REVIEW: The Stranger by Albert Camus

Title:          The Stranger                                    

Author:       Albert Camus
Book # :     116                        

Type:          Novel

Genre:        Existentialism                    

Year:          1942

Publisher:    Penguin                     

Country:      French Algeria         

Language:   French                                

Translator:   Stuart Gilbert                    

Media:         Paperback

Pages:        120

Rating:         10 

I must admit that I was apprehensive re-reading this classic of existentialism, as I was profoundly affected (in a depressing manner) when I first read this novel in my 20's. Back then I found the protagonist STRANGE and his world view to be bleak and depressing.      

Perhaps it was the scary absurd notion and central theme of this book that life has no meaning. In a God-less universe, how does one live?  With no rules whatsoever.  Everything is permissible, including killing another human being for no justifiable reason. Blaming it on the sun just doesn't make any sense!

However, even though there are no 'rules' or guiding principles per say, and in such a world any behavior is seemingly allowable, one must be willing to pay the consequences for one's action.  In the 'Stranger,' the price paid is of the worst kind!  I was very very depressed after reading this book.  Existentialism to me did not offer a positive or even viable philosophy!  Nonetheless, I realized this novel was unique, one-of-a-kind, portraying life in a new albeit harsh light. 

This is the primary challenge with the novel.  The principle character Meursault is completely unlikable. He has no purpose in life, drifting from work to play on the beach.  He appears distant and displays very little emotion. In fact, he is on trial for this deficiency.  In the end, he is convicted NOT for killing an Arab repeatedly in cold blood (made famous by the Cure song), but for not crying at his mother's funeral. He is deemed a threat to society and punished accordingly.

That was then.  Today, more than 20 years later, I have a very different perspective. Camus was way ahead of his time.  He is writing about the new Modern Man who has lost his way.  In this era of fierce Individualism and Reality Show freaks, Meursault would hardly register.  He is accurately describing disaffected narcissist nihilistic hedonist Youth in our age of Internet, Twitter and Facebook.  Even though Camus was describing conditions following Nazi Germany's atrocities on humankind and the senselessness of life, today technology has made us all 'comfortably numb.'  Too many headlines abound today of young teenagers perpetrating heinous crimes or murder for no justifiable reason.  For me, it started with 'wilding' murders in New York city in the 80s.  What a shame! 

I understand Meursault much better today than I did more than 20 years ago. He found meaning for his existence in the purely physical world - his love of nature, cigarettes, sex. The sun is seen as a force that causes him great discomfort (mother's funeral,  blinding reflection off knife on the beach) and ultimately leads to his downfall.   I now feel pity towards him rather than revulsion.  A life without purpose is hollow and empty.  Despite all the modern distractions, people are very lonely and screaming for attention and love.   In the words of Socrates many many years ago, "the unexamined life is not worth living."

FULL REVIEW: On The Road (Jack Kerouac, 1957, 254 pages)

                                
As I embarked on ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac, I must declare that I had high expectations and reservations.  How to describe the reputation of Kerouac as the voice of his generation, the Beat Generation, post WWII of the 1950’s era?  The language of his novel is dated by recognizable with phrases like ‘gone daddy’ and ‘cool cat.’  However the spirit of experimentation (sex, drugs, & jazz music), and that yearning to get on the road no matter where it leads, is familiar one. The novel has a compelling ‘hero,” the struggling writer, with no money, living with his aunt, desperate to experience all that life has to offer. And the prose is magnificent.

What surprised me though were the touching descriptions of passionate relationships within the novel, namely Dean Moriarty, and his initial love interest Terry.  And underneath the endless need to get ‘on the road’ is a deep search for meaning and revelation in life, in short a search for God, in my opinion.  This theme of the ‘Seeker embarking on a journey of self-discovery’ is one we have encountered in other works of Great Literature, namely Gilgamesh (20000 BC), Odysseus (800 BC), Dante (1308), and even K from the ‘Castle’ (1926).

  

Novel Background, Structure & Themes

Jack Kerouac finished writing the largely autobiographical ‘On the Road’ novel in 1951, but it was not published until 1957 by Viking Press. It originally met with mixed reviews due to the subject matter and depiction of Dean (mad eccentric or smart free spirit?).  The novel as consistently gained popularity to new generations concerned with the same themes implied the novel.  Recently it was recognized by Modern Library and Time magazine as one of the best 100 English-language novels of the 20^th century.

