I’m sure there are a dozen posts about this book, as it is a classic (I am trying to hit all the classic novellas I can this summer), but I wanted to give my thoughts on it before reading reviews. Honestly, this is one where I don’t have a strong grasp on what Camus’s point MUST have been, but I can speak on what I at least questioned and considered while reading it.
The central factor of this book, to me, is Meursault’s extreme apathy. He has a way of stumbling into immorality because the things he cares about are so limited (they usually don’t go beyond his own physical comfort. We see this because of how much the heat affects him, eventually driving his murder, and through Marie whom he loves only due to basic attraction and admits to not loving more deeply than that).
Meursault’s apathy hits absolutely ridiculous levels, but it made me question: if someone were purely apathetic, what would his moral alignment be? This book seems to show that it’s much closer to evil than good. Nothing Meursault did was due to particularly evil logic or wicked motives. He wrote the letter to Raymond’s mistress purely because he was asked to. He shot the mistress’s brother because the sun was bothering him.
So, is good active while evil is both passive and active? One line that launched itself out at me was a quote from the prosecutor at the trial:
[The jury] will conclude that a stranger may offer a cup of coffee, but that beside the body of the one who brought him into the world, a son should have refused to take it.
Obviously, the title is name-dropped here. But besides that, I think this line, while it’s contextually silly in a way, encompasses Meursault’s issues. He is not seeking out evil. He can correctly answer that his murder was not premeditated. But what does it matter if you’re too thoughtless to stick out your arms and stop your trajectory when evil finds you? At the end of the day, the court just sees the evil.
Some of this might just be what I personally latched onto because I love books that attempt to explain what the nature of good and evil actually is. It also seems as though Camus was making societal statements that I didn’t resonate with or latch onto as much. But I did like this aspect of the book.
It also made me think of a line from Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury that I always liked. Will’s father tells him that being good is “a fearful occupation.” It’s something you have to care about. You choose it and work hard at it.
It’s easier to stumble into being a bad person than it is to stumble into being a righteous one. It takes saying no, being uncomfortable, and loving people and things. None of these are attributes Meursault has. So while, I don’t think he’s some twisted evil doer in his soul—does it matter in practice? And how much? The prosecutor was wrong about Meursault’s motives and, while sometimes well-intentioned motives do matter when you look at crimes, how much did they matter here?
Meursault got a woman hurt because he had no reason not to write a misleading letter to her. He killed a man because he had the basest level reason to. He didn’t hate either of those people, but he also doesn’t love anyone.
Anyway, that’s my take, having just finished the book about an hour ago. What do you think Camus was saying with it?
by WisteriaWillotheWisp