Rating: 
Summary: A pilar of Existentialism! A higher level of existence...
Review: Camus's Stranger is justly ranked among the greatest materpieces ever written for its simple style fused with an earth-shattering philosophy(Existentialism). This deceives the unread/untrained from considering the multiple layers of interpretation. (Who could ever forget the ending?) Calling The Stranger another book is like calling the the Mona Lisa another painting. You simply need to research the topic and Camus to comprehend the enormity of what is being presented (God, Man, Hope, Reality, Life, Absurd, time). Camus shows Hope and choice in Man are ineradicable, they are Forever! To quote Oedipus "All is well". Other books on the "Absurd" worth looking into: Camus's Myth of Sisyphus kafka's metamorphosis, Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". Next to Virgil's Aeneid this my all time favorite book.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Talk to Strangers
Review: While looking through the, what seemed to be never-ending, list of summer reading books for my senior year honors' English course, I came across The Stranger, by Albert Camus. The caption for the book read, " Camus asks whether there is a God or just a cold, indifferent universe in this story of the trial of a man who commits a pointless murder." I thought that the synopsis was relatively vague but it captured my interest enough to make it one of the five books I would indulge in during my summer vacation.
However, after reading The Stranger, I felt as if I had barely indulged in anything. The plot and the main character, are, to say the least, simple. The novel follows the story of Meursalt, an Algerian clerk. The book is divided split into two parts. Part one is basically page after page of Meursalt's daily routine, which includes his going to work, his coming home, his dining at his friend Celeste's restaurant or occasionally fixing dinner himself and sleeping. Even on his day off, Sunday, he does nothing. He lacks any relationships of substance. He has his mistress, Marie Cardona, his fellow apartment dwellers who he only knows through rumors or watching them and a couple of co-workers with whom he shares about one word each. When he befriends apartment mate, Raymond Sintes, a reputed pimp, there is hope that Meursalt's life will take on some excitement. Disappointingly, their friendship is almost as dull as Meursalt's life. However, in becoming friends with Raymond, Meursalt manages to get himself involved in Raymond's affairs and kills a man.
This brings the reader to part two, the trial of Meursalt. During imprisonment and trial, Meursalt seems not to care that he is undergoing a trial or that the end result of this trial could be death. He simply lives life in prison much like he did at home, uneventfully- almost uncaringly. As his trial proceeds, it seems that it is not so much a trial about whether he committed one of the worst crimes but rather a trial of his inadequate character.
Monsieur Meursalt's character is so dull and indifferent that it is almost impossible to finish the book. Everything he does and everything he says is so matter of fact, there is no emotion behind anything. He does not waste any time of his insignificant life with emotion with small or large events. This can be seen with the very first sentence of the novel, "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure." How can one not be sure when their own mother died?! When his mistress, Marie asks him if he loves her he indifferently replies that it doesn't mean anything but that he probably doesn't. Moreover, he fails to show insight into other characters or share any internal feelings. Meursalt's behavior and lifelessness is a major annoyance which is present throughout the novel.
There is further meaning in this novel under all the dull descriptions of the main character's actions and thoughts. Camus is trying to say something about society and fitting in. Yet it is difficult to plow through the boring and unexciting plot and life of Meursalt to get to the heart of it. In order to get anything and everything out of this novel, one has to have a great forbearance for pages filled with simplicity and indifference.
Rating:
Summary: An Existentialistic Classic
Review: The novel is centered around lives of French colonists in Algeria. It is divided into two parts. Part I starts with a funeral of the protagonist's mother and ends with the protagonist committing a murder. What strikes the reader is complete lack of emotions of the protagonist at the death of his mother and complete absence of logic in the killing. Part II is centered around the trial of the protagonist. In addition to the two afore-mentioned passages, there are others that display complete indifference of the protagonist towards everything: he is uncertain whether he wants to marry a beautiful woman, who proposes to him; he refuses to call the police when his neighbor beats his girlfriend; he shows that he does not care about his own fate at the trial (in fact, it seems that his lawyer is more interested in winning the case for himself); while he awaits the court's decision, he stays indifferent as to whether the court decides to acquit him or not; he is neither religious nor atheistic; he does not care whether he will be put to death in view of everybody, if the court ends up finding him guilty. What plays an important role in the novel, is the environment in which the protagonist leaves. The gray and dull existence, which he drags begets his indifference towards everything and everyone, including himself. One more issue to settle: many of those who write one-star reviews of this book complain about the style of writing. To defend the book, let me say that this style of writing perfectly captures the spirit of existentialism as a literary trend. It is considered a classic of existentialism and deservedly so.
Rating:
Summary: My mother died today, or was it yesterday
Review: We read this book in AP English and I enjoyed every bit of it. The Stranger, mistaken often for an existential protagonist by those who learned the word "existentialism" but never learned anything about it, is an absurdist hero- to put it simply, a man placed in a world that is meaningless whose mind can not interact with others. Mersault is persecuted because he did not cry at his mother's funereal- but in an absrud universe, the death of your mother is just as meaningless as any other event. Very thought provoking; an misleadingly easy read whose depths are great.
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Summary: Another Scholars review of Stranger...
