Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

The Stranger
The Stranger
The Stranger
Audiobook4 hours

The Stranger

Written by Albert Camus

Narrated by Jonathan Davis

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

With millions of copies sold The Stranger is one of the most widely read novels in the world. It stands as perhaps the greatest existentialist tale ever conceived. When a young Algerian named Meursault kills a man, his subsequent imprisonment and trial are puzzling and absurd. This remarkable translation by Matthew Ward has been considered the definitive English version since its original publication.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 19, 2005
ISBN9781440702990

More audiobooks from Albert Camus

Related to The Stranger

Related audiobooks

Literary Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for The Stranger

Rating: 4.226299694189603 out of 5 stars
4/5

327 ratings111 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    OK, laugh all you want, but I had never heard of this book and had no idea it was so popular or influential when I read it. I just saw it and picked it up and read it. And was blown away. Certainly not the feel good book of the summer, but it did affect me strongly and I recommend it, if there is anyone else out there who hasn't read it yet.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Simply told and able to clearly hear what was being said, at a good pace.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A character type who is often referenced in culture...most recently, Don Draper in Mad Men!!!

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Stranger is about Meursault, an unemotional, rational man who shoots and Arab on the beach. After the shooting, he stands trial and is sentenced to be executed by the guillotine. He spends the latter part of the novel dealing with his impending death, which is the heart of the novel. How do we deal with death, and how do we become free from our fear of death and living?I loved The Stranger, but I shouldn’t have loved the stranger. As a Christian, I should have been appalled at Camus’s insistence, through the story of the condemned criminal Meursault, that life is meaningless and the world is absurd. Yet, I did love it. Regardless of religious beliefs, it is impossible to escape and fail to appreciate the rationality of Camus’s point. Regardless of when we die, we are all going to die eventually, and the world will go on without us. Our existence has no great purpose, and there is nothing to fear in death. Freedom comes from accepting these premises. While I may not agree with the underlying warrants in this viewpoint, it is difficult to disagree with these conclusions if you accept these warrants. For this reason, I loved the novel. Camus’s entire philosophy of the absurd was portrayed beautifully in an engaging story that was difficult to refute if one first accepts Camus’s underlying beliefs.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Something about what was going on in my life lead me to a deep connection to this book I don't think I could replicate.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "If something is going to happen, I want to be there," (113) says the narrator of "The Stranger," but he hasn't been there through most of the book. The Arab isn't the Stranger in question; the narrator is. And even in this late, apparent declaration of consciousness, he hasn't really appeared.

    Henry Miller did a terrible job of encapsulating the same feel, pre-WWII, that everything in life was up for grabs and it was all meaningless and terrifying. Camus' simple sentences might remind you instead of Hemingway, but that's wrong too; both write simply, but the feel is very different. Camus has more in common with Kafka: although the events aren't surreal, there's the same confused, comedic feeling of inevitability, of being washed along by the moons of the world. Kafka and Camus have the same essential message, and it's a valuable one, and it is: "Well, shit."

    You know that story about Salamano and his dog? They hate each other; Salamano kicks the dog along, and the mangy dog pulls him along, and it seems horrible for both parties. "He's always there!" says Salamano. (27) Well, this is a very dark view of life, but it's very nicely put, isn't it?

    I've been reading Richard Wright, so I compared the trial sequences; Camus' was much better, because although both characters' stories were finished before their trials started, Wright drilled that home way more than Camus did. "It was then I realized that you could either shoot or not shoot," says Camus. That'll do.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very good book.amazing

