BOOK REVIEW: The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Stranger is absurd, but not in a lighthearted way. It feels like a French Crime and Punishment or something Ibsen would have written. Camus masterfully captures a man who is in various states of depression and disassociation throughout the death of his mother, wild friends and neighbors, all the way to the events of a trial for homicide.
It’s only in the last three or so pages that the events of his life- and the situation those events put him in- come crashing down on him and you, as the reader, see him struggle through all the stages of grief over his own life.
Usually, with short books like this, you’ll feel like it should have more, or that the end is rushed to wrap it up in a certain page count, but The Stranger is timed to make the length of the novel insignificant. Camus fits everything in that he sought to fit in, and the story is complete and leaves the reader feeling satisfied with the conclusion.