![]() ![]() The following day, he appears more concerned with the heat of the sun and his exhaustion during the funeral procession rather than the death of his closest loved one. No tears are shed by Mersault throughout the entire ceremony. He sits through the wake near the sealed coffin before the watchful, strange faces of the other residents. The novella opens with the words “My mother died today.” Mersault has arrived at the old peoples’ home after receiving news of his mother’s death. ![]() Mersault appears to live his life through a philosophy devoid of empathy which leads to him becoming an outsider from society and ultimately seals his fate at the hands of the justice system. The staccato nature of these sentences are reflective of Mersault’s approach to interacting with the world his responses to questions are always curt, his interpretation of the world is critical and devoid of extraneous musings, and his character is pragmatic with an aversion to ritual. Every thought within the novella is as concise as the story itself with Camus opting to use very short sentences which read like staccato. It’s a very short read with a succinct, dense story told from a first person perspective of a man by the name of Mersault. ![]() It was the Penguin Classics translation by Sandra Smith. ![]() My close friend, Arend, gave me a copy of this novella for my 20th birthday. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |