Reading Albert Camus’s The Stranger was a very strange experience, in the most literal sense of the word. It was one of those books that I could understand on a surface level, yet struggled to fully comprehend in a broader sense. The writing itself was not necessarily difficult to follow, and I could understand the events as they unfolded. However, understanding what the novel was trying to convey, and why it made me feel so uncomfortable, was an entirely different matter. It left me with more questions than answers, which is perhaps what makes it such an interesting read.
The protagonist, Meursault, was particularly unusual. His emotional detachment, especially following his mother’s death, immediately sets him apart from what society considers normal. He does not grieve in the expected way, nor does he pretend to feel emotions simply because others expect him to. While his behaviour can be frustrating and difficult to relate to, I found it interesting how much importance the people around him placed on his apparent lack of emotion. What frustrated me most, however, was the way everyone seemed to turn against him. During his trial, it felt as though people were judging him not only for the crime he had committed, but also for the person he was and the way he had behaved at his mother’s funeral. The focus on his character sometimes seemed to overshadow the actual circumstances of the crime, making the trial feel less like a search for justice and more like a condemnation of someone who did not fit society’s expectations.
This was one of the aspects of the novel that I found most thought-provoking. Although Meursault is far from a conventional protagonist, I found myself questioning why his emotional indifference made him so unacceptable to others. Is someone necessarily a bad person because they do not express grief in the way society expects them to? At the same time, I did not find myself agreeing with everything Meursault did. His refusal to conform does not automatically make him right, particularly when his actions have serious consequences for another person. This contradiction made the novel difficult to interpret: I could understand why society was disturbed by him, but I was also frustrated by how readily people seemed to condemn him for being different. Camus creates an uncomfortable tension between our desire to judge Meursault and our awareness that the standards by which he is judged may not be entirely fair.
Ultimately, I found The Stranger to be a weird but genuinely interesting book. It was not necessarily a book that I enjoyed in a straightforward way, nor was it one that I could confidently say I completely understood. Instead, reading it felt like an experience that I needed to sit with afterwards. Its unusual protagonist and unsettling portrayal of society challenged me to think about emotions, morality, and the expectations we place on other people. Although parts of the novel were frustrating, particularly the hostility directed towards Meursault, that frustration also made me reflect more deeply on the ideas behind the story. I would recommend The Stranger to readers who enjoy books that challenge their assumptions, even if they finish reading without being entirely sure what to make of them.
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