Reviews

Wow, just wow.

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It’s crazy how everything can change in an instant.

This book gave me so many pauses. I’m taking a long pause right now while writing this review and I’m just thinking about:

- how we carry the guilt of how we’ve treated our parents and our ancestors around with us forever. As stupid and as flippantly as we treat our daily life, we have an obligation to those who came before us, maybe not those who came before us in their flesh, but the concept of our past/lineage in its abstraction(?)

I am also thinking about how everyone wants to make everyone else’s lives about themselves, in a way. We connect other people’s experiences and whether or not we see them as moral or immoral, to who we are as individuals. It’s crazy how we can redirect and inform our viewpoints, not on the solo and solitary multilayered experience of ourselves, but on the fact that everything is kind of intricately linked in the universe? The universe is massive!

- I think of the way that when our main character, Monsieur Meursault, is on trial he is observing all these different people in his life outside himself attest to his character and doesn’t say much for himself about his own character. I think about how if you say nothing for yourself and dispute nothing that others say about you, you become, in essence, whomever they think you are. Which may or may not be who you are, at all.

- This also brings me to the fact that many people are thrown away/put away by society, including a lot of people who are imprisoned, because they’re too exhausted by the complicated life that they’ve experienced, to stand up for themselves at trial against people who are and have been for centuries crafting a narrative about the kind of people that they are or that they come from, even when they may not be that kind of person. It’s just that they are caught in a cycle of shit and that they’re too beaten by to battle through; even though the appeal, once they’re strong enough to weather it, may or will prove to be even harder after the fact.

- I think about the people who have resigned themselves to death by circumstance, or people who were made to die by circumstance and public opinion, rather than the factual circumstances of their actions and their personal involvement and responsibility in becoming a part of the “system”.

I’m also thinking about how you may have no attachments to anyone in your current life and you also may think you have to time make those attachments to people, or to choose whether or not you want to engage in relationships, friendships, whatever, but... do you? Time is an illusion.

- Even as we watch Meursault on deathrow, it’s hard as a reader to not come to the conclusion that your card can be drawn any day, at any time and in any way. Time exists and it does not exist. Also, time will continue on with or without you (another point as to why it’s important to pay homage to those who were here before you, re: his Mother)

- Paying homage to those who were here before you, to me, means that you try to understand something about/of their existence and show respect for their existence, especially if you are allotted the time to pay your respects to them. Many people are not given that luxury! Take it seriously. Put aside your childish indulgences (like cafe au lait) when faced with the reality of life and death. Pay attention to the past grievances of others, and show them and their grief respect or:

- You’ll be left with no guidance and no understanding of how to embrace the darkness when it comes to you because you didn’t value the light!

- I wonder if this is reflected in the cover art (the black and white lines)?

- Reflecting back on an above point at the crossroads of the book: it’s a shock towards the ending, when Meursault is afraid of any footsteps coming towards him and he can’t sleep at night. It says a lot about the lack of peace you feel when you know you’ve done wrong. It reminds me of The Godfather and A Bronx Tale, there’s always someone coming for you when you’ve done wrong. Meursault chooses to sleep in the daytime, as a means of keeping watch, like it matters. Outside of the fear and unrest in your soul, and what it means to enter into eternal night, what time of day someone is coming to get you in his situation.. really, it does not matter, because you’re fucked either way! LOL

I’m thinking about Camus’ capitalization of Mother and the non-capitalization father. The power that that stylistic element has when talking about the influence a present parent plays in one’s life. I love the concept of Meursault being the stranger in his Mother’s life after he chose to put her in the home, and the stranger in his own life after hearing people talk about him at his trial.

Maybe I’m in a weird mental space but this book is levels of profound & it’s very intense. It’s incredibly short but that’s saying something dramatic about the skill level to me that you can get something so deep across about life in such a concise way.

** sorry about the meandering and typos and madness **

passivewax's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Very fun read. Went into it knowing nothing and found it somewhat enchanting which told me a lot about myself I wasn’t expecting. Loved the writing style. smooth and intriguing

Content Warnings