The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Stranger

by Albert Camus

With the excitement of a perfectly executed thriller and the force of a parable, The Stranger is the ultimate masterpiece from Nobel Prize Winner Albert Camus—one of the most engaged and intellectually alert writers of the past century.

Albert Camus's spare, laconic masterpiece about a murder in Algeria is famous for having diagnosed, with an almost scientific clarity, that condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life.

Reviewed by Whitney @ First Impressions Reviews on

4 of 5 stars

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The Stranger is a short story of an ordinary man who being in the wrong place at the wrong time creates a senseless murder while in a moment of delusion. Albert Camus' novel is a human study on a persons psyche and throws you into the inter-workings of a man down on his luck.

The Stranger has a slow strategic pacing almost making me put the book aside. Although this is two of my uncle's favorite books so I plowed along. I soon realized the intentional snail pace was purposeful to completely understand our character and the stranger within. It is strange because while this was not thrilling nor suspenseful it had me on the edge of my seat turning those few pages as fast as I could go.

I think the thing I found the most eerie is that Meursault, our main character shoots and kills a group of Arabs. I know that sounds silly but with everything that is going on in the world this fragment made this 1946 novel seem current.

Albert Camus' small book is a giant masterpiece that is highly worth the read.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 16 September, 2011: Finished reading
  • 16 September, 2011: Reviewed