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The Stranger (Everyman's Library) [Hardcover]

Albert Camus , Matthew Ward
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (661 customer reviews)

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Book Description

February 23, 1993
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Albert Camus’s spare, laconic masterpiece about a Frenchman who murders an Arab in Algeria is famous for having diagnosed, with a clarity almost scientific, that condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life.

Possessing both the force of a parable and the excitement of a perfectly executed thriller, The Stranger is the work of one of the most engaged and intellectually alert writers of the past century.

Translated by Matthew Ward

Frequently Bought Together

The Stranger (Everyman's Library) + The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays (Everyman's Library) + The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
Price for all three: $43.68

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Editorial Reviews

Review

The Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Ward’s translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camus’s stoical anti-hero and ­devious narrator remains one of the key expressions of a postwar Western malaise, and one of the cleverest exponents of a literature of ambiguity.” –from the Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 152 pages
  • Publisher: Everyman's Library; First Edition edition (February 23, 1993)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0679420266
  • ISBN-13: 978-0679420262
  • Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (661 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
202 of 219 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An existentialist tour de force of literature July 9, 2002
Format:Paperback
The Stranger is a haunting, challenging masterpiece of literature. While it is fiction, it actually manages to express the complex concepts and themes of existential philosophy better than the movement's most noted philosophical writings and almost as well as Dostoyevsky's Notes From the Underground. This is a new kind of literature. The story in and of itself is rather simple, but the glimpses into the intellect and feelings of the protagonist are the sources of the magic of this novel. M.Meursault is a normal man in Algiers, France. When we meet him, he is on the way to his mother's funeral, where he says very little, expresses no remorse over her death, and immediately returns home. The next day, he goes swimming, meets Marie, takes her to see a comedy that night, and spends the next few weeks living his normal life and occassionally seeing Marie. He ends up getting indirectly involved in a dispute between his neighbor Raymond and a girl who did him wrong, and the conflict culminates in an encounter on the beach between Raymond, Meursault, and the girl's Arab brother and friend. Raymond is cut with a knife, but the whole episode seems to be resolved. Meursault, though, decides later to take another walk on the beach because he is too worn out to go inside and rejoin his friends, and somewhat inexplicably he ends up killing one of the Arabs. The second half of the novel examines Meursault's thoughts in relation to his trial and sentence; interestingly, he is prosecuted as much if not more for his moral character than for the crime of murder itself.

Basically, Meursault does not care about anything, does not feel anything for anyone (including himself, for the most part)....

Needless to say, this is not an uplifting book, but it is an engaging, thought-provoking one. While Camus cannot be called a true existentialist in his own philosophical outlook, his fiction does epitomize many existentialist ideas. Marsault is a protagonist like no other in literature--you cannot like him, he is obviously guilty of killing a man in cold blood, and he is of a cold-hearted nature, yet you do understand some of his thinking, find yourself more and more interested in his dark outlook on life, and have to admit that much of what he believes makes sense. Read more ›

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42 of 44 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Philosophically Deep and Moving Book June 21, 2011
Format:Mass Market Paperback
When I first started reading `The Stranger' by Albert Camus it seemed rather dull. It's a first person account from a somewhat bland character named Meursault, the titular `Stranger'. While working my way through the book I had to wonder if an alternate translation, `The Outsider', would be more appropriate for `L'Étranger'. Meursault is a Frenchmen living on Algeria but in no way is he a stranger. He has a circle of friends, a job and even a girlfriend. What sets him apart from humanity is his possibly pathological indifference to just about anything whether it be abuse of a dog, abuse of a woman or even the death of his own mother. Not that he engages in abuse it's just that he seems unaffected by the suffering of others. Other descriptions I've read on this book have described Meursault as honest to a fault with this being his downfall. I'm not sure that gives people the correct impression. Meursault's honesty is not the kind where you tell a fat woman she's fat. His downfall is more his inability to feign sorrow, regret or empathy. When his girlfriend asks if he loves her he considers it and answers "no" without any thought that the answer might be painful to hear. About half way through the book, in a bizarre set of circumstances, Meursault ends up killing a man and when asked by the police if he feels regret he says he never looks on the past with regret and in this case feels only vexation. There is no evident malice only utter insensitivity.