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The quick and dirty about The Stranger: Meusault kills a man while on a weekend vacation with his girlfriend. Part I entails the events leading up to the murder and Part II is post-murder arrest and trial. The interesting component to the story is Meursault's (although not surprising) attitude towards the crime. From the very beginning Meursault has an apathy towards life in general. When he is confronted with a marriage proposal or a job offer he feels nothing. He barely shows emotion when his mother dies. It's as if he doesn't care about anything and yet, curiously, he keeps an old scrapbook where he collects things from the newspapers that interest him. He doesn't seem to understand love/hate relationships like the one his neighbor has with his dog of eight years. Meursault's attention span is also something to note. He is often distracted by lights being too bright, the ringing of bells and the chatter of people around him. the presence of light is particularly interesting since it is the sun that "causes" Meursault to murder.When Meursault murders a stranger for no apparent reason the fact he did it is not up for debate. It is the reason why that is questioned. Calling Meursault The Stranger is a contradiction because he is not a stranger in the traditional sense. He is not a loner or outcast. He has friends, coworkers, even a girlfriend. What Meursault is a stranger to is expected societal behavior, like mourning the loss of a parent or having feelings for someone he is in a sexual relationship with. Nothing that happens around Meursault has an emotional impact on him.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Brilliant! I haven't read Camus as much as I would like, and this is an excellent start. It had sadness and pathos but not self pity. Mersault is more human than most people are, and his painful honesty is a lesson in humanity.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A man is punished and persecuted for taking life at face value. There's also a murder, and some beatings, and a really horrible case of animal abuse, but Camus's narrator takes it all in stride. A fact, that in the end, could kill him. Unfortunately, the main character's nonchalance translates into the readers boredom at times. There's nothing particularly astounding of fascinating in this novella, and some parts of it seem rather unrealistic. However, the book does have some interesting comments on life and priorities- particularly towards the end. And the narrator’s eyes are an interesting pair to see through for a short while.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    When I first started reading this book, I thought it was poorly translated. The story itself seemed to be very interesting, whever it was going, but the translation didn’t seem to complement it so well. However, as I continued, I realized that the reason I couldn’t put it down was not entirely because of the story - as in most cases, it’s usually the style of writing. There have been quite a few times when I simply haven’t been able to close the book until it was over, and not because the story was so incredibly invogorating and intriguing. It was usually the style of writing. It wasn’t poetic and intricate and beautiful, but it fit. This is a story about a man who is indifferent to almost everything, and having a style of writing that illustrates that indifference could not have been pulled off any better.I must have gotten really into this book at some point, because while the main character Meursault was on trial, I found my internal monologue practically shouting for him to lie, to say certain things that would at least prevent the death penalty. Say that you didn’t have an indifference to your mother’s death; say instead that she wanted you to go out and have fun and improve your life after she was gone. Don’t say that it didn’t make any difference how you were at her funeral, say instead that this calm, reserved state is just how you handle grief, that inside you were bawling but how could you be expected to act such a way in front of a bunch of strangers? Instead of saying that you simply “couldn’t take care of her any longer,” say that you knew she would have been happier in a home, with friends, and others of her age with similar interests… I was saying these things, but he wasn’t thinking them.I wanted him to shout it out, though, because I too felt like he didn’t have a say in his own trial, that trials always seem to be entirely too third-person, that the persecuted is never able to defend himself; he has to instead rely on everyone else’s opinion of him.I wanted him to show remorse, even if it was just for the fact that he’d never feel a woman’s touch again. I wanted him to outwardly show all the right emotions, even if inside they were for other things. I realized, though, towards the end, that it was the complete opposite. He was thinking of his mother, always, in a way that could hardly be called indifferent. Sure, he wasn’t recounting all the emotional aspects of their relationship, but he was thinking of advice she had given, of the times she had said something that only now applied to his life. I do this all the time and it’s because I respect and appreciate the concern my parents always had for me. Even if he didn’t have the ability to shout to the roof tops that he loved her, he did anyway.It is a rather exceptional title for this book. Despite that I can see these traits in him, and despite that the entire book was narrated first-person and from his point of view, one is still left with a feeling of indifference. By the end, it seems only natural that he’ll probably be executed for what he did, even though earlier, inside, I was crying out for his welfare. Even though I know it wasn’t premeditated and the trial seemed a little unfair, it all spanned out in a perfectly logical way and it only makes sense that this would be the outcome. I don’t know him.What I love most about this book, however, is the effect it has on the reader, or in any case, the effect it had on me as a reader. I wouldn’t be able to say if it would have the same effect on any other reader, but I would still recommend it because of this