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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It has some logistical issues and it's quite repetitive but it has excellent writing style. I also really liked all the parallels with Meursault. I don't think it could be read without reading the Stranger first but I enjoyed this one more.
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
As a student of philosophy and literature I was beyond excited when I came across this modern retelling of Camus' masterpiece. However, this is a prime example of a plot that would've been better if it had stayed a short story. The concept of retelling The Stranger from the point of view of the Arab's family (his brother and mother), is compelling and has the legs to stand as a philosophical counterpoint to the original Camus. But I agree with a lot of the reviewers here in that the fleshing-out of this concept has ruined it--the book reads a lot like an extended, meandering, and very angry post-colonialist review of Camus's philosophical novel.
The main character (the Arab's brother) reads like an actor in a play trying to decipher his own lines, feelings, and motivations without much success. Everything he does seems planned without much thought (perhaps this is some sort of point, a la Camus). The narration is uncomfortable and grating to the point where it devolves into campiness, much like Frank Underwood on House of Cards. There are way too many forced parallels; Daoud seems to be almost inverting Camus' intended purpose of actions having no meaning, his narrator imbuing every detail with substance and form, shaping a conspiracy and a murder out of a ghost. The plot is clunky and the timeline is confusing, especially because the narrator insists on telling it out of order. You hope there is a good reason for this, but there isn't. It's like a 19th century mystery novel where the vital information that solves the whole deal is only revealed at the end--leaving you to wonder, That's it? That was the whole point? You as a reader feel duped, but not in a satisfying Oh I can't believe they got me way.
Stick to reading The New Yorker short story version of this, "Musa." It's much more satisfying, as literature and as an intellectual pursuit.
The main character (the Arab's brother) reads like an actor in a play trying to decipher his own lines, feelings, and motivations without much success. Everything he does seems planned without much thought (perhaps this is some sort of point, a la Camus). The narration is uncomfortable and grating to the point where it devolves into campiness, much like Frank Underwood on House of Cards. There are way too many forced parallels; Daoud seems to be almost inverting Camus' intended purpose of actions having no meaning, his narrator imbuing every detail with substance and form, shaping a conspiracy and a murder out of a ghost. The plot is clunky and the timeline is confusing, especially because the narrator insists on telling it out of order. You hope there is a good reason for this, but there isn't. It's like a 19th century mystery novel where the vital information that solves the whole deal is only revealed at the end--leaving you to wonder, That's it? That was the whole point? You as a reader feel duped, but not in a satisfying Oh I can't believe they got me way.
Stick to reading The New Yorker short story version of this, "Musa." It's much more satisfying, as literature and as an intellectual pursuit.
I first read the Stranger by Camus in high school. Then again after college, then once more, this time in French. I fell in love with his writing, consuming everything he produced. I read biographies of him. But then, I started to see the disconnect he had between what he wrote and how he viewed his birthplace in Algeria, the French colony where the native population didn’t have the same rights as the French colonizers. It complicated him for me and made me want to explore it more.
Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation, is just what I needed. He offers a take on Camus’s defining novel. It turns the story around, to look at the situation from the perspective of the murdered character’s brother. It’s eye-opening, to say the least. I never really thought about this when I read the Stranger, but the person Meursault murders is only called “The Arab.” He never gets a name or any humanity. Even at Meursault’s trial, the focus is more on the main character’s lack of sympathy regarding his mother’s death than the murder. Daoud’s novel calls that out and tries to re-inscribe the dead man, Musa, into the book of humanity. Through a wonderful re-use of The Stranger’s opening paragraph and the narrative device used in Camus’s later novel, The Fall, Daoud explores the murder of the narrator’s brother and what it does to him, his mother and his country.
The narrator beautiful states one core element of his thesis: “You can’t easily kill a man when he has a given name” (Ch. 5, p. 52). Camus called the murdered man “the Arab” or “an Arab”. But the narrator says “Arab. I never felt Arab, you know. Arab-ness is like Negro-ness, which only exists in the white man’s eyes” (Ch. 6, p. 60). Later, “He was Musa to us, his family, his neighbors, but it was enough for him to venture a few meters into the French part of the city, a single glance from one of them was enough to make him lose everything, starting with his name, which went floating off into some blind spot in the landscape” (Ch. 6, p. 61). From these three quotes, I felt a resonance with what is going on today in Baltimore, Ferguson, Sanford, Charleston and others cities across the US. My jaw just dropped, thinking how this Algerian, writing in French, in 2013, so nailed the events and discourses going on today in America.
The author also deals with religion and atheism throughout the novel. One line that stood out for me was: “How can you believe God has spoken to only one man, and that one man has stopped talking forever?” (Ch. 7, p. 69).
