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0_equals_true
Quack!
Joined: Apr 06, 2007
Age: 26
Posts: 5046
Location: London
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 Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 2:01 pm Post subject: The Stranger |
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The Stranger by Albert Camus is one of my favourite books.
Do you think the use of the first person (Meursault) effectively describes an aspie point of view of the 'absurd' world we live in? |
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unnamed
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 27, 2007
Posts: 622
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| Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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| That's a good book. Yes, I think it's a good example of how absurd the world and human nature look from an "outside" (aspie?) viewpoint, how all our actions (both good and bad) seem pretty pointless, etc. |
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Jainaday
in uncertain taste
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
Age: 24
Posts: 1348
Location: in the They
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| Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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Hmn. . . I hate that book. . . largely because I'm fond of ascribing meaning to things, and yes, I do know that it's arbitrary.
If you want French existentialism, go for Simone de Beauvoir- The ethics of Ambiguity, to start.
If you want alienation, go for Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis.
If you can explain to me why L'etranger is good, please do. . . |
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gwenevyn
asdf forever
Joined: May 07, 2007
Posts: 6179
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| Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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| I can't explain why I liked it, but I did. It did strike me as something close to what I experience, yes. In ways. But it has been several years since I read it. |
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paolo
Phoenix
Joined: Aug 13, 2006
Posts: 1151
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 3:29 am Post subject: |
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I have read it for the second time recently and is one of the books I like more. I don't know if Mersault's experience belongs to everybody. The fact that George W Bush read it (or pretended to have read it) excited ironic clamor. Mersault is Camus, and many other people like us. Joseph
K. of the Trial and the land surveyor of the Castle are of the same breed.
The atmospheres are very different though in Camus and Kafka. Camus seems to maintain a good relationship with nature, a possibility of pagan joy outside the human society. Kafka is totallly entangled in impossible knots of guilt, and frustrating communication between humans. Here the Jewish background of Kafka is strongly felt.
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krex
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 21, 2006
Age: 45
Posts: 4995
Location: Village of the Damned
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 1:07 am Post subject: |
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I havent read "the Stranger" in 0ver 20 years but I know I "related" to it and it was an obsession(had to read everything related to existentialism for awhile).I do think there is a possibility that the author was AS.
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unnamed
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 27, 2007
Posts: 622
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 2:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Seems like existentialists really appeal to us. Maybe it's because they're the only folks who seem as rational and detached as we often find ourselves. |
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Malachi_Rothschild
Deinonychus
Joined: Aug 05, 2007
Age: 24
Posts: 335
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 3:22 pm Post subject: |
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| I like existentialism too. Never read The Stranger but I did read the Myth of Sisyphus. |
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Jainaday
in uncertain taste
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
Age: 24
Posts: 1348
Location: in the They
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 5:35 pm Post subject: |
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| I think Sisyphus is better than L'etranger. |
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paolo
Phoenix
Joined: Aug 13, 2006
Posts: 1151
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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"Une note de Camus nous renseigne cependant très vite sur la profondeur du roman : "Un homme qui ne veut pas se justifier- L'idée que l'on se fait de lui lui est préférée. Il meurt, seul à garder conscience de sa vérité." Dès 1935, Camus avait rêvé de réconcilier roman et philosophie : "On ne pense que par image ; Si tu veux être philosophe, écrit des romans." Cependant, il révoquera toujours le titre de philosophe et se considérera comme un artiste, reprochant volontiers aux philosophes de perdre le réel de vue et de se griser d'une gymnastique intellectuelle dangereuse pour tous.
On pourrait être tenté de voir en "L'Etranger" une illustration des idées défendues dans "Le mythe de Sisyphe". Si l'on peut les mettre en parallèle, il faut cependant reconnaître que l'on retrouve dans l'ensemble des oeuvres de l'auteur les mêmes thèmes et les mêmes préoccupations"
I share this evaluation which is not mine. Le Mythe de Sysiphe may be considered a commentary to the novel. "If you want to be a philosopher write some novel."
Dostoevski put all his philosophy in the talk of his characters. But the novels I like more are those short novels like "The Gambler", where the main character doesn't understand the eterogeneity of money and love.
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Jainaday
in uncertain taste
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
Age: 24
Posts: 1348
Location: in the They
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:13 pm Post subject: |
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yeah. . . I know. I still like Sisyphus better. In my opinion, still wrong- or perhaps better stated, distasteful- but not so willfully obtuse.
Lso- how've you managed the appropriate accents for that post? |
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paolo
Phoenix
Joined: Aug 13, 2006
Posts: 1151
Location: Italy
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Jainaday wrote: | | how've you managed the appropriate accents for that post? |
Simple: I pasted it. It's in quotation marks. |
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Jainaday
in uncertain taste
Joined: Jul 09, 2007
Age: 24
Posts: 1348
Location: in the They
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| Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 8:46 pm Post subject: |
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Aaaah.
(Jainaday feels strangely blonde. . . .) |
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Aradford
Velociraptor
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Joined: Jul 27, 2007
Posts: 444
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 12:53 pm Post subject: |
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aspie is nihilism now?
Get over it, there is a purpose to life if you create it and follow through with it. You guys are in deception. |
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Aradford
Velociraptor
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Joined: Jul 27, 2007
Posts: 444
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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You realize the point of that book is to depict the state that humanity is currently going through (nihilism) and that we have to overcome it in order to create a new foundation for a new culture to strive upon.... It is not about being Aspie... It is about being HUMAN in our time and a lot of people are inhuman.
It also touches on topics of Self Deception as the main character in the book believes he kills the man on the beach out of self defense and by accident because the sun blocked his vision but the truth is he lost all meaning and value in life and wanted to watch a man die.
But there is meaning and value in life, you just have to create it yourself. It is not handed to you on a silver platter. |
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