A story told from the perspective of Meursault, a French citizen domiciled in Algiers, who goes about things in everyday life with an extraordinary level of detachment and disinterest.
He is not even remotely sad at his mother's funeral, thinking about his own personal needs the whole time. He accepts his girlfriend's marriage proposal with a "I don't care either way" shrug. He lives in the now, unconcerned about the past or future. It seems as if he is incapable of feeling anything, a man of no conscience. But, behold, on a beach, when he feels the sun is way too hot for his liking, he gets annoyed and upset, and in his agitation, he shoots down an Arab, first once and then the dead body four times. That is the enigma of the man, and the murder trial that follows thereafter, together with the enlightening conversations with his lawyer and the priest at the end, open new windows through which to view him.
The book is like a fully matured tree in the forest of philosophy. The story is an exploration of the philosophical concepts of individualism and absurdism, the latter being admitted by the author himself; and a commentary on how the society perceives and interacts with these ideas. Meursault's trial and his tête-à-tête with the priest in the second half, in particular, raises a lot of interesting questions and forces a bit of self-reflection on how we live our lives. Is indifference, free from the shackles of societal conventions and bonds of religion, family etc., the way to perceive life or is showing emotion a necessary ingredient without which life holds no meaning?
What I liked about the novel was that it packed a lot of philosophical punch in a short space. The personality development of the protagonist was pretty thorough with dry humor being interspersed throughout. The narration style though a bit flat at times, blends in pretty well with the setting of the plot, giving it a deep, reflective outlook. It is a great work of literature, one in which the further you read between the lines, the more answers it provides and the more fulfilling it gets.
Quite naively, I was expecting the novel to be a murder mystery thriller which accounts for my initial disappointment. Maybe that irrational feeling prevented me from fully enjoying the first part which was a drudgery at times. Apart than that, the philosophy occasionally became a bit too thick for me to wrap my head around (maybe I was trying to read too much between the lines!).
In short, it is a pretty quick and a decent read. Definitely should be part of must-read shelves of those comfortable with a big dose of philosophy in a fiction.
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