life shake itself all to pieces as it pulls off my bug legs/head/thorax. It all gives you more soreness than Camus gives you here, and even if you too still end up condemned it's better to count your blessings that you were here at all to wink into consciousness, go "Is this ... me!" and wink out than to waste your time hoping the guillotine will malfunction (they keep it in pretty good order I hear).

Wow, I can see why this novel is so highly regarded! While Camus conveys some serious ideas about existentialism, he & his characters never pontificate. Camus is a master of "show, don't tell" in this short novel. Translation by Matthew Ward was very easy to read - I have no way of knowing if the claim to being 'truer to the original' than the previous English translation is correct.

My favourite book

"I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world."

His philosophy is not the easiest to swallow, but I endlessly appreciate what Camus is trying to get across.

As with every Camus novel, The Stranger definitely merits a reread. There's just so much to be gleaned from his books, however simple they may sometimes seem.

I felt an eerie suspense reading this book as with no other. I felt sympathetic to the protagonist, and really was caught up in this slow haunting atmosphere. Very readable, but on the whole, more entertaining than provoking, and more sour than stimulating. Not much in the way of great one-liners, but for one - the one that saved the novel for me.

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

I heard to many great things about this book , so when i came across it i had to give it a try I didn't like it that much , it's divided into two parts . the first one was very boring and took me so much time to get through it ,its pacing was so slow and i felt as if most of it was pointless , but the second part was a bit more interesting , i felt the story picking up and some events actually began to happen . yet i didn't enjoy it that much either , it didn't make me want to bang my head against the wall out of frustration , yet it didn't prevent me from falling asleep , you know? The only reason i gave it three stars is because of the last few pages , i must admit that the ending was very beautiful , and i enjoyed it . but was it worth reading all the previous boring pages? i truly don't knowi wouldn't recommend this to anyone

This was a second reading after many years and I was surprised at how little I remembered about this book. A slow start weaves the web or 'mechanism' from which our detached friend cannot free himself. Even if like me, you only half understand the philosophical aspect of the book it's still a great read. It's both tragic and comic and a MUCH easier hundred pages than Heart of Darkness!

The protagonist of this story is a 'stranger' indeed, in the way he reacts to events in his life. He seems impassionate with regard to everything and without deep moral feelings. In the view of his and each man's destiny, death, nothing matters for him anymore. This presentation of the character of this man tastes a bit artificial too me, too theoretically philosophical. Also, the trial seems rather absurd in the argumentations used (or is it only outdated?). The description of the thoughts of Meursault when he approaches the Arab he is about to shoot are very effectful as are the last pages of the novel.

Deeply impressed. Will have to pull it out again and re-read it.

The original title of this novel "L'Etranger" does translate literally into English as "The Stranger", but this novel's context has also led to its translation as "The Outsider". The difference between the two words in fact draws a line between interpretations of the novel. This is the story of a murderer. Either he stands outside of the society the rest of us count ourselves members of, someone vile we can examine from a comfortable distance, or else he is one stranger among all us who are strangers, none of us mattering to the universe - a creepier version that defies you to offer real counterargument as it sets up and tears apart religious and judicial arguments. I'm a firm believer that where non-fiction teaches us facts, fiction teaches us about emotions. What to do then, with a novel's protagonist who is so dispassionate? The absence of a thing can teach us the value of its presence. Meursault has dismissed everything that makes life worth living as being irrelevant to what life is, but then, of what stuff is life? He doesn't say - or rather, he denies it has any substance. There are times we find ourselves not feeling what we think we ought to, feeling unaffected, feeling like the stranger in the room. It's another thing entirely to justify remaining stuck there and refusing to budge, embracing permanent hopelessness and adopting it as one's philosophy. Filed among "books to ban from the house when depressed."

The StrangerChilling4 starsI REALLY enjoyed this book. The main character, Mersault, is a man of few words and emotions, which appeared cold and indifferent. I didn't believe it was intentional. I pitied him and believed him not to be a bad person. He simply viewed the world differently and his viewpoint and lack of apathy is what lead to his destruction. I won't tell the story but HIGHLY recommend this book.

A strange book, but quite profound. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it as such, I'm not sure it's intention was to be enjoyed. The style of writing is simplistic and bare, the characters and narrator distant and unfeeling. Yet it has something to say on the human condition and the lack of control we have in our lives, other than what we choose to feel is important.As with all translated works,I wonder how accurate this version is. The translator's foreward states that he tried to match the style of the author in his work, rather than translate the deeper meanings. In this particular case I think that was probably a good idea.I'd be interested in more work by the author, although looking at the other titles, it seems like they might all be of a similar nature.

A simple, beautiful story of sadness and bad luck.

This book is absolutely beautiful. Camus has wonderful writing technique and the content is interesting. I'm sure I didn't read into this as deeply as I should have, but I still pulled a lot away from the book. Definitely one worth a reread.... or four. Loved it.

Who is estranged from whom? Camus gives a character we can follow, but not understand, and in the process shows us how little we understand about ourselves sometimes. Most of us do not shot other people, but we often do things, and if we were brought to trial for them, have no better defense than Camus's character. Thank goodness this does not veer off into Kafkaesque.

Well this is a book that it is difficult to stop thinking about. I think I need to read it again.