THE STRANGER
by Albert Camus o-o-o-o
A man's mother dies. That right there puts you in the state of mind he might be in. Camus doesn't tell you what state of mind that is, nor does he tell you a lot of things. That's what's great about Camus' writing, he spoon-feeds you nothing, and instead prefers to paint a general impression of things and lets you make heads or tails of it however your mind can muster. His sentences are short, telegraphic, unadorned, yet he is able to create a great deal of mood.
THE STRANGER's plot is thin and may at first seem like a series of meandering, inconsequential happenings; i.e. this happened, and then I did this, and then I went over and spoke to that person, etc. By the end of it however, you realize there was a grand design all along, which isn't unlike how life itself tends to unfold a lot of the times. It is indeed a book about life, its joys and complexities, and how it can all be taken away based on societal perceptions and judgement. A slim, seemingly inconsequential tome that leaves you contemplating long after you're done reading it.
My only dislike is how the protagonist, a Frenchman living in occupied Algeria not unlike Camus himself, only ever refers to locals as “the Arabs”. But it now occurs to me that this may have been intentional on Camus' part, an attempt to illustrate how not entirely great people can still warrant a fair degree of sympathy.