happenstance. You go through a lot of emotions but eventually end up as unattached as he is.At first you don’t know what to make of it, but by part two, you’re on his side and defending him to the very thread of your being. Nothing particular caused this. He didn’t say something that made you like him more; you just seemed to gradually become his best friend. However, as you get closer to the end, you find yourself thinking more and more in his terms: yes, he’s probably right, this was probably inevitable; or yes, he is guilty, he does deserve this. I think it’s that last speech that really detatches the reader from him, and it doesn’t make you wonder if his appeal panned out or if he really was taken to the guillotine. You close the book knowing that he was a stranger to all the characters and to you, and the story is over. It really doesn’t matter if he lives or dies.My edition is hardcover and 123 pages, probably not even the length of a NaNoWriMo novel (if you guess about 400 words per page, you get 49,500 words for the book), and yet it takes you across the spectrum and back again. Beautifully accomplished.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This wasn't too bad for the most part, but it gave me serious Catcher in the Rye vibes the entire time, which was weird. For some reason, I just got the impression that it was an extremely serious and exaggerated version of Salinger's work. Of course, it was written before his, so it'd be the other way around.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A quick read, but deserves a lot of thought. Is life absurd? Can it be made meaningful?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mersault picks up a girl on the day that he learns of his mother's death. It is this fact more than any other that determines that a jury finds him guilty of shooting an unnamed Arab on the beach. He is guilty and we are faced with the casual racism of African France but here is also the unsettling challenge of the existentialists. What morality says that you should react in a socially acceptable way to events? By conventional thinking Mersault is showing himself to be callous when he goes swimming after learning of his mother's death. But why are we sentimental about death - he can not change the fact - he is not living with his mother. Why are we so critical of the unfeeling being? Does being human mean being sentimental? Camus explores and probes our consciences in this slight but important novel.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read this when I was twelve. I loved it then, and I love it now.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Have been meaning to read for years. Amazing stuff. I love the minimalist style, and the inherent disconnect of Mersault. Apathy and cynicism are two major turn-offs for me, but I found his apathy incredibly fascinating, really. How he's always been little more than a passenger in his own life. Inspiring, oddly enough - it makes me want to go out and take part in everything.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Camus seems to have been a pure humanist. He has left the door to humanism open to us all.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Stirring, poignant, and evocative. It's a book that's over quickly but stays with you forever.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The sentence structure is beautiful. Provides incredible insight into people who simply don't feel much emotion. This was eye-opening to me, as someone who feels everything intensely. The main character is still sympathetic though.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Well this is a book that it is difficult to stop thinking about. I think I need to read it again.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The voice is great
    I enjoyed the post discussion
    The story aply titled.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A senseless murder in a meaningless life: “The Stranger” is absurd, existential, and atheistic, and depending on your perspective it may challenge your worldview and provoke thought. Otherwise, you may find it of interest because it was written in 1942, and impressive as one of the novels that helped popularize existentialism and make it a significant cultural movement following World War II that has lasted to this day. Or, maybe you’ll find it completely uninteresting. What difference does it make anyway?Quotes:On meaninglessness:“It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed.”“…he wanted to know how I felt about going there. I’d be able to live in Paris and to travel around for part of the year as well. ‘You’re young, and it seems to me it’s the kind of life that would appeal to you.’ I said yes but that really it was all the same to me. Then he asked me if I wasn’t interested in a change of life. I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all.”“’Well, so I’m going to die.’ Sooner than other people will, obviously. But everybody knows life isn’t worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t much matter whether you die at thirty or seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living – and for thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying. At that point, what would disturb my train of thought was the terrifying leap I would feel my heart take at the idea of having twenty more years of life ahead of me. But I simply had to stifle it by imagining what I’d be thinking in twenty years when it would all come down to the same thing anyway. Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter.”And while that seems depressing, this positive implication:“Sounds of the countryside were drifting in. Smells of night, earth, and salt air were cooling my temples. The wondrous peace of that sleeping summer flowed through me like a tide. Then, in the dark hour before dawn, sirens blasted. They were announcing departures for a world that now and forever meant nothing to me. For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a ‘fiance’, why she had played at beginning again. Even there, in that home where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wistful respite. So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself – so like a brother, really – I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again.”I’m not sure how to categorize this quote, but thought it was well written, and liked the last line in particular:“That’s when everything began to reel. The sea carried up a thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire. My whole body tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver. The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat and sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I’d been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a book for which my opinions have changed over several readings. I originally was appalled at the ideas expressed by Camus but have gradually come to appreciate the richness and complexity of the existential point of view. While still differing with the philosophy as demonstrated here I find the novel is challenging and a worthwhile read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Mersault feels no sorrow at his mother’s funeral. Why? Is the ability to feel sorrow “learned”? Is that not a feeling that we humans has hinherited?Mersault neither feels regret for the deed he does. He never seems to hesitate before the shots, either. How come? Is it just because we have “learned” not to kill? Is there not a drive within the human race not to extinguish each other in cold blood?Camus implies that nothing matters. Or he wants to point at the opposite. I don’t quite understand. Alternatively, I understand, but I don’t find the question interesting.On the other hand, I like the scene with the priest in the end, where the main character fiercely resists. This is written in 1942!---Mersault känner ingen sorg vid sin mors begravning. Varför då? Skulle förmågan att känna sorg vara "inlärt"? Är inte det en känsla vi människor har nedärvd.Mersault känner heller ingen ånger inför dådet han utför. Han verkar heller aldrig tveka inför skotten. Varför då? Är det bara för vi har "lärt oss" att vi inte skall döda? Finns det inte en drift hos den mänskliga rasen att inte i kallt blod utplåna varandra?Camus låter påskina att inget spelar någon roll. Eller också vill han påvisa motsatsen. Jag förstår inte riktigt. Eller så fattar jag men tycker inte att frågeställningen är intressant.Däremot gillar jag scenen med prästen i slutet, då huvudpersonen hårdnackat står emot. Detta är skrivet 1942!Jag gillar sättet Camus framställer historien, språket, passiv dialog osv. Författaren har skarp blick för detaljer, och beskriver precist hur man verkligen kan känna (och bete sig) i vissa situationer. Men jag kan inte (!) sympatisera med Camus slutsatser.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I can't count the number of times I've read this story, and it becomes richer each time. Because Meursault is not a particularly lovable character, and because not much really "happens" in the way of plot, it was not a favorite the first or second time around. Now, it's a much-thumbed and marked-up classic, a truly great piece of literature.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The preface to my edition (Everyman’s Library) states: Albert Camus’ spare, laconic masterpiece about a Frenchman who murders an Arab in Algeria is famous for having diagnosed with a clarity almost scientific, that condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion which characterizes so much of twentieth-century life. Possessing both the force of a parable and the sentence-by-sentence excitement of a perfectly executed thriller, The Stranger is the work of one of the most engaged and intellectually alert of our century’s writers.” (…)(T)he earliest readers of The Stranger recognized the bleak, claustrophobic world portrayed in Camus’ novel. The bleakness, the banality and the sense of imprisonment were interpreted as an acute and accurate evocation of the feeling of the period. [WWII Occupied France].It’s considered a modern classic and I’m glad that I’ve read it, although reading it was not in the least enjoyable.Read this if: you enjoy existentialist thinking (this is considered by some – although not the author – to be an example of that movement in philosophy; you want to better understand the mental attitude of the general populace of occupied France faced with the daily drudgery of earning a living, finding fuel and fuel and living an uneasy coexistence with the Germans; or you need a short translated piece of fiction for a Reading Challenge. 2½ stars
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Didn't really get it. Did he care? Didn't he care? I don't really know. I think he was a semi-sociopath, if there is such a thing. But, it is a classic and borrowed from a friend, so I thought I should read it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is absolutely beautiful. Camus has wonderful writing technique and the content is interesting. I'm sure I didn't read into this as deeply as I should have, but I still pulled a lot away from the book. Definitely one worth a reread.... or four. Loved it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I don't understand why this book won the Nobel Prize. For the most part, I usually understand books we have to read in class. I understand them, I get those themes, I see that symbolism, I get why they're classics, I'm very ready for discussions on them.

    With this one I'm extremely confused. I liked the book, like the way it was written, liked the sparse descriptions and the switches in mood as the story goes along.

    I felt a strong reaction toward the main character, Meursault. At first I was in complete and utter disbelief about him. I couldn't believe that anyone could POSSIBLY be that apathetic. But, then, as the story wore on I became sympathetic toward him.

    It was a very good book...but what pushed someone to give it the Nobel Prize!? It's not better than any other book I've ever read. It's not *that* well written. Perhaps, in it's time, it was ground breaking? But in this time period I'm just thinking, "I've seen it done before." So, for the writing and the strong character reaction: I give it 3.5 stars.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the ten best books I've ever read; It's VERY intellectually rigorous and thought-provoking.