I too miss NJTheatreMOM, I would have loved to know what she had thought.
So general thoughts. I slogged through The Stranger in high school. Hated the character did not get the point of the book at all. I read it in French this time on my Kindle (so easy to look up words!), but probably missed some nuances. Read some of Matthew Ward’s translation (he makes the point that especially the first part echoes the American noir crime novels and that his more American translation echoes that). I thought his translation did a good job of echoing the stylistic changes from the first part of the novel to the second. I also read some of the Sandra Smith translation. Didn’t necessarily like it better, some parts I liked less.
Anyway, I love Mary’s comment about Camus, “didn’t fully love it, but thought it was mesmerizing”. This time as the parent of a kid who is pretty close to being on the spectrum, I found Meursault pretty believable. I don’t think that Camus was particularly trying to make him realistic, the philosophical points he was making were more important to him, but I was interested that as an adult I felt like I knew this guy. The senselessness of the murder always bothered me, but this time I could see how he sleepwalked into it. Once the gun was in his hand (nod to Chekhov) it was inevitable it would be used. His refusal to feel what he doesn’t feel is also something I have run into in - ahem - certain family members.
The Meursault Investigation I found fascinating. On it’s surface such a simple tale - a rant against the Colonial tale and an effort to set the record straight. But as he goes around and around the “facts” you realize he’s telling many different versions of the tale, none of it really hangs together. He lets you know multiple times that he may just be a liar and yet it sucks you in.
quote I think that was my first lie. My own personal version of eating the forbidden fruit. Because from then on, I became wily and deceitful, I started to grow up. Now, that first lie of mine, I told it on a summer day. Just like your hero the murderer - bored, solitary, examining his own tracks, spinning his wheels, trying to make sens of the world by trampling the bodies of Arabs.
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I also found his use of language - his choice of French not Arabic - and the way he uses it is an interesting counterpoint to Camus. I don’t speak Arabic, but have had interesting discussion with my son who spent four years studying it including a year in Jordan. Arabic is structured quite differently and I think some of the ways Daoud uses French echo that.
If you want a good discussion of Camus and The Stranger - * The Guardian* covered it in their reading club a while back. Lots of interesting stuff, I thought the comments were well worth reading and there are lots of links to other material. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/nov/06/the-outsider-albert-camus-reading-group
