Reader discussion: The Stranger

Public reader discussion about The Stranger by Gordon R. Dickson.

I recently read “The Stranger“ by Albert Camus. It really struck me so I immediately read it again. Now I have been listening to lectures and reading about existential philosophy. Does anyone want to talk about this book!?

By silverkettle

I know a bunch of people read this in high school, but I definitely didn’t. I’m 34 and I only picked it up for the first time last week. A lot of the ideas felt familiar, but I’ve never really put words to them or talked about them with anyone. I really liked how plain the narrator’s language is—no fluff, just kind of blunt and honest about how he sees things. Did this hit anyone else hard? And what other books would you recommend if I liked this one? Thanks!

I found _The Stranger_ by Albert Camus stunning, here is my personal analysis of the book

By reads_apron8286

This was my first time writing something like this, but I’ve been really wanting to share my thoughts since I finished reading **“The Stranger”**. I’m not a native English speaker, so sorry if there are mistakes, but I’m honestly open to any critique. I started the book about **two weeks ago**, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days. It made me write my own analysis of the way the story is told and of the characters. What stuck with me most is how **Part 1** feels mostly focused on Mersault himself—his actions, his inner way of thinking, and what’s going on in his head. Then **Part 2** shifts and suddenly it’s more about how other people judge him, like society is looking from the outside and deciding what he “is.” The book begins with his mom dying, and even the way it’s presented is kind of shocking. The funeral details feel almost boring on purpose, because you can feel how annoyed he is with the whole ritual. I kept thinking at first that maybe he was “protecting himself” emotionally, but it doesn’t feel like that. It’s more like he just doesn’t care about social rules, even when it’s his mom. Then there’s **Salamano**, his neighbor, who’s with his old dog and ends up fighting with it all the time. It’s weird, like he “hates” the dog but also clearly can’t live normally without it. When the dog disappears, he’s desperate, and he even comes back to Mersault for help. After that, he treats Mersault like a friend, mostly because Mersault helped him find the dog. And then **Raymond** is where you really see how people react badly to Mersault. Helping Salamano is seen as good, but what happens with Raymond is seen as immoral, and I get why. Mersault basically agrees with Raymond without really questioning if it’s right. It feels more like he just goes along with whatever the other person wants, because the person seems to like it. To me, his reasoning is very “grounded,” very passive, like he doesn’t build morality from his own emotions—he just follows the situation. (Not sure if that’s the right way to describe it, but that’s what it felt like.) He also starts something with **Marie** right after, at the mother’s funeral, which is already crazy to me. Marie feels like the strongest attachment to life he has. He likes being with her and having sex, but when it comes to social expectations, he shuts down again. When she asks about marriage, he says “I don’t know,” and later it’s clear he says yes more to please her than because he actually wants it. Again, it’s like his feelings and his “social behavior” don’t match the way other people expect. In the story, everything leads to his arrest and the trial. What really bothers me is the gap between what Mersault feels inside and what the jury decides outside. People judge by actions only, but is that enough to understand someone? I don’t think so. Still, it’s not like Mersault gives them anything else to work with, so it becomes one-sided. It makes me feel like the trial is looking for something that “makes sense” to everyone, not necessarily the truth. And in the end, I still feel like if I were on that jury, I’d probably judge him as a criminal too. That part is depressing, because I see both sides but I’m not sure anyone can really communicate. The incommunicability part reminded me of **Neon Genesis Evangelion** (the whole idea that people can’t really reach each other’s inner thoughts). I know that’s a comparison, but the feeling is the same: even if you watch someone, you still can’t truly know what they meant or felt. Then there’s the part with the judge and God. The judge likes Mersault at first, and Mersault stays calm and kind of lets things happen. But when the judge pushes him to actually believe, Mersault says no, and suddenly the relationship changes. If he wanted, he could probably escape by lying—but he doesn’t do that. He stays “realistic,” even if it costs him. During the process, everything he did is judged negatively, like the jury focuses on the “wrong” parts (how he acted at the funeral, the fact that he dated Marie the next day) more than the crime itself. It really feels like he’s treated like a dangerous kind of person because he doesn’t follow society’s rules and doesn’t show empathy the way they expect. And because of that, they sentence him to death. Before dying, the priest tries to talk to him and convert him, but Mersault refuses again and again. I thought it was intense how he gets angry at one point because the priest’s words don’t mean anything to him. Then eventually he reaches this kind of peace—not because he has hope, but because he stops expecting to be saved. That scene really got to me. It describes an acceptance that feels impossible until you’re right there at the edge. On the last night, he thinks about his mom again. I liked that the story makes it feel like his mom’s final state was also about accepting something she couldn’t change—like she was freed to live in her own way. And toward the end, the book connects his mom’s final state to Nietzsche’s ideas, like the “three metamorphoses” (camel → lion → child). I get what it’s trying to say: dropping burdens, destroying old rules, and then starting again—kind of like innocence. Overall, I don’t know how to feel about it, but it left me with a strong mix of confusion and recognition. Like, the story makes you question if justice can ever really understand someone who doesn’t think or act the way society wants.

