Back to the Classics #9

I read this book for the reading challenge Back to the Classics 2022.

Classic in Translation. Nothing like a translation from the French of an existentialist thriller like Simenon.

The Stranger – Albert Camus (1942)

This short novel is set in French Algeria in the early 1940s. The narrator is Mersault, an uneducated, working class clerk living in a rough milieu. His feelings, thoughts and actions reveal his rejection of the freedom to make our own meaning, to create our own values in life. His dodging and shirking of the responsibility to make sense of life and live with a modicum of courage wisdom or forethought land him in trouble deep with public opinion and the meat grinder of the criminal justice system.

Narrator Mersault admits that he was once a student but when he was forced to give up his studies he realized studying, tests, degrees, etc. were pretty futile for a guy like him. And what a lout he is. He gets on just fine with the violent bullying abuser Raymond. Mersault doesn’t have the smarts or the sense to think through the consequences of his actions when Ray gets him involved in a vendetta with some locals over a Moorish woman. “Tell me who your friends are,” says the Latvian proverb, “and I’ll tell you who you are.”

His GF Marie says she likes him because he is so odd. Because he doesn’t express interest in her life, maybe she figures that after they’re married he’ll still be so uninterested that she can come and go as she pleases. Of marriage, he says things that encourage and discourage the prospect. He sincerely doesn’t care if they get married or not and he has zero sense of how she thinks about the issue.

His indifference indicates something is psychologically wrong with Meursault. He is withdrawn and silent, speaking only when spoken to and then with flat semi-responses that give the impression he’s not saying all he knows. His reticence at work gives him a reputation for being aloof and withdrawn.  Meursault is so peculiar that he turns down a transfer from sleepy Algiers to exciting Paris, thus amazing his supervisor with his nutty objectivity that one place is as good as another.

Meursault keeps acquaintances at a distance with this reserve. The only reason that his GF Marie puts up with him, one suspects, is that due to her experience she figures all men are cold detached lumps. Meursault doesn’t connect with anybody, though he knows lots of people in the French-speaking community in North Africa.

Meursault can’t predict what other people are expecting. He doesn’t pick up on body language like smiles and gestures. At his mother’s funeral, he demonstrates a lack of feeling and inability to express appropriate grief that scandalizes the people connected to the old folk’s home where she passed away. He gets distracted by details in the environment, stuff that normal brains filter out – the blobby red ears of an old man, the sopping wet hand towel at work.

He is also defenseless to the glaring sunlight of the environment. Camus constantly emphasizes the relentless light in this novel. I lived in Saudi Arabia for three months; the hard fierce light is as if a hand is gripping your head and squeezing. I can assure the reader that sunstroke can cause the irrational aggression and violent behavior that land Meursault in jail. This passage is how it is, really:

Wherever I looked I saw the same sun-drenched countryside, and the sky was so dazzling I dared not raise my eyes. Presently we struck a patch of freshly tarred road. A shimmer of heat played over it and one's feet squelched at every step, leaving bright black gashes. …

The story is pretty simple, and so is the language. The philosophical stance, however, is challenging. I think Camus is reminding us that Meursault’s narrow mindless life is no way to live. But concerning Meursault’s response at the end, with the chopper just around the corner, Meursault realizes that he alone has control over his fate because he can choose how he will think and feel and act in response to what the mean stupid criminal justice system and indifferent universe have in store for him. 

We all have the freedom to choose how we will think, feel, and act when we face loss, death, injury, affliction, insult, greedy leaders, mask slackers, loud chewing, bad drivers, hangnails, stepping on a dog toy in the dark.