Dark and Brilliant. Review on Stranger, The - Albert Camus

(FOR THE SAKE OF THOSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO READ THE REVIEW AND DECIDE, WITHOUT FIRST KNOWING THE STORY, WHETHER OR NOT TO READ THE BOOK, PLEASE SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH. IF INTERESTED, PLEASE READ IT AFTER THE REST OF THE REVIEW.) The story revolves around a man whose name we never find out, hence the title ‘The Stranger’. He has a banal existence the details of which are average to the point of being forgettable. For example, there is woman he does not particularly care about, but is dating occasionally. He has a mother who we feel he must love, but when she dies, it moves him little. He has a neighbour who is on the other side of the law. Despite this, our guy is helping the other out with some inconsequential paperwork. The key incident in the book, though extreme, is delivered expertly by the author with the same banality, thus making it bizarre. The main character, as a result of combination of uninspiring, daily events, commits unintentional murder in broad daylight. He is tried in court; charges are leveled against him; sound theories discrediting his character as villainous are formed and convincingly delivered. Finally, he is found guilty and executed. This is where the story ends.

This book is brilliant because we get to hear the stranger’s thoughts and his responses are uncannily close to how we might behave in a similar situation. We are brought face to face the individual within us who is capable of the same indifference, fake expressions of love, inertia leading to loneliness and then loneliness itself becoming the inertia, lack of ambition and pointless actions, as we are. That is what makes the book unpleasant, yet gripping.

Another aspect this book reflects is the psyche of society; how it accepts a very limited array of explanations to the vast set of possible circumstances that might cause an action. For instance, murder, as is the case in this plot, just happens, equally unintentionally and pointlessly as the accidental knocking down of a glass of water. Society’s response to murder is usually limited to “The murderer is the villain” and it does whatever it can to fit the doer into that mould because beyond those definitions, it does not know what to do.

The scariest part of the book is not that you see in the protagonist, sides to yourself that you are afraid to admit exist. Nor is the scariest part that you end up understanding and accepting the banality of your own existence through your identification with the nameless face in the crowd. (FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ THE FIRST PARAGRAPH, PLEASE DON’T READ THE LAST SENTENCE) The scariest part of the book is that in the end, you come out understanding and indifferently accepting the stranger’s and through your identification with him your own... execution.