100 Great Books: (The Stranger by Albert Camus)

Is life absurd?

This is the fourteenth book of our new course on 100 Great Books. You can read the brief about why the course exists and check out previous editions.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

“Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.”
(“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I’m not sure.”)

That indifference sets the whole plot in motion. Meursault attends his mother’s funeral without emotion, later kills an Arab man in the scorching sun, and is ultimately condemned not for the murder but for that first sentence. Society executes him for detachment, not violence. Was his grief so profound that it made him detached?