The novel contains five Parts (consisting of 14, 11, 11, 4 & 1 chapters respectively), many which describe specific road trips with ‘Sal Paradise,’ Jack’s alter-ego, and ‘Dean Moriarty,’ or Neal Cassady in reality, his high-spirited carefree friend who acts as a catalyst for their road trips.  The novel can be mistaken on the surface a simple buddy road trip story that Hollywood seems to churn out every year.  In addition to the aforementioned sex, drugs, & jazz music, the richness of the novel lies in the honest exploration on the nature of friendship, God’s existence, death, and the absolute joy of being alive and present in the moment.  Pretty heady stuff! 

The Nature of Friendship between Sal and Dean

The novel opens and ends with a line about Dean, and can be on the surface seen as the perfect buddy road trip story.  However with each trip, the main characters change (Jack for better, Dean for worse) and this has an effect on their relationship.  At the beginning, it is Sal who desperately depends on Dean to feel alive and latches on to his wild treks across the US:

 “I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up…With the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road.” (Part One, Ch. 1 opening paragraph) 

“But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" (Part One, Ch. 1)  NOTE:  This quote was inspiration for Kate Perry’s popular ‘Firework’ song.

By the end of the novel, Sal has settled down with his new girlfriend Laura, and it is Dean who now needs the comfort and stability of his old friend to maintain his sanity and as a respite from his complicated life:

“So Dean couldn't ride uptown with us and the only thing I could do was sit in the back of the Cadillac and wave at him. The bookie at the wheel also wanted nothing to do with Dean. Dean, ragged in a moth-eaten overcoat he brought specially for the freezing temperatures of the East, walked off alone, and the last I saw of him he rounded the corner of Seventh Avenue, eyes on the street ahead, and bent to it again. Poor little Laura, my baby, to whom I'd told everything about Dean, began almost to cry.

"Oh, we shouldn't let him go like this. What'll we do?" Old Dean's gone, I thought, and out loud I said, "He'll be all right." And off we went to the sad and disinclined concert for which I had no stomach whatever and all the time I was thinking of Dean and how he got back on the train and rode over three thousand miles over that awful land and never knew why he had come anyway, except to see me.” (Part Five, third and second last paragraphs)

This is a complicated relationship, but how many of us haven’t in our lives gravitated towards that exciting and wildly free spirit, recognizing that to continue down that path could lead to madness?  We all have met our personal Dean Moriartys and we realize we need to ‘grow up’ and be ‘responsible’ but deep down secretly mourn the passing of that brilliantly burning bright phase of our lives!

The Spirit of being ‘On the Road’

Whenever Sal begins to feel restless, trapped or lonely, he heads on the road, either towards friends or along with them towards a sometimes not very clear destination.  The point is just to get on the move:

“It was drizzling and mysterious at the beginning of our journey. "Whooee!" yelled Dean. "Here we go!" And he hunched over the wheel and gunned her; he was back in his element, everybody could see that. We were all delighted, we all realized we were leaving confusion and nonsense behind and performing our one and noble function of the time, move. And we moved!”  (Part Two, Ch. 6)

One of my favorite descriptions is the joyful moment of the experience of new, unexplored territory, in this case Mexico in the novel:

“I couldn't imagine this trip. It was the most fabulous of all. It was no longer east-west, but magic south. We saw a vision of the entire Western Hemisphere rockribbing clear down to Tierra del Fuego and us flying down the curve of the world into other tropics and otherworlds. "Man, this will finally take us to IT!" said Dean with definite faith. He tapped my arm. "Just wait and see. Hoo! Whee"” (Part Four, Ch. 3)

“Behind us lay the whole of America and everything Dean and I had previously known: about life, and life on the road. We had finally found the magic land at the end of the road and we never dreamed the extent of the magic.” (Part Four, Ch. 5)

“Everybody's cool, everybody looks at you with such straight brown eyes and they don't say anything, just look, and in that look all of the human qualities are soft and subdued and still there. Dig all the foolish stories you read about Mexico and the sleeping gringo and all that crap)-and crap about greasers and so on-and all it is, people here are straight and kind and don't put down any bull. I'm so amazed by this.” (Part Four, Ch. 5)  ***CLICK Here for Full Passage of First Impressions of Mexico***

My Personal ‘Dean Moriarty’

Like all great literature, ‘On the Road’ made me reflect on my life, and it led me to an unexpected place.  That place was across-the-US border shopping trip in 1989 with my soon-to be wife Guylaine, my sister Enza, my cousin Rita and her younger sister Lidia.  

