Chris's Reviews > The Stranger
The Stranger
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If every few words of praise I鈥檝e seen for 鈥淭he Stranger鈥� over my lifetime materialized into small chunks of rock in space, there鈥檇 be enough sh!t to conjure up the Oort Cloud. Much like this distant collection of debris bordering the outer solar system, I can鈥檛 really comprehend the acclaim heaped on this story, but luckily, like the Cloud, it鈥檚 usually out of sight, out of mind, and has absolutely no discernable current influence on my life. And just like the Oort can occasionally spit a chunk of sh!t at the earth and devastate all life upon it, so too can I hear/read some lip service paid to 鈥淭he Stranger鈥� resulting in my transition to Freak-Out Mode, resulting in me slapping someone in the face, usually someone I have to deal with again at some point in time (if only in court).
Personally, I don鈥檛 see what the big deal is. Armed with a 100-word vocabulary, a meager 123 pages to bore one with, and a character who simply doesn鈥檛 seem to give much of a damn, Camus somehow shook the world of literature with this inane garbage. I haven鈥檛 sat down to conduct a thorough analysis, but using some reasonable guesstimation I will say that the average sentence in this book is about eight words long. I鈥檓 not asking that every sentence in a book run the length of a page, but the end result when employed by Camus was that either a twelve year old or some sort of retarded robot wrote this. (Cue robot voice) It struck me as strange. The sentences were so short. It was very peculiar. This could be read very fast. I began to read this on the train on my in to work. I finished it on my way back home.
Who the hell writes like that? More importantly, who the hell reads a book like that and suspects therein lay some complexity? Each time I noticed how condensed everything was it occurred to me that somehow the literati had spent all this time adoring the published equivalent of a commercial.
Here鈥檚 a snapshot of the dude we鈥檙e supposed to give a hoot about. He doesn鈥檛 readily assimilate to or accept the conventional mores everyone else seems accustomed to. He鈥檚 not overly concerned, but he seemingly knows there鈥檚 some kind of disconnect. He鈥檚 also not out to go f#ck with the system for lack of anything better to do or in some attempt to make a statement. He鈥檚 pretty emotionless, he shows some genuine concern for himself at times, but even those close to him really aren鈥檛 too significant in his grand picture. His testicles are extremely small and sterile, and he fondles them often.
Not long after the death of his mother, Our Hero is chilling on the beach when some Arabs come around looking to start sh!t with an acquaintance of his, and after a small skirmish earlier in the day, Our Man goes back down to the beach and shoots an Arab. He gets arrested and pretty much just goes with the flow, he rolls over and let鈥檚 the prosecution have their way with his scrawny white ass. The whole time he pretty much just thinks it鈥檚 all pretty ridiculous and isn鈥檛 too concerned with the proceedings.
I wasn鈥檛 too concerned about the book. More than anything I was just bored with it. There was no build up, there was no action, there was no climax. There was nothing funny, nothing exciting, nothing interesting, and nothing to really take away from the book; just the same words repeating over and over, grouped in strings of seven or eight. The longest sentence in the book was also the only thing which I found even remotely amusing: 鈥淔inally I realized that some of the old people were sucking at the insides of their cheeks and making these weird smacking noises鈥�. That isn鈥檛 particularly funny, but compared to the rest of the book it was comedic gold.
鈥淭he Stranger鈥� is some seriously weak shit. I鈥檝e gotten more enjoyment from looking a map of Kentucky.
Personally, I don鈥檛 see what the big deal is. Armed with a 100-word vocabulary, a meager 123 pages to bore one with, and a character who simply doesn鈥檛 seem to give much of a damn, Camus somehow shook the world of literature with this inane garbage. I haven鈥檛 sat down to conduct a thorough analysis, but using some reasonable guesstimation I will say that the average sentence in this book is about eight words long. I鈥檓 not asking that every sentence in a book run the length of a page, but the end result when employed by Camus was that either a twelve year old or some sort of retarded robot wrote this. (Cue robot voice) It struck me as strange. The sentences were so short. It was very peculiar. This could be read very fast. I began to read this on the train on my in to work. I finished it on my way back home.
Who the hell writes like that? More importantly, who the hell reads a book like that and suspects therein lay some complexity? Each time I noticed how condensed everything was it occurred to me that somehow the literati had spent all this time adoring the published equivalent of a commercial.
Here鈥檚 a snapshot of the dude we鈥檙e supposed to give a hoot about. He doesn鈥檛 readily assimilate to or accept the conventional mores everyone else seems accustomed to. He鈥檚 not overly concerned, but he seemingly knows there鈥檚 some kind of disconnect. He鈥檚 also not out to go f#ck with the system for lack of anything better to do or in some attempt to make a statement. He鈥檚 pretty emotionless, he shows some genuine concern for himself at times, but even those close to him really aren鈥檛 too significant in his grand picture. His testicles are extremely small and sterile, and he fondles them often.
Not long after the death of his mother, Our Hero is chilling on the beach when some Arabs come around looking to start sh!t with an acquaintance of his, and after a small skirmish earlier in the day, Our Man goes back down to the beach and shoots an Arab. He gets arrested and pretty much just goes with the flow, he rolls over and let鈥檚 the prosecution have their way with his scrawny white ass. The whole time he pretty much just thinks it鈥檚 all pretty ridiculous and isn鈥檛 too concerned with the proceedings.
I wasn鈥檛 too concerned about the book. More than anything I was just bored with it. There was no build up, there was no action, there was no climax. There was nothing funny, nothing exciting, nothing interesting, and nothing to really take away from the book; just the same words repeating over and over, grouped in strings of seven or eight. The longest sentence in the book was also the only thing which I found even remotely amusing: 鈥淔inally I realized that some of the old people were sucking at the insides of their cheeks and making these weird smacking noises鈥�. That isn鈥檛 particularly funny, but compared to the rest of the book it was comedic gold.
鈥淭he Stranger鈥� is some seriously weak shit. I鈥檝e gotten more enjoyment from looking a map of Kentucky.
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May 5, 2008
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May 7, 2008
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Nick
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May 30, 2008 12:19PM