Philosophically The Stranger is one of the most intriguing and moving books I have ever read particularly the final act where Meursault confronts the priest who attempts to lead him to the Christian God in the last days before his execution.
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50 of 54 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A powerfully disturbing and bleak novel February 16, 2004
Format:Paperback
Although Albert Camus had achieved some fame as a journalist in his native Algiers in the thirties and as a writer for the French resistance during WW II, he first achieved an international critical reputation with the publication of this classic novel in 1946. The portrait of the detached, unfeeling, uncommitted, amoral, perpetually abstracted Meursault is one of the most haunting in 20th century literature. For many, it is the supreme 20th century literary depiction of nihilism. Unquestionably it is one of the premier literary efforts of the century, though Camus managed several other books just as powerful and superb in their own way, in particular THE PLAGUE, THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS, and THE FALL.

Meursault reminds me so much of figures from the paintings of Manet. In painting after painting, Manet depicted individuals alone in crowds, failing or refusing to interact or even acknowledge the others in the frame. In one famous painting, a lower middle class girl sits alone in her own little orb, sitting beside an upper class gentleman, neither acknowledging the existence of the other, both self-contained, seemingly detached from the busy world surrounding them. Behind them, a barmaid drinks a beer, equally oblivious to everyone and everything around her. They might all be on separate desert islands. Manet repeats this in painting after painting. Meursault seems almost as if he had stepped out of one of those paintings. He can at least communicate with others, socialize with them, but he cannot express strong moral sentiments or develop affectionate (as opposed to sexual) attachments.

This is not a happy book....

Camus would never write such a despairing book again. THE PLAGUE the next year would come close, but not close, while THE FALL would seem almost optimistic and upbeat in comparison. But for those who want to find perhaps the quintessential expression of what we like to think of as existentialism, this could stand as the premier literary instance. Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars no biggie
read this book in 2 days. was sooo excited to read it but it wasnt anything extraordinary once i did. still glad i bought it.
Published 19 hours ago by francis
3.0 out of 5 stars o.k.
The translation could have been better. Since I am bilingual, I understand that there could never be a perfect transaltion. Read more
Published 1 day ago by Maximiano Anguiano
5.0 out of 5 stars my first Camus
I was intrigued at how seemingly innocent and unmeaning gestures can cause grave damage to one. It held my interest.
Published 4 days ago by JoAnne Gottlieb
5.0 out of 5 stars always a favorite!
Wrote a research paper on Camus in high school and always been a huge fan, but this was purchased for my son's freshman English class. He enjoyed it, too.
Published 5 days ago by Kathryn H. Varner
5.0 out of 5 stars Camus
This and "The Plague" are two of my favorite books of all time. I Think plague is a little better, but this one is much simpler and by all means worth your time.
Published 10 days ago by Brett Windrow
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it before....
....and I'm glad I re-read it, viewing it through more mature eyes. Camus was a great thinker and an important force in literature. I found it completely enjoyable. Read more
Published 11 days ago by Fiddlin' Doc
5.0 out of 5 stars classic
This is a classic of existential literature. It is still as disturbing and enlightening today as when it came out.
Published 11 days ago by K. Volkan
5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic
Camus was an Algerian philosopher, and in this book he use that to make you think about what is happening in the life of the protaganist. Read more
Published 14 days ago by Paul A. Drawdy
1.0 out of 5 stars Stuart Gilbert translation is leagues better
Matthew Ward should forfeit all rights to translate anything for the rest of his career. What a shallow and weak translation of Camus' work.
Published 14 days ago by M Hofferek
4.0 out of 5 stars A quick read... and very thought provoking.
Cited as one of the top 100 books of all time in a list I read, this small book makes you conscious of what it means to have no feelings, no empathy, no compassion. Read more
Published 17 days ago by Albion by the Sea
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Welcome to the The Stranger forum
Has anyone noticed the reviews are for the book itself and not the student guide. Additionally, when viewing the original paperback title (not student guide), a link is provided to this page - Kindle version Camus: The Stranger student guide. Annoying.
Mar 21, 2009 by J. Nye |  See all 2 posts
Stranger translations
I just finished reading the Stuart Gilbert translation (in a Vintage paperback that cost me $1.25) for the third or fourth time. For better or worse, it's "The Stranger" I know, so I would hesitate to even look at the Matthew Ward translation. But I agree that "howls of... Read more
Jan 7, 2010 by R. M. Peterson |  See all 5 posts
Just for Fun. A PARODY OF WORLD PHILOSOPHY. Be the first to reply
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