Lidia, to me, was my personal Dean Moriarty.  She had a tremendously free spirit and sense of adventure, in short, the life of the party!  After a full day of shopping for clothing and suitcases for her endless trips abroad, we all spent the night at a local disco.  Lidia had a little too much to drink and did a lot of dancing, and we had to carry her back to our hotel room where she promptly vomited up her Tequilas and Margaritas.  She fell asleep instantly on her bed with her clothes and shoes still on.  The next morning she was good to go, despite being chastised by her common-sense older sister; “Was it worth it to spend all that money on booze, if you can’t keep it down?” 

I never forget that moment.  Secretly we all wished we could be a little more like Lidia.  She had this constant drive to make the most out of life every moment she could.  Some would say that she was exhausting to keep up with.  Like Dean Moriarty.

Lidia Minicucci passed away suddenly in her sleep years later in 1998 of an apparent heart attack at the age of 32 after returning from yet another adventure, this time Aruba.  She lived her life as though she has needed to suck every moment from it.  This lesson has not been lost on us.  I now try to live my life after her example.

What triggered this bittersweet memory from reading ‘On the Road?’  It was the emotional ending, as Sal comes to realize with regret that Dean has exited from his life:

“I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.”  (Part Five, ending line).

For me, the ending that came instantly to my mind was the following;

I think of Lidia Minicucci, I think of the trip she planned to visit us in Turkey we never realized, I think of Lidia Minicucci.




Rating:  10/10.

Memorable PASSAGE: On The Road - Mexico First Impressions

“ Then we turned our faces to Mexico with bashful-ness and wonder as those dozens of Mexican cats watched us from under their secret hatbrims in the night. Beyond were music and all-night restaurants with smoke pouring out of the door. "Whee," whispered Dean very softly.

"Thassall!" A Mexican official grinned. "You boys all set. Go ahead. Welcome Mehico. Have good time. Watch you money. Watch you driving. I say this to you personal, I'm Red, everybody call me Red. Ask for Red. Eat good. Don't worry. Everything fine. Is not hard enjoin yourself in Mehico."

"Yes!" shuddered Dean and off we went across the street into Mexico on soft feet. We left the car parked, and all three of us abreast went down the Spanish street into the middle of the dull brown lights. Old men sat on chairs in the night and looked like Oriental junkies and oracles. No one was actually looking at us, yet everybody was aware of everything we did. We turned sharp left into the smoky lunchroom and went in to music of campo guitars on an American 'thirties jukebox. Shirt-sleeved Mexican cabdrivers and straw-hatted Mexican hipsters sat at stools, devouring shapeless messes of tortillas, beans, tacos, whatnot. We bought three bottles of cold beer-cerveza was the name of beer-for about thirty Mexican cents"; or ten American cents each. We bought packs of Mexican cigarettes for six cents each. We gazed and gazed at our wonderful Mexican money that went so far, and played with it and looked around and smiled at everyone. Behind us lay the whole of America and everything Dean and I had previously known: about life, and life on the road. We had finally found the magic land at the end of the road and we never dreamed the extent of the magic. "Think of these cats staying up all hours of the night," whispered Dean. "And think of this big continent ahead of us with those enormous Sierra Madre mountains we saw in the movies, and the jungles all the way down and a whole desert plateau as big as ours and reaching clear down to Guatemala and God knows where, whoo! What'll we do? What'll we do? Let's move!" We got out and went back to the car. One last glimpse of America across the hot lights of the Rio Grande bridge, and we turned our back and fender to it and roared off.

Instantly we were out in the desert and there wasn't light or a car for fifty miles across the flats. And just the dawn was coming over the Gulf of Mexico and we began see the ghostly shapes of yucca cactus and organpipe on all sides. "What a wild country!" I yelped. Dean and I were completely awake. In Laredo we'd been half dead. Stan, who'd been to foreign countries before, just calmly slept in back seat. Dean and I had the whole of Mexico before us.

