Ever felt like Camus's "Stranger"?

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"The Stranger" was one of the few books from high school that I thought was worth reading. I remember zipping through the book in about the space of a day. Today I've gone through an experience which really reminded me of it


*** SPOILER SPOILERS DON'T READ FARTHER IF YOU'VE NOT READ THE BOOK***

Its the scene where after having the perfect day on the beach, Meursalt goes off for a solitary walk and just happens to take his friend's gun along with him for kicks, just happens to run into a fellow who he'd had a minor spat with... as Meursalt's about to turn and leave the guy alone, the fellow shows his knife as a warning, the knife happens to catch a glint of the sun in just the right way so that it causes Meursalt to have a meltdown of sorts and shoot the guy dead.

Its like if any individual one of those things had been just slightly different (hadn't picked up the gun, had left a few minutes later, gun hadn't been loaded, turned around a little quicker, guy hadn't showed the knife in just that particular way), the incident wouldn't have happened at all, but every single little thing happened just so, and he wound up in jail.

I don't paricularly want to talk about the incident that happened to me at the moment, but suffice it to say, it's been one of those days

I read the book, tried to read it in French at school, but it was a few years ago. I don't remember thinking about AS at the time, but Ill dig out my old copy and look at it again.

I just read this a few months ago and remember feeling like I could relate with Mersault, mainly because he didn't look at the world in the same way as everyone else, and he didn't understand why the "rules" work the way that they do. He wasn't able to defend himself at all; a bunch of strangers decided his fate for him. That is how I often feel in my life, like the successful people follow an unwritten code of social rules that I am constantly and unknowingly (until someone brings it to my attention) breaking.

Jeez, nothing? i mean I'm sure most of you have read the book, it is required reading at most high schools (unless I'm horribly mistaken). Heck, I'm not even sayin it relates to AS necessarily tom, just that I was having a Murphy's-law-in-overdrive type of day.

The Stranger was never required reading in either high school I attended. I've only read it because I'm obsessed with Camus.

well of course someone would post a real response while I was in the midst of writing my angry rant.

Apologies.

We read The Stranger in my philosophy class. When I read it, I loved how Meursault was so honest and direct. It was hard not to find him relatable. I couldn't believe it when all the NTs in my class thought he was crazy!

Oh, absolutely do I feel like a strangler! I want to stalk my victims and - - .
What's that?" Stranger, not strangler?
Okay, never mind...

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I read The Stranger last year, and immediately felt a connection to Meursault. I can especially recall a couple of incidents where the other characters indicate that they find his lack of emotion regarding his mother's death odd-- first Marie, when he was out with her the day after the wake, and then later the prosecutor at his trial, who made a specific point of him smoking at the wake. I'm not sure that Meursault could be said to be an Aspie character specifically, but he certainly seems to show the same sort of indifference and exasperation toward the petty, banal unspoken social pretenses to which everyone else is bound.

God, I love this book.
It's the only Camus work I've read in hard copy form (aka book form.) I read it a couple of years ago... I believe I was thirteen and I was just getting into the concept of existentialism (though that isn't solely what the book focuses on.) I read it in a day, it was that page-turning. I'm sure I would take a lot more from it if I re-read it again even a mere two years later.

Yes.

I'm reading a Confederacy of Dunces, Ignatius is pretty Aspergers like.

It's one of my favourite books ever written. I can relate to the Stranger, particularly the prison scene. I hold similar views to Camus on the meaning of life.

I just had to read this book for a class and the whole time I was thinking - "God this guy sounds like an aspie!" I mean in certain senses - like his emotions and lack thereof derive completely from his senses. People say he seemed crazy because of his lack of emotion at his mother's funeral, but, when I read that part, I didn't see anything weird about it. I don't necessarily think he is an aspie character in the whole sense of the phrase, but I can definitely relate to him

I read The Outsider when I was about 15, in English, of my own choice (not required reading). I read the whole thing on a 4 hour flight. The first Camus book that I read was The Plague and that has left a deeper impression on me.

I do often feel like Mersault though. I think it's kind of cliche to say so, but I feel like him very often.