The Stranger
5 journalers for this copy...
Bleah.
I think I could have lived for a very long time without needing to read a novella about a sociopathic nihilist who kills a complete stranger for no particular reason. However, since I now have read it, I’m perfectly content to leave this someplace for a college student who thinks he ought to be affecting Weltschmerz because it’s fashionable. The only danger I can think of is that he might read Atlas Shrugged at the same time and consequently become a complete waste of oxygen and food on the planet.
Absurd but a good read.
Journal Entry 3 by andomi at BookPeople/Meet-Up, 6th & Lamar in Austin, Texas USA on Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Released on Tuesday, October 14, 2003 at BookPeople/Meet-Up, 6th & Lamar in Austin, Texas USA.
Picked this up at the meetup, although after reading curmudgen's entry, I'm a bit scared. :) Maybe I'll like it though.
Well, it's ok. Definitely doesn't have much redeeming morality or whatever in it. Passing it on tonight at meetup.
I picked up this book at the meetup last Tuesday. I will journal again when I've read it. (which should be soon. It's very short!)
Journal Entry 7 by jenniferMCC at Washington, District of Columbia USA on Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Worth serious introspection.
This book presents, as camus would have said, a point of departure. From this place of absolute immorality and a world that sort of promotes it with ambivalence and revenge justice, the reader can move to Camus' The Rebel which demands an existential leap and quotes Neitzsche heavily.
I appreciate the posting from Curmudgin from Austin -great city btw. I certainly felt this way the first couple of times that I read this in graduate school. Some of the answers that I had to provide academically caused me to look at the book differently.
Within the nihilist tradition there is a command to rebuild a society for the better. Two points seem to illuminate this. During Meursault's trial we notice that he is not tried for murder on guilt alone, the prosecuting lawyer insists that there is a fratricide on the docket the next day and that if Merusault is not convicted that case is in peril as well. This has nothing to do with Justice.
On the grounds that the murder was unplanned and the bogus trial, Jean-Paul Sartre declared Meursault "Innocent." Interesting!
Within the pages of this book, an execution is witnessed by a number of people with "Cries of hate." The hate of society is as damning as the apathy of Meursault. Camus, who won a nobel prize for "Reflections on the Guillotine," seems to be pointing at a society that fails as much as the individual. While the individual fails with apathy, the collective fails with "Crowd rage."
I will pass this to a friend and have her pass it on at a meet up in Virginia.
This book presents, as camus would have said, a point of departure. From this place of absolute immorality and a world that sort of promotes it with ambivalence and revenge justice, the reader can move to Camus' The Rebel which demands an existential leap and quotes Neitzsche heavily.
I appreciate the posting from Curmudgin from Austin -great city btw. I certainly felt this way the first couple of times that I read this in graduate school. Some of the answers that I had to provide academically caused me to look at the book differently.
Within the nihilist tradition there is a command to rebuild a society for the better. Two points seem to illuminate this. During Meursault's trial we notice that he is not tried for murder on guilt alone, the prosecuting lawyer insists that there is a fratricide on the docket the next day and that if Merusault is not convicted that case is in peril as well. This has nothing to do with Justice.
On the grounds that the murder was unplanned and the bogus trial, Jean-Paul Sartre declared Meursault "Innocent." Interesting!
Within the pages of this book, an execution is witnessed by a number of people with "Cries of hate." The hate of society is as damning as the apathy of Meursault. Camus, who won a nobel prize for "Reflections on the Guillotine," seems to be pointing at a society that fails as much as the individual. While the individual fails with apathy, the collective fails with "Crowd rage."
I will pass this to a friend and have her pass it on at a meet up in Virginia.
