I didn't feel anything except that he was beginning to annoy me.



Well, this book was fucking amazing. It's smart, short, quick, and funny. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.



BASIC STORY

This book is about an autistic man who ends up on trial for murder.



THOUGHTS



Camus famously said "In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death."



This basically sums up the whole novel.



Our protagonist, Meursault, is pretty apathetic to anyone else's feelings

I didn't feel anything except that he was beginning to annoy me.



Well, this book was fucking amazing. It's smart, short, quick, and funny. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.



BASIC STORY

This book is about an autistic man who ends up on trial for murder.



THOUGHTS



Camus famously said "In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death."



This basically sums up the whole novel.



Our protagonist, Meursault, is pretty apathetic to anyone else's feelings and only cares about his own comfort and happiness. He's not a greedy or angry person. But he is vulnerable to suggestion and goes along with what anyone suggests to him if it isn't any skin off his teeth. He's also almost physically unable to tell a lie or be dishonest.



This ends up getting him in trouble - that, and not being able to understand basic neurotypical emotions. He can't understand what everyone is getting so worked up about.



Let's take the beginning of the novel in which Meursault's mother dies in the Home. Meursault is condemned, hated and believed to be soulless for two reasons here:



ONE: He put his mom in a Home in the first place.



This seems perfectly reasonable to me. It's nice to keep your elderly parents at home, but often you can't care for them and/or they are too demented to keep living at home. For instance, Meursault works. I don't see anything wrong with him putting his mom in the Home. It's hard to just leave her alone for eight hours a day with no care and then come home to care for her instead of go out with his woman or with his friends. Besides, he said he and his mom have nothing more to say to each other. This is reasonable.



For the first few days she was at the home she cried a lot. But that was because she wasn't used to it. A few months later and she would have cried if she'd been taken out. She was used to it.



This is so true. I am very familiar with the elderly and persons with dementia. Often old folks cry and despair upon being put in a Home, but after a few months they have friends, they have bingo every Sunday and movie-night every Friday, they have their friends, they have their flirtations, and everything is fine. This doesn't ALWAYS happen, but I've found it generally to be true.



TWO: He didn't cry at his mom's funeral, and he did things like drink coffee and smoke a cigarette. The day after his mom's death he started a sexual relationship with a woman.



That also seems understandable to me. Oftentimes if your parent has dementia then you say 'goodbye' to them and mourn their death much much earlier than when they actually physically die. The mom-part of his mom could have died years ago. I'm very familiar with looking at a person you once loved and who loved you back but is now merely a shell of a human being. *shrug* I hope people don't hate me or condemn me as they do

Meursault, but that's how it is. That is what the demons of Alzheimer's and dementia do to people. Kill them long before they are even dead.



The way Meursault sees it, is that she's dead, nothing's going to bring her back. Why shouldn't he drink coffee at her funeral or have a cigarette? Why should he not take up with a woman when he gets back home?





Are you defending what Meursault did?



No.



He killed a man and then shot his corpse four times for good measure.



True, the man had a knife, but you know what they say about bringing a knife to a gunfight.



Meursault is obviously a man who has no concept of the future and no concept of the consequences of his actions. He just kills the guy. Due to sensory overload - it was hot, the sun and the heat and the oppressiveness of the day was just too much for him. Again with the autism.



He's also unable to lie at his trial. His lawyer suggests he say he was holding in his emotions at his mom's funeral instead of just having no emotions. Meursault flatly states that he cannot do this because it is untrue and he's not going to say something that isn't true.





Is Meursault a guy you'd want to be friends with?



Obviously not. For one thing he only cares about himself. For another thing, he can't understand that emotions of others. For a third thing, he is willing to do whatever anyone suggests of him as long as it doesn't cause himself any discomfort. For a fourth thing, he takes everything that people tell him at face value. This isn't a man you can love or trust.



That being said, he's not an inherently malicious guy like his friend Raymond, who is a pimp and a wife-beater who does stuff like has sex with his ex-girlfriend after pretending to make-up with her, then spit in her face. Then beat her to a bloody pulp. He is obviously someone in the book who is a sick fuck. It's my personal opinion that pimps are the lowest forms of human life.



I would have thought you'd have said 'rapists.'



Pimps are fucking rapists. They are rapists plus. Rapists and worse. I fucking hate pimps. HATE THEM.



What bothered him was that he "still had sexual feelings for her." But he wanted to punish her.



Classic hallmark of a sick fuck. If any person, fictional or real expresses this kind of sentiment, then you know you are already dealing with a sick fuck. It's like a calling card.





But Meursault isn't a sick fuck like Raymond. He's just an autistic guy who got caught up in the wrong thing at the wrong time. Like I said, he's not a GOOD guy. And he has no sense of the future, no sense of right and wrong, and no sense of human feelings - especially any feelings that are not his own.





RELIGIOUS FRANCE



It was super-interesting to me to be transported back to a time when France was religious. France is such a secular country now. It was weird to be back in a time when crucifixes were being waved in people's faces and things like a lack of belief in God could be held against you in a court of law.



Meursault's thoughts on and dealings with the Christian Coalition were the funniest parts of the novel, I was cracking up reading them. Of course he has no interest in God or religion and hearing him argue with the priest and even the uber-religious magistrate was too funny.



He wanted to talk to me about God again, but I went up to him and made one last attempt to explain to him that I had only a little time left and I didn't want to waste it on God.





PHILOSOPHY

Of course this book is famous for being a philosophical text and there's plenty of discussion on the meaning of life, the meaning of death, God, existence, etc. etc. etc. If you like that kind of stuff, this is a gold mine.



But everybody knows life isn't worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn't much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go one living - and for thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying.



Camus also skewers and explores law and the legal system, which is interesting and at times amusing.



In a way, they seemed to be arguing the case as if it had nothing to do with me. Everything was happening without my participation. My fate was being decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion.



I also like how Camus explores the fact that prison is more or less tolerable to Meursault because of his autism.



Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about. In my prison, when the sky turned red and a new day slipped into my cell, I found out that she was right.



There are hints throughout the text that his mom was on the spectrum as well.



It's interesting to think about how differently Meursault's trial might have gone today with modern psychiatry and a secular France.





STYLE



Camus is writing in a sparse style here, in the vein of Hemingway. This lends to Meursault's voice and unique outlook on life and is very effective. It also makes the novel a quick and easy read.



Meursault's everyday life is boring - as is everyone's - and Camus captures this well without losing his readers' interest, which I think is quite a feat.





Tl;dr - An excellent novel that I recommend highly. Whether you like humor, philosophy, need to read a classic for a challenge or just for street cred, whether you have an interest in reading a French novel - this book is good for so many purposes. Besides that, it is enjoyable and quick. Ward's new American translation is wonderful and I think captures a certain something that Gilbert's more British and more interpretive version missed. (Gilbert's version is the one I read in high school.)



A book I would recommend to anyone who has even the slightest interest.