Jr Bacdayan's Reviews > The Stranger

The Stranger by Albert Camus, though quite regarded by many as a great philosophical/existentialist novel (I'm gonna be a non-conformist here.) is not quite right for me. I'm really quite at odds here. Before anything else, I would like to state that I was rather pleased with the first half of the novel, but sadly not by the second. Sure, this novella exposes certain absurdities in our society. I'd agree to that. But for me, the truths that this book expounds upon is not enough to make up for the negativeness that it entails upon its readers.

In the way that I understand it, one of the point of his message in the end states that: What we do is not important, because we will all perish anyway. Why invest in morality, in relations, in feelings, when all that awaits us is certain death? Sure, life can be absurd at times. Sure, we'll all die. But just because of these known realities, should we throw away things that make sense? Throw away our life? Should the negative destroy the positive? It comes to me like this. Because we urinate what we drink, then it doesn't matter whether we drink muddy water or urine or orange juice. We'll all urinate them later just the same. Sick. Why do we live? Do we live because there might be a slight chance of immortality? Do we live because everything makes sense? We live in-spite of everything. We live because we do. Our consciousness is being insulted, our intelligence trampled, and our life spit-upon by this very grim way of thinking. His insistence that one can just about get used to anything shows man's innate capability to adjust. That we plow on through obstacles and hardships. That we fight even if we encounter difficulties and absurdities. He suggests we shouldn't. That we lay useless and wait for death. Not for me. Go do that yourself. His very pessimistic and rather narrow way of looking at life and death rather pissed me off.

Secondly, the very glaring message of indifference rather fires back against Camus's message of non-conformity. You see, indifference, transforms a person in a passive state. And this passive state will easier conform to the norms of society than resist. Personally for me, it is the worst kind of attitude that a person can attain. Intellectually, Camus makes a point. But in the real world, indifference is what destroys this planet. Indifference causes global warming, causes pollution, causes mass extinction. People who don't care are more dangerous than crazy people. Why? Because there are few really crazy people, but there are billions of people who simply don't give a shit. Hitler was mad as hell, all the German soldiers were just indifferent. Indifference is tricky because you're stranded in a solid state of passivity and it's very hard to sway you from one view to another. A person who thinks that littering is good is better than a person who doesn't care if he litters. At least, the former can be persuaded to change his views, but the latter won't under any circumstances. Indifference is a problem without a solution. And this particular message is the worst for me.

Now, we've come to a part where I partly agree with Camus but still not quite. That no matter what truths are, all that matters is what each individual's personal choice is. That we shouldn't impose upon others. He equips Meursault with a sort of a Moral Relativism belief (that truths are essentially based on each person's paradigms/cultures/construct) while the Priest that of Moral Realism (that truths are based on a certain definite, universal set). He uses this clash of beliefs to set a stage for his final act and I expected/wanted a rather different outcome. I was rather disappointed. I agree that Meursault found some sort of solitude in losing hope, in his final indifference. But I expected Meursault to find some sort of closure in the acceptance of death as a necessary and meaningful event. That death allows us to appreciate life. I expected that in the end even though I knew it had no chance of happening. The surrealist/existentialist Camus would never do that. But I never expected that it would be as grim and bleak as it was.

“Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too.”

I ate, but I wasn't nourished. I was poisoned.