Camus: The Stranger (Landmarks of World Literature (New))

Camus: The Stranger (Landmarks of World Literature (New))
by Patrick McCarthy

Camus: The Stranger (Landmarks of World Literature (New))
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Book Summary Information

Author: Patrick McCarthy
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-01-19
ISBN: 0521832101
Number of pages: 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Book Reviews of Camus: The Stranger (Landmarks of World Literature (New))

Book Review: American translation brings out stylistic subtleties
Summary: 5 Stars

(This is a review of the Matthew Ward translation; black an dwhite cover)

This is a newish translation, done by an American rather than the British translation that had previously been the only English version of this French classic. It seems Camus was heavily influenced by American literature of the period -- Hemmingway, Faulkner and others -- and had written The Stranger, the first half especially, to reflect those stylistic sensibilities. The translator argues in his forward that much of that was lost in the British translation. And so here, it is restored.

The result is a matter-of-fact tone more in keeping with our unlikable protagonist, the distant, somewhat bitter Meursault. His almost emotionless life and anti-social tone are stark and ugly, traits that drag him beneath the waves when he is put on trial for murder. As always, The Stranger is compelling reading, but also frustrating, because it is so impossible to care for the main character in the final chapters.

Camus' timeless classic remains as essential today as it was when released, while this new translation gets us a bit closer to the stylistic approach he allegedly wanted. Essential reading.

Summary of Camus: The Stranger (Landmarks of World Literature (New))

Patrick McCarthy analyzes The Stranger, one of the vital texts of existentialism and twentieth-century literature, in the context of French and French-Algerian history and culture. McCarthy examines how the work undermines traditional concepts of fiction and explores parallels and contrasts between Camus's work and that of Jean-Paul Sartre. Providing students with a useful companion to The Stranger, this second edition features a revised guide to further reading and a new chapter on Camus and the Algerian War. First Edition Hb (1988): 0-521-32958-2 First Edition Pb (1988): 0-521-33851-4
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

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