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Who the hell writes like that?
Um, well, for starters, Albert Camus did, and he kicked ass.
Um, well, for starters, Albert Camus did, and he kicked ass.


It's a peronsal taste thing, I guess, but I think it's very fitting that a book about ennui should be terse, simplistic in vocabulary, and somewhat uninvolving (in the traditional, plot-driven sense). It's supposed to evoke that mood, after all. Maybe the detractors here have just never experienced ennui. In that sense, they are lucky or unlucky, depending upon one's perspective. I vote for unlucky.

But for me THE STRANGER, like certain childhood trauamas, will always be there in my emotional life. It captured in a profound and unsettling way something central about daily life, and living in the world. Its formal austerity is that of a world stripped of value. And while identifying with a numb narrator like Mersault presents its difficulties, I think anyone who's felt like an alien in their own culture or time, forced to participate in rituals that are meaningless to them, can make the leap.
But, hey, if you didn't like it, you didn't like it.
Now a question on the translation: Which one did you read? I loved the old one by Stuart Gilbert (now out of print but easy to find). The new one by Matthew Ward sucks. For instance, he fucks up the book's great first line by using "Maman" instead of mother, which may be more accurate, but confuses 95% of English readers who don't understand French pronunciation; they're left scratching their heads wondering what a "muh-man" is instead of being seduced into the narrative. Worse still, using the French severs the primal emotional connection the word "mother" (or even "mom" or "mama") has with English speakers. For many of us, it was our first word! And it's a word that immediately chafes against the nonchalant tone of the second line... Agh!

I also agree about translation. I had this experience w/ "Death in Venice." The translation makes all the difference in the world when it comes to that novella. They vary widely. It's a terrific novel w/ some shoddy, distorting translations...

I might have to check out the Gilbert translation, and why not, i've already read this several times, once more won't kill me.
The copy i've always had is the sucky Matthew Ward translation.
It's possible that his translation is what makes it lame, but the 'Maman'-thing didn't bother me.

Regardless, Chris's review is superb. Even my favorite author has weaknesses, and it's helpful to point them out. Despite the popularity of 20th-century literary genres, they have vulnerabilities, too, and the truncated sentences and vocabularies are among them.





nicely put.

Your review was funny, I guess (I like the closing line), but let me draw you a diagram:
--------------------- (this line represents the point of the book)
-------------------------(this line represents your head)
--------------------- (this line represents the point of the book)
-------------------------(this line represents your head)

The writing style is intentional. It's straight to the point and always looking straight up at the sun. There are no shadows and no superfluous distractions steeped in verbose pointlessness. The book was narrated-as you said-by a man who didn't give a shit whether he was deemed "fit for society" so do you really think it necessary that the narrative of the novel be anything different? Through this specific style, Camus creates another layer to his novel upon which to build his character and story. You obviously did not grasp such intent.


I don't know that "The Fall" covers the same ground, but it is also an excellent read, more about guilt and the dissonance between the ideal self and the actual self.


Before reading your review, I also noted in mine that the most annoying thing about The Stranger is the very short sentences. It's not about what translation you're reading, I read the book in French, and it was equally boring.
Although there are apparently more people who like the book than those who dislike it, I am glad I don't feel lonely anymore.
PS: The last two paragraphs of your review are my favorite.
To be honest, the only thing I could think while reading your review is that the reason you don't get this book is that you're the kind of person who uses the word "guesstimation."

Anyway,it is told in first person and protagonist (narrator) is just an average individual so why would he has to use imposing sentences? If it were like that,it would be bad for the realism of the book.
Enjoying the book or not is one thing but calling it simply "a rubbish" and "waste of time". Well it is too cruel.

I never realized that the essential part of "The Stranger" was in the ideas Camus introduced about atheism and existentialism until I read it again few months ago.
Sometimes those kinds of things happen with books. You read one and it doesn't like you because you don't agree with the author but maybe over the years you change your mind and if you read it one more time you may enjoy it.


Q.1 How come your review is nearly as long as the book?
Q.2 Are you a member of a gun club?
Q.3 Who are you more angry at, Camus, the people who like his book or someone else?



But, it is still one of the best books I have ever read, a bona fide life changer. That being said, for people who say things about how nothing happens or that Mersault is overly bland, check out Sartre's Nausea, it actually touches on a lot of the same ideas (why are we here? What things in life have intrinsic value?) but things are mostly thought out loud, on the page, so to speak.





Ha, ha!