Just read The Stranger by Albert Camus. What is the meaning behind it? And how has that affected your perspective on life and how you live it?

By nebulaField

I really enjoyed reading *The Stranger*—to the point that I found myself oddly drawn to Meursault, even with all the mixed feelings people have about him. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing whatever the book is really saying underneath it. The way I’ve been reading it, it feels like Camus is pretty against nihilism, like showing what a life looks like when there’s basically nothing meaningful or productive in it, and Meursault’s whole situation kind of fits that. So what does *The Stranger* mean to you, and has it changed how you think about your own life or how you choose to live it?

Just finished The Stranger by Camus. What did I miss?

By cosmiccat4595

Just finished *The Stranger* and honestly I couldn’t really get behind Meursault. He felt like a total sociopath to me, and the only “good” thing about him was that he’s brutally honest, but even then he kinda uses it in this way that just makes things worse and hurts people. I did think a couple things at the trial made sense, but the whole vibe felt like Camus was trying to get me to root for him even though he’s clearly got a lot of problems. Instead I mostly felt like Meursault was stubborn, clueless, and honestly just awful most of the time. Does anyone know what Camus was going for with this book or with Meursault specifically? I’d love to hear what others think too.

The stranger is overrated

By nebulatower

I’ve been meaning to say this for a while: I think *The Stranger* is pretty overrated. I grabbed it expecting a lot, but the hype made it kind of disappointing. It’s not bad at all, just not amazing. I also can’t really fully get what’s going on in *The Myth of Sisyphus*, but for some reason it feels more interesting to me than *The Stranger*. If I had to rate *The Stranger*, I’d say 3 out of 5.

Recently finished 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus and can't recover from the emotional wreckage it has caused.

By luckywindow1990

Has anyone else felt the same way after reading this book? I’m left with this heavy sadness that I can’t really shake, and it’s been sticking with me. How do you all deal with books like this that mess with your head and kind of leave a lasting mark? A couple friends of mine couldn’t even get through like 10 pages—they said they didn’t get why the main character thinks the way he does, like his mindset is just too “absurd.” But for me it hit differently, and I ended up loving it because I honestly related to him a lot. So yeah, what did you all think?

The intriguing parallels between Camus’ The Stranger and Dazai’s No Longer Human

By SamReads

Both The Stranger by Camus and No Longer Human by Dazai hit on a lot of the same existential stuff like being cut off from people, not really knowing who you are, and trying to find meaning in a world that doesn’t seem to care much either way. They come from pretty different backgrounds and ideas, sure, but the main characters both feel really detached from everything around them. That alienation is kind of what hurts them, but also maybe what sets them free in different ways. In The Stranger, Meursault comes off as someone who just doesn’t play by the usual rules of what people expect. Even when his mom dies, he’s not showing the kind of grief everyone thinks he should. That same distance keeps showing up all through the book, and by the end he’s even kind of okay with being executed. Camus seems to be saying this weird “absurd” feeling isn’t necessarily something to fix, but something to accept. Meursault basically sees that life doesn’t really have a built-in meaning and death is coming anyway, and once he accepts that, there’s a kind of freedom in it. The part near the end where he accepts the world’s “tender indifference” really sticks with me. I guess the idea that death doesn’t get to be the whole story of a person is what makes that so strong to me. It feels like Camus is saying life matters because of how you live it, not because of how it ends. No Longer Human feels a lot darker to me. Yōzō is just so disconnected from everyone and can’t really make real bonds with people. He ends up hiding behind this fake version of himself just to get through life, and it feels like he’s never actually part of anything. He’s dealing with the same kind of emptiness Meursault has, but instead of finding any sort of release in it, he just gets swallowed by it. His attempts to cope through self-destruction make everything feel even sadder. So where Meursault’s coldness turns into some kind of peace, Yōzō’s only makes things worse. That difference is probably the biggest thing between the two books for me. Meursault accepts the absurd and somehow ends up living more honestly because of it, without needing life to make sense. Yōzō can’t really do that, and his alienation just traps him harder. Instead of feeling free, he feels even more alone. Life not having meaning doesn’t open anything up for him, it just pushes him further into despair. The way death is treated in both books is interesting too. In The Stranger, Meursault doesn’t react to death the way people expect, whether it’s his mother’s or his own, and that refusal matters a lot. He doesn’t let mourning or the idea of death define him. In No Longer Human, death feels much heavier and sadder, and Yōzō never seems able to find any peace with his own life at all. Death is just there hanging over him, not as a relief exactly, but as something he can’t escape from. I also like the idea that a person shouldn’t be reduced to how they die. That part from the feedback on The Stranger really stood out. Meursault pushes against that by not letting death become the whole meaning of his existence. Yōzō, though, is so weighed down by self-doubt and his distance from other people that his death, or maybe even just the idea of it, feels like the only place his story can go. Overall, both books say a lot about what it means to be human when nothing feels clear or meaningful. Meursault finds some kind of peace in accepting that, while Yōzō shows the much darker side of it. They’re both outsiders, but they deal with that in completely different ways. Camus makes it seem like accepting the world’s indifference can bring calm, while Dazai shows how that same realization can just turn into isolation and tragedy. Thinking about both of them makes me wonder how people are supposed to deal with life feeling meaningless in the first place. For some people, maybe it really does turn into freedom like Meursault. For others, like Yōzō, it just becomes unbearable. Both books definitely leave you with a lot to sit with.

My take on the 6th bullet in Camus - The Stranger

By Orchid89

Hey everyone, I’ve been thinking about something after rereading Camus’ *The Stranger / The Outsider* (it’s like 100 pages, so if you haven’t done it yet, you really don’t have much to lose). I’d love to hear other takes on it. This whole idea came from a clip from *The Gambler* with Mark Wahlberg (link here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG4sdzB3KcU So, my take on the “last bullet” thing: I don’t buy that the 6th bullet is meant for himself. I think it’s more deliberate irony. The Wahlberg character (and Camus’ guy) seems like he’s looking for something real, and it feels like the movie character just kind of projects his own suicidal stuff onto the book character. Also, I don’t think he “holds back” that final shot because saving it changes anything. I think it’s more about what it would mean if he emptied the revolver completely. If he kept shooting until it clicked empty, that reads less like a messy moment and more like a crime of passion—like it carries a huge statement. In the book, the first shot is enough to kill the guy, so the extra shots feel like they come from the pressure he’s dealing with (not really hate or some clear emotion toward the man—at least that’s how it reads to me). And that matters because of the whole trial/death sentence setup: the way the crime looks, his “immoral” behavior, is a big part of why he gets sentenced. If it was just passion or a clean kind of execution, it would probably feel different, and the impact of the decision would weaken. Anyway, that’s where my head is at—what do you think about the 6th bullet?

Thoughts on Camus' The Stranger

By cosmiccat4595

I just finished the book and I’m kind of left weirded out, uncomfortable, and honestly with a ton of questions. I felt like I understood the main character in a lot of the situations, especially how he stays kind of distant, doesn’t show much emotion, and just seems indifferent about everything. It all feels like it could be reasonable, but at the same time it also comes off really empty. And it’s not only that he barely has emotions—it’s also his whole individual way of thinking. That’s what pushes him into committing a murder, and then he ends up in prison, which he clearly isn’t enjoying. Guess that “carefree” attitude doesn’t hold up forever. What do you even do when you live like that? Also, are feelings just something most people deal with as a burden or a hassle? Not constantly, but a lot of the time. Sometimes they don’t even seem to make sense, but if you don’t go along with them you’re basically treated like you’re inhuman. There’s that quote from Camus about the stranger: “Every man who doesn’t cry at his mother’s funeral runs a risk of being sentenced to death.” So yeah… I don’t know. How did the book hit you?