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The Outsider (Penguin Modern Classics) | 
| Author: Albert Camus
Creator: Joseph Laredo
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy New: £3.55
You Save: £5.44 (61%)
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Rating:  60 reviews
Sales Rank: 1821
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 0.4
ISBN: 0141182504
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
UPC: 978014118250
EAN: 9780141182506
Publication Date: July 6, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 55 more reviews...
 Sublime June 10, 2009
Myshkin
This is one of the best books I have read in years, it is simply written and and easy to read. It's a real gem, I hadn't even heard of it but the synopsis caught my eye and to my surprise it is one of my favourite books.
Philosophically, it is an existential novel- The title character is Meursault, an alienated French man. Notified of his mother's death, Meursault attends her funeral, yet expresses none of the typical emotions expected in such circumstances. When he is later on trial for a spontaneous act of violence his apparent lack of remorse and emotion renders him guilty in the eyes of others. As an existentialist, he has no reason to regret what he does because it is done-- regret is redundant. Yet society cannot understand a man like this or his methods of thought.
I cannot recommend this excellent work of literature highly enough- read it and cherish it.
 Does this book still pack the same ethical and philosophical punch it once did? February 23, 2009
Andy Miller (Nottingham, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
One of the very few books that I have ended up reading twice, I first came across The Outsider long ago in 1962 when I was 17 and have just revisited it recently with my reading group, extremely curious to know whether the strong impression it originally made upon me would be rekindled.
In the main, it was not. Coming to this novel in adolescence as one of the first `serious' books I had encountered, and just before the social upheavals of the 1960s began, I found the story and fate of Mersault, who could not or would not lie or express the standard emotions that were expected of him, quite shattering of the world in which I had grown up. Over the intervening decades, I carried a memory of Mersault as a noble hero and of the type of society that I had grown up in as a hypocritical conspiracy against the expression of honesty of feeling. As much or more than Kerouac, Ginsberg and Dylan, it was this book that made me a small town, coffee bar existentialist.
On re-reading at a different age and in a different era, I was struck by a number of impressions. Mersault appears less heroic and emptier of human warmth. He tacitly supports his neighbour, a pimp, in his violence towards his girlfriend and the novel hints more at his racism in the motiveless murder of an Algerian on the beach, around which the novel revolves. His patterns of thinking seem now far less idealistic and almost autistic in character.
However, the sense of place and especially the evocation of the heat, sun, sea, the streets of the town, the courtroom and his prison cell remain convincing and beautifully expressed in clear, clean prose. Mersault's world view and his in-the-moment limited expectations still engaged me as a study of character, but less as an existential pioneer and martyr and more as an unreflective and mildly hedonistic individual.
I would still strongly recommend this book for its historical importance. Written during the second world war when Camus was fighting in the French Resistance, I first read it in early 1960s when publicly departing from the standard loyalties to school, church and state still felt like a dangerous undertaking. The book will now be judged by first-time readers against the mores of present times, times which have been fashioned by myriad forces including, as an early artistic tour de force, this novel.
My grading is an amalgam of my original and my current impressions - I hope this book continues to provoke and be appreciated.
What a man! January 4, 2009
S. M. Brown (Wigan, Greater Manchester)
*CONTAINS NO SPOILERS!* The Outsider is a small book but hugely fascinating. I'd heard good things about it and as I consider myself to be quite an outsider, I thought I'd enjoy reading about a fellow outsider (so to speak). There is a good plot and the characters are rather odd, which all adds to this fantastic story! I'd definitely recommend reading The Outsider, and if you don't enjoy it (which I doubt, if you're a fan of Camus!), then be grateful it's not the length of war and peace!
Existentialism as a corollary of underived truth September 4, 2008
Mr. Richard J. Howells (wales)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
An incisive diatribe on conventional rationality, this is in my opinion (and contrary to the views of one didactic reviewer)one of the most profound pieces of literature. It perambulates the existence of a man who eschews a life of corrupted, arbitrary ideology in favour of social aseity.
The writer' s terse, matter of fact treatment of the narrative correlates perfectly with his subversive philosophy that leaves an indelible mark on any reader open minded enough to accept it. The idea that our actions should always be subordinated to and permeated by the unfathomable idea of a god and a fallacious, inequitous set of rules and conventions that distort the truth to suit people' s delusions is discarded with the kind of perspicacious execution the subject deserves. All religion and politics do is teach us to repress and compartmentalise the truth in order that malevolent leviathans can divest us of our individuality and turn us into sequacious, depersonalised morons.
In summary then, take all your absurd beliefs in religion, society, maladroit music, vacuous filmmaking, sycophantic hero-worship of soulless idiots and risible faith in the infallibility of the law and flush it down the toilet where excrement belongs!
Fascinating May 24, 2008
Mrs. K. A. Wheatley (Leicester, UK)
More of a novella this is regularly featured on such lists of books to read before you die. I personally prefer The Plague by Camus, but this is still a stunning literary work, and definitely worthy of a read.
Meursalt, the 'outsider' of the novel, tells us his brief tale. A man oddly disconnected from the rest of humanity, living on the edges of understanding in terms of social interaction, he comes across as almost autistic in his views of the world. The story takes us from the death of his mother through to his arrest for murder and the trial that ensues.
There is a letter from Camus in which he describe Meursalt as a redeemer figure and a hero whose only sin is to speak the truth of his existence. I don't think this is 100% honest, as despite his alienation there are glimpses of his connection to the world in a kind of wistful, painful manner that make one believe that maybe Meursalt is missing out. It is those brief bubbles of awareness that make him a complex and tragic figure rather than a villain.
A fascinating book, which deals with perception and justice and the nature of right and wrong.
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