Gold Mine Processing Associate Ben Kreuzer recommends The Stranger by Albert Camus.
“Today, Maman died.”
The blunt opening lines of Albert Camus’ The Stranger perfectly drag you into the classical French novel, where Meursault’s unflinching straightforwardness, bordering on complete disinterest to everything, is brought to bear against the hot, vibrant world that surrounds him.
The beautiful Algerian coast and its myriad inhabitants are as familiar strangers to both the reader and Meursault himself, and Meursault remains as much a stranger to the reader. He is inscrutable and plain, a man who seems to feel nothing at all…
…even as he finds himself pulled, or goes by choice, into senseless violence.
The direct apathy of how Meursault views the people and world around him brings the idea of Absurdism into full display. Camus’ writing at once shows us a world of life and passion and ugliness and cruelty, and at the same time, simply crushes it under his heel with little care shown in any direction beyond its existence and oncoming end.
The flow of the world and the writing drags both Meursault and the reader along in its simply stated inevitability. The days, at one point distinct, slowly begin blending into themselves; Funeral and apartment and ocean and office, beach-house and courthouse and prison cell are strung together for a man who does not care to measure the difference.
I recommend reading The Stranger both for its wonderfully driven and percussive writing and depth of character, and also as a look into the frightful absurdity of the world as it is and how if it cares or doesn’t changes nothing…
…and the mind of a man who, by choice or not, exists in this world rather than living in it.
