The Stranger by Albert Camus (1989) Paperback Paperback – January 1, 1989

I read this on the advice of a friend that insisted I was the main character. I had to know what that meant. After reading it I understand that she is quite frustrated with me and what she perceives as my lack of desire to improve my future. Interesting. This book is brilliantly written and concise. Refreshing. I highly recommend it. The style should make a comeback post haste and replace the long-winded drivel of today.

This story, like so many of his writings, are his individual touch of indifference about personal feelings and experiences in his life. The detached voice is always compromised with observations of extreme heat, brilliant sun and colorful descriptions. This time the hopelessness reached his reader.

but in a good way. It made me think about not only those around me, but about myself. I was disturbed and frightened to think that someone like me might end up like the protagonist, and it made me reevaluate a lot of my methods of operations on my life. I've started getting myself to feel more and care more, and my life is better. This book helped me in that transformation, and it might help you, too.

I find when you read a classic and don't actually like the book you feel like you must have missed what everyone else found. I could not decide between two stars or three. I finally let the fact it was a classic dictate my choice.My problems with this book are that the protagonist is just completely apathetic. His mother dies he feels nothing, he meets Marie he feels nothing, he kills a man he feels nothing. Maybe I should say instead that the writer does not give us anything about this character.He lives in a building with a man who beats his dog, and also with a man who beats his mistress. He is not bothered by either. Hell when he is facing death, in the end, he does not seem all that bothered.One time he actually shows a bit of who he is when he starts yelling at the chaplain. He is angry and lonely but still completely unlikable.I read the afterword by the author who stated he saw the hero as someone who will not accept anything but the truth. He refused to be anything but truthful about how he felt and why he killed. Perhaps this is true but I found the hero unlikable, flawed. In the end, he is less human because he is not able to lie.

This helped me to understand the actions of someone close to me. I feel I know this person and if I could speak for him, he would say “I only want to be left alone,” and not like most people he really means it.