By Albert Camus
I read this over a couple of days on the bus to work at the start of October 2023.
One of the odder books I’ve ever read, but one of the finest. It’s about a man named Meursault living in a French-Algerian village, but it’s also about nihilism and sociopathy, the role of empathy, one’s place in society, the social contract, alienation and the untraversable gulf between minds of a different sort.
Meursault’s inner voice is one of the finest pieces of writing I’ve ever encountered. Camus describes his actions and emotions (or lack thereof) in such sparse yet accurate prose that it needs only a page to have the measure of the man, to have him constructed in your head, and every page after that is only a confirmation and yet… he adds shading and texture, he adds flatness and fills in the corners and the plot draws you inexorably on because you have a morbid curiosity about what this man will do, he who is so unutterably alien to the regular member of society, and how he will be treated in return.
Near the end is also a fantastic soliloquy? Rant? Desperate appeal? Against God and the external imposition of meaning.
One to reread and to savour.