Well, from the first moment I picked the book up, I thought The Stranger was an awesome book. That being said let me clarify that I hate looking at this book with regard to the absurdist, existentialist view. When looking at the book like that, it is dry and repetitive, and complicates a somewhat simple idea, and contradicts itself. BUUUT if you ignore that part, I like this book.
The first reason I liked this book, is that my first impression after speeding through it was what is best described as "woah". I realized that for the first time in a while, I had little idea what the heck I had just read. I then questioned the effect of a book that does this. Is it a beautiful thing? I thought, technically someone could just write incoherent and unrelated babble and call it a story, and I should be amazed by this logic. But then it hit me, what I liked about this book was not it's complicated nature, but rather, the way Camus linked his motifs (whether simple or complex), to relate to a theme. While the motifs were up to personal perception, the themes they point to could come together smoothly.
The second reason was that I like Camus' ability to say something by saying the opposite. For example, I perceive Mersault as a deeply emotional person, although upon first read he is viewed as a horrifyingly unemotional one. He is described as emotional in the sense that he puts so much effort into not NOT being emotional. I thought that was cool.
I think simply because of the unique writing style and qualities alone, this book should be taught in schools. I would just plead, for the student and teacher's sake, that it is not related to existentialism.
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