I have a subscription to the Sunday New York Times. One of my favorite things to read are the ‘By The Book’ interviews in the Book Review section. In that section authors are interviewed and one of the questions is usually what book should every person read.
A few weeks ago the answer to the question was ‘The Stranger’ by Albert Camus. I think I had heard of Albert Camus but wasn’t too familiar with his work. So, I ‘Googled’ the book and read reviews and synopsies of it. It sounded pretty interesting so I bought it on Amazon. No Kindle version of it available!
I had a short trip to Chicago last week so I brought the book with me. It’s pretty short. I started reading it on the flight home and finished it after I got home.
I’m not sure what to say about it overall. I really enjoyed reading it. I would recommend it to my friends. It’s a bit dark, and it’s definitely disturbing. It was published in 1942. I feel like I want to read it again and again.
The first song on The Cure album ‘Standing on a Beach’ (the album with Boys Don’t Cry) is called ‘Killing an Arab’ and was inspired by The Stranger. Here’s a link to the video for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdbLqOXmJ04
And here is a link to what I think is a very well written review of The Stranger:
https://www.npr.org/2014/08/10/336823512/albert-camus-poker-faced-stranger-became-a-much-needed-friend
I guess I wanted to tell you about The Stranger because I found it to be a strangely profound book, and I’m glad I read it.
I read the version translated from the french by Matthew Ward. There are several other translations out there but from what I read, this version is the closest to the actual meaning of the words in french.
So, on that note, I think you should read it too.
If you do, let me know what you think about it!