The Arab Spring is also touched upon, I believe. While talking about the newly independent Algeria of 1962, I feel he was also talking about today’s Libya, Tunisia, etc. Rebel groups, some extreme, some poor, some illiterate, came together to overthrow a bad government. But, once it was gone, they didn’t seem to want to go back underground, or dissolve. They like their newfound power and are unwilling to give it up so easily. Something to consider, both for countries that underwent these revolutions and for Western nations, especially the US, which want to dive into yet another war, arming anyone who will overthrow the tyrant du jour. A warning: remember that the US, in its proxy war with the Soviet Union, funded and backed extremist in Afghanistan. That didn’t work out too well in the long term for anyone on our planet.
This is an amazing read and one for people to read for so many reasons. And, if politics, religion, philosophy, etc. aren’t your thing, it’s still a really good story, well-paced, well-written and nicely translated.
Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation, is just what I needed. He offers a take on Camus’s defining novel. It turns the story around, to look at the situation from the perspective of the murdered character’s brother. It’s eye-opening, to say the least. I never really thought about this when I read the Stranger, but the person Meursault murders is only called “The Arab.” He never gets a name or any humanity. Even at Meursault’s trial, the focus is more on the main character’s lack of sympathy regarding his mother’s death than the murder. Daoud’s novel calls that out and tries to re-inscribe the dead man, Musa, into the book of humanity. Through a wonderful re-use of The Stranger’s opening paragraph and the narrative device used in Camus’s later novel, The Fall, Daoud explores the murder of the narrator’s brother and what it does to him, his mother and his country.
The narrator beautiful states one core element of his thesis: “You can’t easily kill a man when he has a given name” (Ch. 5, p. 52). Camus called the murdered man “the Arab” or “an Arab”. But the narrator says “Arab. I never felt Arab, you know. Arab-ness is like Negro-ness, which only exists in the white man’s eyes” (Ch. 6, p. 60). Later, “He was Musa to us, his family, his neighbors, but it was enough for him to venture a few meters into the French part of the city, a single glance from one of them was enough to make him lose everything, starting with his name, which went floating off into some blind spot in the landscape” (Ch. 6, p. 61). From these three quotes, I felt a resonance with what is going on today in Baltimore, Ferguson, Sanford, Charleston and others cities across the US. My jaw just dropped, thinking how this Algerian, writing in French, in 2013, so nailed the events and discourses going on today in America.
The author also deals with religion and atheism throughout the novel. One line that stood out for me was: “How can you believe God has spoken to only one man, and that one man has stopped talking forever?” (Ch. 7, p. 69).
The Arab Spring is also touched upon, I believe. While talking about the newly independent Algeria of 1962, I feel he was also talking about today’s Libya, Tunisia, etc. Rebel groups, some extreme, some poor, some illiterate, came together to overthrow a bad government. But, once it was gone, they didn’t seem to want to go back underground, or dissolve. They like their newfound power and are unwilling to give it up so easily. Something to consider, both for countries that underwent these revolutions and for Western nations, especially the US, which want to dive into yet another war, arming anyone who will overthrow the tyrant du jour. A warning: remember that the US, in its proxy war with the Soviet Union, funded and backed extremist in Afghanistan. That didn’t work out too well in the long term for anyone on our planet.
This is an amazing read and one for people to read for so many reasons. And, if politics, religion, philosophy, etc. aren’t your thing, it’s still a really good story, well-paced, well-written and nicely translated.
I wasn't sure what to do with this. I didn't exactly enjoy it. But that doesn't mean it wasn't good. I didn't exactly enjoy The Stranger either. They both gave the same weird squinty sort of headache. As if I was forever stuck reading them on that infamous beach.
So I decided to go give The Meursault Investigation the same rating I gave The Stranger - 4 stars. As in - I thought it was very good, but I didn't like it.
So I decided to go give The Meursault Investigation the same rating I gave The Stranger - 4 stars. As in - I thought it was very good, but I didn't like it.
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Best book of the year, inspiring and important
'The Meursault Investigation' takes on the weighty task of re-telling the story at the heart of Albert Camus's 'The Stranger' from the perspective of the brother of the anonymous Arab victim, Harun, many years later. Musa's murder becomes the determining event in Harun's life, overshadowed as he is by both Meursault's famous book *and* his mother's boundless grief for her (better) lost son. Though Mother's relentless harassment of Harun does get a bit monotonous, it's important to a post-Algerian Indpendence plot development that brings Harun and Meursault closer in their actions and outlook. Ultimately if Camus's narrator escapes the absurdity of God's judgment by insisting on his exemption, Daoud's narrator cannot quite bring himself to deny the existence of a higher power. Read together these two books are rich with food for thought about religion, justice, government, and what humans owe to one another.
Don't miss this thought-provoking piece on Daoud and contemporary Algeria: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/magazine/stranger-still.html.
Don't miss this thought-provoking piece on Daoud and contemporary Algeria: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/magazine/stranger-still.html.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I wanted to like this more than I did. Rambling prose, and the obvious similarity between Harun and Mersault felt heavy handed. The parts I enjoyed the most were descriptions of post-independence Algeria
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes