L'Étranger by Albert Camus

I've decided to restart this book blog to see if it brings order to the chaos that is my reading. I started this year with reading Camus for the first time: mainly, I have to say, because it was the only short novel I had home at the time. I've walked out on the other side feeling intrigued, satisfied with the length and language, but disbelieving his characters.

The Stranger is about a man who drifts through life like a leaf in the wind. He takes things as they come and aspire nothing. It is this that I find hard to believe - or rather, hard to connect to. He seems disillusioned, though strangely happy in his way of life. I read in this a strange kind of machismo, a turning away from feelings, leaving nothing with meaning. Well, I'm not a nihilist.

In the latter half of the book, the man is charged with murder. He is described in the court as a man without feelings, someone who is therefor a threat to society and should be executed. I find myself not agreeing with the "threat" part, but well with the view that he is strange. And I pity him.

So, all in all, good book. But I don't believe it.