The Stranger

Author: Albert Camus

Edition: Vintage International, translated from the French by Matthew Ward

Synopsis: An indifferent character spends a weekend on the beach, and is suddenly and unwittingly involved in a murder.

Length: Relatively brief at 123 pages. A feel much like the shorter works of Steinbeck (The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men).

Difficulty: The language takes descriptive tangents at times, but is otherwise basic and easy to follow.

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I devoured this book in one sitting.

I didn't think I was going to at first. To tell the truth, I almost lost interest a few chapters into the story. It just seemed to move so slowly. The dry writing style is strange as well, using very plain, choppy phrases:

"The caretaker turned the switch and I was blinded by the sudden flash of light. He suggested I go to the dining hall for dinner. But I wasn't hungry. Then he offered to bring me a cup of coffee with milk. I like milk in my coffee, so I said yes, and he came back a few minutes later with a tray. I drank the coffee. Then I felt like having a smoke. But I hesitated.... I thought about it, it didn't matter. I offered the caretaker a cigarette and we smoked." [p. 8]

I was intrigued; it's simply too distinctive for something to have been lost in translation. I could tell that by doing this the author was working towards something, I just didn't know what. And my instincts soon proved to be right. The stagnant motion helps form the narrator's devil-may-care attitude, and successfully contrasts the rest of the book. I won't go into more detail here, but I will say that it eventually leads up to a quite significant occurrence at the end of Part One, which propels the story with sudden momentum into Part Two.

There is a very definitive split between the two halves -- in fact, once you begin Part Two you might not be able to put the book down. While the basic writing style does not change, staying true to the way the rather languid protagonist-narrator's mind functions, events begin to move at a more rapid pace. Over the next few chapters something horrifying unfolds, and a creeping sense of disbelief and dread gathers. By the time I set the book down after finishing, I felt a depressing, shocked confusion, as if the author had reached inside my brain and twisted something around. Sort of like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest meets A Clockwork Orange.

Much more than a simple murder mystery, this artfully-crafted book is well worth the hour or two it takes to experience it, and the way the story develops will leave you with a haunting and slightly terrifying thrill.

DO READ IF: you're in the mood for a relatively quick but worthwhile read.

DO NOT READ IF: you don't have the patience to wait through 50+ pages for any significant advance in the plot (though as mentioned before, in this case it's worth the wait).