Suggested Reading Time: 7 days

Category: Literature /Fiction

Can you imagine something like this: your mother dies and you cannot remember when that happened, that is whether it happened the yesterday or the day before that?

This is the thread where this book starts off from. An amazing fictional narrative based on the philosophy of existentialism, it brings to light an existence unburdened by the everyday nuances of life, and it also shows how the society chooses to declare one an offender for the simple crime of living a life where in you do not follow the established codes of morality of society.

Albert Camus is a French writer who was a leading exponent of this form of writing. For the ones who are not accustomed to the nuances of reading, you might find this book o be a little dry in its treatment of life. But then that is one its motives, to bring to fore the dryness of life. Being such a bare book in terms of its styling means that your patience can be tested while reading it. But then its rather short length compensates for the boredom it might induce in the reader.

Few of quotes/extracts from the book that make you sit up and ruminate deeply about life:

• “I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.”
• “I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.”
• “If something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.”
• “Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter.”
• “I’ve never really had much of an imagination. But still I would try to picture the exact moment when the beating of my heart would no longer be going on inside my head.”
• “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

The book also goes by the title of ‘The Stranger’ in some its print editions. It’s the same book, so don’t be confused by these two titles.