Review: This book is Camus at his most accessible... his thoughts are clear...the sentences short... the beauty and pain is apparent in every line... He does not miss a beat... The book is flawless...
and beautiful
Rating: 
Summary: Just Terrible
Review: I'm sure that I'm missising something here. Or maybe all of the people who wrote their glowing reviews of this book are missing something, but this was one of the worst books I have ever read. The writing style was like a Junior High School student trying to write their first story. Really more than just a list of sequential events like, I woke up, I went to work, I went to bed. I found after a few pages that I didn't really care what happened to the main character any more than he seemed to care what happened to himself. The only saving grace was that it was such a short book that I was able to read it in about two hours. I know that Camus is well respected and was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, but based on this book I can't understand or imagine why.
Rating:
Summary: An existentialist tour de force of literature
Review: The Stranger is a haunting, challenging masterpiece of literature. While it is fiction, it actually manages to express the complex concepts and themes of existential philosophy better than the movement's most noted philosophical writings and almost as well as Dostoyevsky's Notes From the Underground. This is a new kind of literature. The story in and of itself is rather simple, but the glimpses into the intellect and feelings of the protagonist are the sources of the magic of this novel. M.Meursault is a normal man in Algiers, France. When we meet him, he is on the way to his mother's funeral, where he says very little, expresses no remorse over her death, and immediately returns home. The next day, he goes swimming, meets Marie, takes her to see a comedy that night, and spends the next few weeks living his normal life and occassionally seeing Marie. He ends up getting indirectly involved in a dispute between his neighbor Raymond and a girl who did him wrong, and the conflict culminates in an encounter on the beach between Raymond, Meursault, and the girl's Arab brother and friend. Raymond is cut with a knife, but the whole episode seems to be resolved. Meursault, though, decides later to take another walk on the beach because he is too worn out to go inside and rejoin his friends, and somewhat inexplicably he ends up killing one of the Arabs. The second half of the novel examines Meursault's thoughts in relation to his trial and sentence; interestingly, he is prosecuted as much if not more for his moral character than for the crime of murder itself. Basically, Meursault does not care about anything, does not feel anything for anyone (including himself, for the most part). He looks at life objectively and determines that it really doesn't matter whether he does something or not in the overall scheme of things. When Marie expresses her love for him, he tells her he will marry her if it will make her happy but that he cannot say he really loves her. He expresses no remorse for killing the Arab because it just happened; he had no intention of doing it, but the fact is that he did, so there's little point in dwelling on it. He cares about the present and, to a lesser degree, the future, but the past is meaningless for the very reason that it is the past. Meursault sees things as they are; rather than rely on flights of fantasy and imagination (the typical tools of the Romanticists), he deals with facts in the here and now rather than run from them and has no problem admitting the seemingly obvious fact that man is a creature of utter depravity. He rejects religion; since each man must eventually die, what does it matter what he does while on earth. It is a man's hopes and dreams that weigh down his very existence; Marsault can only find happiness by cleansing himself of all such illusory notions. Needless to say, this is not an uplifting book, but it is an engaging, thought-provoking one. While Camus cannot be called a true existentialist in his own philosophical outlook, his fiction does epitomize many existentialist ideas. Marsault is a protagonist like no other in literature--you cannot like him, he is obviously guilty of killing a man in cold blood, and he is of a cold-hearted nature, yet you do understand some of his thinking, find yourself more and more interested in his dark outlook on life, and have to admit that much of what he believes makes sense.
Rating: 
Summary: Makes you think
Review: I had to read this book in French, and while many students copped out and bought the English version, I still read the French. That being said, I must say that this book for all its insights is amazing. The philosophy of Mersault is to be looked on more than the events that take place, since one is a result of the other. I found his ca m'était égal ( It's all the same to me) that is repeated throughout the novel to be eerie and fascinating at the same time. This book is not for people who reads fluff. It is about looking at an idea of living and trying to understand it. You may not necessarily agree with it, but you can understand it. I am now reading Le Mythe de Sisyphe in French and plan to read Le Peste. If you don't think and you don't like to think, do not read this book. Once you have read this book though and you understand it, you will want to read more of Camus. I even found some of his short stories quite fascinating ( though read in English).
Rating:
Summary: Very strange
Review: This book is very strange, since it tells a series of terrible events that change the life of a man forever. However, it is not the events that make the book, but the reactions and thoughts the different characters have. The main character, Mersault is simply intriguing... you learn about his life, his thoughts, his feelings... and yet, you know nothing at all... in my opinion, he is one of those characters that grows on you and in some instances you can even feel identified with him, but in the end he is a Stranger whom you dont understand. The plot itself is not very interesting, and it is a bit depressing, starting with a funeral and then moving on to a murder and finally a trail and life in jail... still it keeps you reading... I know, it is hard to explain, and I guess that is exactly what has made this book a classic, it is impossible to categorize, analyze or even try to make sense of it.... but it is also impossible to put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: This is the version of the book I read in high school. I don't know French so I can't vouch for the translation, but when I compared it to another edition I found, I was struck by how much more I liked this one. Seamlessly graceful, dreamlike words, absolutely elegant. I won't even dare to try and come up with eloquent comments on the actual content since needless to say, it is a classic worth of that title.
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