"Now, Sal, we're leaving everything behind us and entering a new and unknown phase of things. All the years and troubles! and kicks-and now this! so that we can safely think of nothing else and just go on ahead with our faces stuck out like this you see, and understand the world as, really and genuine! speaking, other Americans haven't done before us-they were here, weren't they? The Mexican war. Cutting across here with cannon."

"This road," I told him, "is also the route of old American 1 outlaws who used to skip over the border and go down to old Monterrey, so if you'll look out on that graying desert and picture the ghost of an old Tombstone hellcat making lonely exile gallop into the unknown, you'll see further . . ." "It's the world," said Dean. "My God!" he cried, slapping the wheel. "It's the world! We can go right on to South America if the road goes. Think of it! Son-of-z-bitch! Gawd-damm!" We rushed on. The dawn spread immediately and we began to see the white sand of the desert and occasional huts in the distance off the road. Dean slowed down to peer at them. "Real beat huts, man, the kind you only find in Death Valley and much worse. These people don't bother with appearances." The first town ahead that had any consequence on the map was called Sabinas Hidalgo. We looked forward to it -eagerly. "And the road don't look any different than the American road," cried Dean, "except one mad thing and if you'll notice, right here, the mileposts are written in kilometers and they click off the distance to Mexico City. See, it's the only city in the entire land, everything points to it." There were only 767 more miles to that metropolis; in kilometers the figure was over a thousand. "Damn! I gotta go!" cried Dean. For a while I closed my eyes in utter exhaustion and kept hearing Dean pound the wheel with his fists and say, "Damn," and "What kicks!" and "Oh, what a land!" and "Yes!" We arrived at Sabinas Hidalgo, across the desert, at about seven o'clock in the morning. We slowed down completely to see this. We woke up Stan in the back seat. We sat up straight to dig. The main street was muddy and full of holes. On each side were dirty broken-down adobe fronts. Burros walked in the street with packs. Barefoot women watched us from dark doorways. The street was completely crowded with people on foot beginning a new day in the Mexican countryside. Old men with handlebar mustaches stared at us. The sight of three bearded, bedraggled American youths instead of the usual well-dressed tourists was of unusual interest to them. We bounced along over Main Street at ten miles an hour, taking everything in. A group of girls walked directly in front of us. As we bounced by, one of them said, "Where you going, man?"

I turned to Dean, amazed. "Did you hear what she said?" Dean was so astounded he kept on driving slowly and saying, "Yes, I heard what she said, I certainly damn well did, oh me, oh my, I don't know what to do I'm so excited and sweetened in this morning world. We've finally got to heaven. It-couldn't be cooler, it couldn't be grander, it couldn't be any-thing."

"Well, let's go back and pick em up!" I said.

"Yes," said Dean and drove right on at five miles an hour. He was knocked out, he didn't have to do the usual things he-would have done in America. "There's millions of them all along the road!" he said. Nevertheless he U-turned and came by the girls again. They were headed for work in the fields;, they smiled at us. Dean stared at them with rocky eyes. "Damn," he said under his breath. "Oh! This is too great to be true. Gurls, gurls. And particularly right now in my stage and condition, Sal, I am digging the interiors of these homes as we pass them-these gone doorways and you look inside and see beds of straw and little brown kids sleeping and stirring to wake, their thoughts congealing from the empty mind of sleep, their selves rising, and the mothers cooking up breakfast in iron pots, and dig them shutters they have for windows and the old men, the old men are so cool and grand and not bothered by anything. There's no suspicion here, nothing like that. Everybody's cool, everybody looks at you with such straight brown eyes and they don't say anything, just look, and in that look all of the human qualities are soft and subdued and still there. Dig all the foolish stories you read about Mexico and the sleeping gringo and all that crap)-and crap about greasers and so on-and all it is, people here are straight and kind and don't put down any bull. I'm so amazed by this." Schooled in the raw road night, Dean was come into the world to see it. He bent over the wheel and looked both ways and rolled along slowly. We stopped for gas the other side of Sabinas Hidalgo. Here a congregation of local straw-hatted ranchers with handlebar mustaches growled and joked in front of antique gas-pumps. Across the fields an old man plodded with a burro in front of his switch stick. The sun rose pure on pure and ancient activities of human life. “

(Part Four, Ch. 5)

FULL REVIEW: Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway, 1929, Scribners, 332 pages)

What a wonderful surprise it was to experience Farewell to Arms after having been so disappointed with Hemingway’s first novel, the Sun Also Rises. Unlike the latter, Farewell to Arms depicts well drawn, even likable or sympathetic characters. The setting is familiar, soldiers’ life during wartime, but with a highly realistic description of the daily almost mundane rituals on the northern Italian border as Frederic Henry an American ambulance driver has volunteered in the campaign to defend against the advancing Austrians during WWI. This novel is semi-autobiographical, drawing from Hemingway’s real wartime experiences serving in Italy as an enlisted ambulance driver, where in 1918 he was seriously wounded. To me, this provides a perspective and aura that makes the novel more authentic and real.

