The Stranger by Albert Camus. ISBN: 0679720200

This book is like your mother; old and cheap to buy. We follow Meursault around for a small portion of his self confessed content but pointless life. From burying his dead mother, to acquiring a new piece of tail. The story itself is boring, until you take into account the dog beatings, girlfriend smashing, arab shooting, and the guillotine. None of that is the point, everything is about how Meursault thinks and feels about the things he is doing, and the things done to him. I could write a bit about existentialism but I'm sure that would be the point in which 98% of you would stop reading this. Here it is in a nut shell: he doesn't care. Do you remember all the times in which you lied, or acted like you felt some emotion that you in fact didn't? Well Meursault wouldn't see the point in that. In the end people see him as not just detached, but amoral, soulless, an automaton.


In a world with paxil, and other mood mellowing pills that are handed out like candy to school children. I'd think everyone would understand this book, but people seem to find his detachment from life disturbing. I guess this makes me the fucked up one, I feel that it made him free, free to do nothing or everything and be content with what ever the outcome.