Today I revisited “L’Étranger” by Albert Camus.

Considered a classic of 20th-century literature, The Stranger has received critical acclaim for Camus’ philosophical outlook, absurdism, syntactic structure, and existentialism (despite Camus’s rejection of the label), particularly within its final chapter. Le Monde ranked The Stranger as number one on its 100 Books of the 20th Century. In Le Temps it was voted the third best book written in French in the 20th and 21st century by a jury of 50 literary connoisseurs.

What in particular disturbs me about the novella is not its recommendation of absurdity; nor even its unwitting alliance with the sterile events of the day. No, what disturbs me is the sadness, the regrettable nature of things. The book has been analyzed one thousand times. So I won’t pretend to enlarge on analysis.