I just finished this, the first book I've ever started and finished within a day. It really resonated with me. I've read books with similar themes, but Meursault is by far the most natural and easy character for me to self-insert into. Camus put into words what a lot of robots grasp at in threads here every day.
Normie society tries to exist in complete opposition to a universe that acts with a benign indifference toward human life. Because of this, life within it is absurd. Living in harmony with one means living in defiance of the other, and we are all forced to live under the power of both.
Meursault finds happiness only after he fully embraces the fact that nothing he does matters, because he has no real agency to determine anything in the future - no human has.
I think that robots have a lot to get out of this because we exist on the weird threshold of society, being part of it while at the same time largely alienated from it.
Most of us have realized its absurdity, which normies do their best to ignore. We can easily find the ridiculousness of its ideologies. However, many of us have not found anything substantial to take their place.
>>29646498
The Stranger is a great book. Have you read Dostoevsky's robot trilogy? Two are short stories that can be found online
Ridiculous Man and White Nights
The third is the robot bible; Notes From Underground. I recommend all three but if you must choose one read Notes From Underground.
>>29646560
Thanks senpai, I'll definitely check this one out next.
Since i've started reading again after a post-high school dark age i've read Blood Meridian, A Hero of Our Time, and this. I've enjoyed them all, though Meridian i mostly enjoyed for the story and imagery and didn't get much of a deep message out of it
>>29646627
Blood Meridian is good but you're correct in that it isn't very deep. I still really liked it.
>>29646627
How much a day do you read, anon? I too am trying to escape a post-HS dark age where I think I read 3 books in 3 years. I read The Stranger this spring and loved it. Reading David Brin's The Postman right now.
>>29646827
Depends how busy i am with other stuff, anywhere from 10 minutes between classes to several hours into the night.
Did you feel that The Stranger had a real impact on how you lived?
The only book that ever did that to me was The Picture of Dorian Gray when I was 16
>>29646498
I'm onboard with the absurdist message, but purely as a character Mersault was hard to identify with. There's a certain alienation from society that I feel that he doesn't, the way he can pretty seamlessly just fit into society, hook up with a girl, talk with his neighbours, etc.
It's the same problem I had with "No Longer Human", he seemed far too human (or here not enough of a stranger).
It's not a critique of the book(s) in any way, just a personal issue.
>>29647580
I think that that's mostly because of the book's context. In the 1940s, before internet, videogames, phones, etc. fucked us over a certain social adeptness would probably be taken for granted.
Additionally, he lived in a settler colony in Algeria, so whites would have been a minority, living together in small enclaves. Their community was likely tighter knit and more friendly toward each other by default than Americans and Europeans are now
