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A review by boezaaah
The Outsider by Albert Camus
5.0
“I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn't.”
I read The Outsider with the intention of deeply analysing it for my Literature class. And let me tell you, I had a really GREAT time, but I'll keep this as short as possible so as to not bore the crap out of all of my Goodreads friends (and anyone else who happens to come across this review).
This book was full of philosophical messages (as a former philosophy student, I think the addition of this element was really interesting) and political intrigue in terms of the justice system and it's functioning. The character development in this novel is incredible and I think I may have to agree with people that claim it gets better with every read. I think I would get even more out of this a second time.
The fact that this book is split into two parts, before the murder, and then after the murder, in my opinion really complimented the psychological aspect of this book and our main character, Meursault's thought process. It's quite obvious that at the beginning of the novel Meursault is naive and has little to no imagination.It's terribly easy to pick up how much his character has developed in terms of going from incredibly naive to quite aware in terms of what is going on around him. The further you get into this novel you begin to pick up on slight emotion that Meursault feels, even if they are minuscule. He also picks up on the little details of people and views them more as objects than as people with feelings. The first passage in the book consists of really short sentences that get straight to the point, whereas the beginning of the last chapter, Meurault really analyses everything and build up scenarios in this head on ways to escape the guillotine. I don't think I picked up on this the first time round but discussing it in class really opened my eyes and I found it really interesting.
One of the main problems I had with this novel was the clear acceptance of abuse, both towards women and towards animals. There were more than a few times when both of this were prominent but they were not challenged. I think these could be quite harmful towards readers, so I would recommend being aware of this before going into this book.
Overall I really value Albert Camus' writing and storytelling, and will definitely be picking up some more of his works, and I recommend you do too.
I read The Outsider with the intention of deeply analysing it for my Literature class. And let me tell you, I had a really GREAT time, but I'll keep this as short as possible so as to not bore the crap out of all of my Goodreads friends (and anyone else who happens to come across this review).
This book was full of philosophical messages (as a former philosophy student, I think the addition of this element was really interesting) and political intrigue in terms of the justice system and it's functioning. The character development in this novel is incredible and I think I may have to agree with people that claim it gets better with every read. I think I would get even more out of this a second time.
One of the main problems I had with this novel was the clear acceptance of abuse, both towards women and towards animals. There were more than a few times when both of this were prominent but they were not challenged. I think these could be quite harmful towards readers, so I would recommend being aware of this before going into this book.
Overall I really value Albert Camus' writing and storytelling, and will definitely be picking up some more of his works, and I recommend you do too.