The Stranger !!

Why do I read Albert Camus?
Because Camus poses the fundamental question : Is life worth living ?

In his essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), 1942, Camus develops his idea of ‘absurd’ and of its acceptance by human beings with a total absence of hope, without despair, a constant refusal, which is not to be confused with renouncement rather and a conscious dissatisfaction.

Sisyphus in Greek mythology was the founder of the city of Ephyra (later named Corinth) and the first king of the city-state. He was punished by Zeus and sentenced to continuously roll a huge boulder up a mountain to the peak, only to have it inevitably roll back down the mountain into the valley, thus making his task useless. Camus claims that for this unending punishment Sisyphus is the ultimate absurd hero. As long as he accepts that there is nothing more to life than his absurd struggle, he can find happiness in it. Camus presents Sisyphus’ never-ending pointless task as a metaphor for lives spent in the modern world working at meaningless jobs in factories, offices and elsewhere. The worker performs the same work every day in his life ... and this situation is no less absurd. But it is not a tragedy; it only becomes tragic at rare moments when the worker becomes conscious of it.

Camus develops his idea of the “absurd man” from the Myth of Sisyphus, in his classic 1942 novel L'Étranger (literally, The Stranger). Meursault, the central character, helps Camus explore an absurd man in an absurd world. The book is also translated as The Stranger and as The Outsider, and it begins with perhaps the most famous words in 20th-century literature:

My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. I received a telegram from the old people’s home: ‘Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Very sincerely yours.’ That doesn’t mean anything. It might have been yesterday.

The novel tells a compelling tale of wanton murder and vague redemption:

It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe … I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.

The final words in the book completely destroys our sense of the familiar world.

The Stranger is not an uplifting book, it is not inspirational but it is an engaging and thought-provoking one. Camus explores the predicament of the individual who is ready to face the ‘benign indifference’ of the universe, alone with courage. Meursault is a character like no other in world literature: one cannot like him, he kills a man unnecessarily in cold blood, he is cold-hearted, and yet it is possible to understand some of his ideas, even find his dark outlook on life intriguing … resting, and finally one has to admit that much of what he believes makes sense.

Camus presents the reader with dualities of life: happiness and sadness, dark and light, life and death; for he believes that there is a elemental conflict between what human beings want from the universe and what they find in the universe. Man will never find in life itself, the meaning that he wants to find. Either he has to discover the meaning of life through a leap of faith, by placing hopes in a God who exists beyond this world, or he will have to conclude that life is meaningless. However, even if life has no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? Does this conclusion necessarily lead a person to commit suicide? If things were thus, people would have no option but to either make a leap of faith or else to commit suicide.

Camus looks beyond this duality and seems interested in pursuing a third possibility: people can consciously live in a world devoid of meaning or purpose and even find happiness in it. We value our lives very much, though we know we will eventually die, so ultimately all our endeavours in life are in a way totally meaningless. Living in the absurd world requires an acceptance of this fundamental contradiction and having constant awareness of it. Camus does not want us to be morbid, but to love life and be happy … whenever happiness comes. Facing the absurd does not necessitate suicide, but, on the contrary, allows us to live life to its fullest. Camus seems to imply that Sisyphus is happy as he is aware of the futility of his labour ... and for him, his work is enough, as his meaningless work gives a kind of meaning in his meaningless world. 

In Camus’ own words, “if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.”

So, live life, be happy!!