AFTER THE STRANGER

Source: Kindle Cover

I read a book after so long, almost a year, I think. I’ve always had this strange habit when it comes to reading: I overcommit. I start several books at once, lose track, and end up finishing none. This time, though, I tried to keep it simple, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, and The Stranger by Albert Camus. Two books. Simple. Manageable. And maybe a little bit symbolic where one is rooted in emotional chaos, the other in emotional absence.

I’ve always considered myself someone who enjoys philosophy. At different stages of my life, I’ve seen myself through many ideological lenses - a Marxist, a radical communist, an anarchist, a monarchist, a nihilist, and now, after reading Camus, maybe even an absurdist. Maybe that’s a flaw, or maybe it’s growth. Maybe I’m just trying to understand myself better each time I change.

I finished The Stranger in four days. These are some of the thoughts running through my mind after closing the book.

I can understand Meursault’s pain, his emptiness, his distance from everything and everyone. I can understand how easy it is to take relationships for granted, how naturally some people drift away from emotion and connection. I could even feel his truth, the kind of truth that ultimately leads to absurdity.

The very first line, “Maman died today. Or yesterday, I can’t be sure,” says everything. It reveals his detachment, his honesty, and his emotional absence. As the story unfolds, it exposes something deeper, the rules of life we live by and the role society plays in defining those rules for us.

We humans always try to add rationality to everything, even when it doesn’t belong. We expect morality from others without questioning our own. Society has so many doors, so many possible paths to reach a single goal, yet we insist that only a few paths are acceptable.

When Meursault feels nothing at his mother’s funeral, swims the next day, and spends the evening with Marie, it felt wrong to me. I would never do that. Maybe because I feel deeply attached to the people I love. But maybe many people act differently not because they don’t care, but because they fear how society will judge them if they do.

That’s what this book made me ask myself: Do we live honestly, or do we just perform according to what society expects of us?

Camus’s philosophy reflects existentialism and absurdism, the idea that life is meaningless, that searching for meaning in a meaningless world is absurd. But I personally find it hard to accept that. I believe meaning can be found, not just created out of nothing. It can be found through love, attachment, aspiration, and moral purpose, all of which Meursault lacks.

In Meursault’s last moments, that became clear. After all the indifference, the denial of meaning, he still imagines surviving. He envisions alternate ways to escape his execution. Even those who call life meaningless are afraid to let it go. That flicker, that desperate human desire to stay alive betrayed all his philosophy. For the first time, I saw him as painfully real. Not a monster. Not a cold man. Just someone caught between the urge to exist and the logic that says existence is pointless. And maybe that’s all of us. We read, think, debate, rebel but when faced with the possibility of nothingness, we still cling to life like a scared child holding a broken toy.

I also have my disagreements with how Camus views society. A society cannot exist without heroes and villains. Everyone can’t be equal, not because of power or privilege, but because nature itself isn’t equal. Society, I think, must be guided by moral values and principles, and judgment is a part of that order.

Reading The Stranger was unsettling, thought-provoking, and strangely liberating. It made me reflect not just on Meursault’s indifference, but on my own need for meaning, morality, and connection.

Maybe that’s the point of reading books like this, not to agree or disagree, but to see ourselves through a different lens, even if just for a while.