The descriptions of the Italian villages during the Italian army’s advance and ultimate retreat are so well drawn that I could feel myself transported to that time, that place. This is the magic of great literature. As I was swept along in the adventure, it was as though I was there, a first person witness to the events. My Italian background allowed me to resonate with the locations and local characters. Especially memorable are the passages detailing the meals; a pot of pasta with hard cheese and bottles of Chianti wine, or grappa. The waiting for action and the speculation on when the war will end create the sense of boredom and monotony that preoccupies the soldiers.

What is unusual with narrative is that the protagonist is detached, painting the events in a neutral matter-of-fact manner. The reader is not provided an adequate explanation for his involvement in the war, especially supporting a foreign country. Frederic becomes wounded in unflattering circumstances, delivering food for the troops, and downplays his heroism. A memorable line describing the 'glory' of war is as follows:

“There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity….Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.” (Chapter 27)

Hemingway’s style of writing is sparse, economical and journalistic (largely influenced by his early career as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and editor for monthly Chicago journal). His trademark short dialogue conveys a sense of eavesdropping on a private conversation nearby. And it all appears so uncannily modern. An excellent example is the touching and frank exchange between Frederic and Catherine, early in their budding relationship that captures the uncertainty of love:

“Tell me. How many people have you ever loved?”
“Nobody.”
“Not even me?”
“Yes, you.”
“How many others really?”
“None.”
“How many have you—how do you say it?—stayed with?”
“None.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“Yes.”
“It’s all right. Keep right on lying to me. That’s what I want you to do. Were they pretty?” (Chapter 16)

The structure of the novel is in five books, moving the plot along very nicely, and has been likened to a five act tragedy. The ending is heart wrenching and one wonders why lasting happiness cannot be the just reward for this couple that has suffered much. I must admit that I was overcome with emotion. The other primary characters are well drawn, in particular Henry’s closest friend, Rinaldi. The surgeon is loud, fearless, and the joker of the troops. The shy chastised Priest represents a contrast to Rinaldi, providing spiritual guidance and engaging conversations with Henry. Finally, Count Greffi is a lively, independent ninety-four-year-old nobleman, who represents a wise father figure for Frederic. 

A prevalent theme is the seemingly indifference of the universe. On wonders about Frederdic’s motives for joining the war effort. He appears ambivalent and aloof towards the war, love and even his own life. But his is a search for meaning, and his dialougue with the three above mentioned charaters is peppered with discourse about the existentence of God. A quotation by the Count over billiards is interesting;

"I had always expected to become devout. All my family died very devout. But somehow it does not come . . .  Perhaps I have outlived my religious feeling. . Then too you are in love. Do not forget that is a religious feeling." (Chapter 35)

Against the backdrop of the persistent war is a touchingly poignant love story between Frederic and English nurse Catherine Barkley, whose mutual attraction is at first playful and seductive but grows more complicated and intense. The last two books capture wonderfully truthful moments together, especially their escape at night on a boat to their idyllic life in a Swiss mountain village. Perhaps love is the answer? One of the most evocative passages in the novel is Frederic’s tender depiction of Catherine…her hair, no less!  Who would have thought Papa was capable of such sentiment? This long sentence (certainly for effect) beautifully captures the sense of insulating themselves from the chaos of the outside world;

"I loved to take her hair down and she sat on the bed and kept very still, except suddenly she would dip down and kiss me while I was doing it, and I would take out the pins and lay them on the sheet and it would be loose and I would watch her while she kept very still and then take out the last two pins and it would all come down and she would drop her head and we would both be inside of it, and it was the feeling of inside a tent or behind a falls.” (Chapter 18)

Overall, Farewell to Arms is a great novel about the harsh realities and disillusionment of war with a surprisingly tender love story. 


Rating:  10/10.