The Stranger [Paperback]

Albert Camus (Author), Matthew Ward (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: March 13, 1989 | ISBN-10: 0679720200 | ISBN-13: 978-0679720201

Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." First published in 1946; now in a new translation by Matthew Ward.

Product Details

• Paperback: 123 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 13, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679720200
• ISBN-13: 978-0679720201
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (659 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature
  • #40 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Stranger is not merely one of the most widely read novels of the 20th century, but one of the books likely to outlive it. Written in 1946, Camus's compelling and troubling tale of a disaffected, apparently amoral young man has earned a durable popularity (and remains a staple of U.S. high school literature courses) in part because it reveals so vividly the anxieties of its time. Alienation, the fear of anonymity, spiritual doubt--all could have been given a purely modern inflection in the hands of a lesser talent than Camus, who won the Nobel Prize in 1957 and was noted for his existentialist aesthetic. The remarkable trick of The Stranger, however, is that it's not mired in period philosophy.

The plot is simple. A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. The trial's proceedings are absurd, a parsing of incidental trivialities--that Meursault, for instance, seemed unmoved by his own mother's death and then attended a comic movie the evening after her funeral are two ostensibly damning facts--so that the eventual sentence the jury issues is both ridiculous and inevitable.

Meursault remains a cipher nearly to the story's end--dispassionate, clinical, disengaged from his own emotions. "She wanted to know if I loved her," he says of his girlfriend. "I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn't mean anything but that I probably didn't." There's a latent ominousness in such observations, a sense that devotion is nothing more than self-delusion. It's undoubtedly true that Meursault exhibits an extreme of resignation; however, his confrontation with "the gentle indifference of the world" remains as compelling as it was when Camus first recounted it. --Ben Guterson

From Library Journal

The new translation of Camus's classic is a cultural event; the translation of Cocteau's diary is a literary event. Both translations are superb, but Ward's will affect a naturalized narrative, while Browner's will strengthen Cocteau's reemerging critical standing. Since 1946 untold thousands of American students have read a broadly interpretative, albeit beautifully crafted British Stranger . Such readers have closed Part I on "door of undoing" and Part II on "howls of execration." Now with the domestications pruned away from the text, students will be as close to the original as another language will allow: "door of unhappiness" and "cries of hate." Browner has no need to "write-over" another translation. With Cocteau's reputation chiefly as a cineaste until recently, he has been read in French or not at all. Further, the essay puts a translator under less pressure to normalize for readers' expectations. Both translations show the current trend to stay closer to the original. Marilyn Gaddis Rose, SUNY at Binghamton
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 123 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 13, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679720200
• ISBN-13: 978-0679720201
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (659 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature
  • #40 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

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

By Daniel Jolley HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

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).... He looks at life objectively and determines that it really doesn't matter whether he does something or not in the overall scheme of things. When Marie expresses her love for him, he tells her he will marry her if it will make her happy but that he cannot say he really loves her. He expresses no remorse for killing the Arab because it just happened; he had no intention of doing it, but the fact is that he did, so there's little point in dwelling on it. He cares about the present and, to a lesser degree, the future, but the past is meaningless for the very reason that it is the past. Meursault sees things as they are; rather than rely on flights of fantasy and imagination (the typical tools of the Romanticists), he deals with facts in the here and now rather than run from them and has no problem admitting the seemingly obvious fact that man is a creature of utter depravity. He rejects religion; since each man must eventually die, what does it matter what he does while on earth. It is a man's hopes and dreams that weigh down his very existence; Marsault can only find happiness by cleansing himself of all such illusory notions.

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 ›

42 of 44 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Philosophically Deep and Moving Book June 21, 2011

By E. David Swan VINE™ VOICE

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.... Despite the perceived indifference he exhibits throughout the book Meursault has a consistent and well defined philosophy of existence. In this moment Meursault disgorges everything he has on the hapless priest and lays bare his soul (so to speak). Knowing that his death is but weeks, days or perhaps hours away, he achieves a moment of clarity seeing his place in the universe, a universe even more indifferent than himself. Camus never absolves him of his crime but in a sense Meursault rises above the simple act of killing a man, above his imprisonment and above life itself. He achieves full acceptance of his existence and place in the universe and in that moment transcends life and God. I`m genuinely saddened that I'm not able to read the final chapter in its original French. If the translation is this good I can hardly imagine how amazing the original must be.

This is the kind of book that one could read and ponder over and over again and I have a feeling I will. There is a considerable amount of symbolism throughout particularly the scorching sun which seems to continually oppress Meursault until he can take it no more. It starts off very slowly and builds throughout. I've never been on trial and certainly never been on death row but Camus gave Meursault an inner dialogue that rang so true it felt more real than any other portrayal I've seen or read. Despite his crime and often callous view of the suffering of others Camus created a character so real and open to the reader that I couldn't help but pity him terribly for his situation but in the end Meursault found peace regardless of the outcome. If you haven't read this book you really should and it's a short read so if you don't find it as profound as I did at least you wont have to endure it for long. Read more ›

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A powerfully disturbing and bleak novel February 16, 2004

By Robert Moore HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

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.... The story deals with Meursault's almost accidental killing of an Arab whose sister had been harmed by one of his acquaintances, but the novel trivializes everything--the killing, his subsequent arrest, his imprisonment, his trial and conviction, and his sentencing. The closest the novel comes to a happy sentiment is near the end when Meursault imagines how much nicer it would be to witness an execution rather than be executed, to have to puke in revulsion than to literally lose one's head to the guillotine.

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 ›