l'etranger
I read Albert Camus' The Stranger the other day (thanks to beth and ed's open bookshelves). It was so short that I literally read it in a day. I liked it a lot. I thought the way the main character was portrayed was funny and I liked how everyone threw their hands up at him, especially his lawyer. But the truth is, what he had to say was just as logical as or more so than what people expected to hear him say.
I thought it was interesting that I was shocked that he got such a harsh sentence. I couldn't believe it! I was stupified!
Also, I thought the way he talked about his lawyer being an extension of himself was phenomenal. It so seemed to explain the dull glassy stares on the defendants in all the Court TV cases. Well, except for those Menendez brothers. They had a special kind of dull stare.
stine
posted by stine @ 11:13 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
I've read that book at least four times now. I think the first was in my "grade 13" english class (we had an extra year of high school in Ontario if you were going to University...). I think the last time I read it, I had a mini-epiphany about how Camus/the main character was right about how the greatest thing you could take away from a man was his freedom... though I don't remember the details of my thought process now.
I should find a french language copy of the book. Also, the title "the stranger" isn't exactly the correct translation for the original title, "l'etranger" which means something along the lines of "the outsider", but not quite.
Yeah, that's a harsh sentence to give to someone who commits a pointless murder. Really. They should have slapped his wrist and sent him home.
hey, public hanging is absolutely harsh!
I hate to keep being the guy who says, “this book is better” but The Plague makes The Stranger look like a high school play. I always thought The Stranger was good, but kind of simple, maybe deceptively so. Anyway, the crux of Camus’ philosophy of the absurdity of life is well summed up in The Stranger, but to me The Plague is just so much more of an achievement.
Anyway, I think public hanging is harsh, but what do you expect a murderer to get? Anyway, I don’t side against Camus’ protagonist, and I know Camus was opposed to the death penalty, but I don’t necessarily believe that Camus wanted the reader to sympathize with the book’s narrator either.
please, keep being that guy, because the schooling is great! I haven't read the plague and now I will!
I don't have a copy of The Plague (yet) on my bookshelf, but there is The Myth of Sisyphus (it compliments the stranger nicely, though can by dry as essays tend to be), as well as a book of Camus' short stories, if you're into that sort of thing.
And relative to the other options the magistrate had (life imprisonment, for example), beheading does seem a bit harsh, particularly when it seems to be justified by Mersault not crying at his mother's funeral.
swoosh for beth! thanks, doll!
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2006/08/15/bayard/
Now you can say that you have something in common with Dubya. ;)
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