The Stranger
I like reading books. What I like more is reading books I can potentially brag about. But it is a stupid thought since I am averse to outright bragging and subtlety is not the way to go if you want to blow your trumpet. I just read Albert Camus, the stranger.
The problem I sometimes have with reading short books is that I mentally run through some parts mentally, even though I've read it. Not actual skipping, but that it doesn't register significantly in my conscious. Which annoys me to no end - I expect the next book to be the doors of perception to my eternally starved soul. And I find it irksome to backtrack or even re- read something.
So, to the book. It's a translation from french. Pretty good I might say. The blurb mentioned a normal, seedha human being whose fate is twisted in an instant of inanity. Fit the profile well. Brought it out damn well too.
Meursault (pardon spelling) is a "normal human being" (so to speak). I found the character a bit scary. The way he reminded me of myself. He jumped from one thing to the other. Every day of his and every action had too much to do with circumstance and his reaction to stimuli and his immediate senses. Like he could not defer his actions to more prudent planning or experience. He commits a murder. Something so prone to chance. The sun blinded him, so he pulled the trigger of a gun he carried just because he wanted to feel safe in the face of confrontation. He shot once, then he paused and then shot 4 times, while he was blinded. A case of cold blooded killing in any normal scenario. But he has no motive. He was helping a friend ward of a couple of arabs with a grudge. Brought to trial he is condemned for things he didn't give a second thought to. Being insensitive at his dead mother's funeral - not crying, having a smoke and going to the beach the next day. Fraternising with a wife beater, a questionable character who claimed his wife was cheating. Then at the end he is condemned by a jury who supposedly peered into his soul and saw a deep abyss. The book is written in his point of view. He is helpless and bored at his trial, as other people determine his fate. He finally shouts at the chaplain who tries to press a god on him the last few days before he is to be guillotined. At this point he is nostalgic, showing a few signs of deep thought and deliberation. But if you have limited time then I guess anyone would be given to more substantial thoughts.
I wonder how people have different grades of control over their thoughts and their stimuli so to speak. Frankly if you are lost during the blank spaces in your day, it is best not to perceive it- trying to change the way you think to deal with it is something I dont believe in. Suggesting something like that is like violating some elses sacred space. But I crave these blank spaces between action and perception. A kind of deeper perception zone for me. I am incapable of thinking in that kind of detail in a daily basis. During those times I am guided by some kind of instinct in the way I behave. But I can feel that vacuum- borne of not thinking enough(thats as clear as I can state it) - when I do something stupid and when I cannot control the way I behave. Just today I was stupidly shivering with rage when some stupid **** disrespected me. I didn't have the presence of mind to even cool of later.
Anyway I still have a lot to learn I guess. So I keep reading these books in the hope that I keep learning stuff about myself. Next read: More of camus. Must be good.
