Albert Camus’s L’Étranger (1942), is the kind of novel every bookish teenager once felt compelled to read. Less than 70 pages, it’s not much of a commitment, but it leaves an indelible impression. I read the book at high school and have returned a couple of times since. Unlike much of the literature consumed in one’s teens, Camus’s novel feels just as striking when read at a mature age.
Often known as The Outsider in English, following Stuart Gilbert’s translation, (no longer considered the standard), it’s as disturbing today as it must have been to readers in the 1940s. Part of its impact comes from Camus’s bare, unembellished prose, inspired by Hemingway, but it’s also a philosophical novel, viewed as one of the key works of existentialist literature.
Existentialism, a leading intellectual current in the years following World War Two, is not much spoken about nowadays, perhaps because we’ve internalised its insights so successfully. To say that humanity is alone in a Godless universe, and if God does exist, he doesn’t care, probably describes the beliefs of most people in the western world, who go through their lives with scarcely a thought for the hereafter. We may tolerate all forms of religious belief and feel religion is vaguely a good thing, but for most people God no longer plays a central role in their day-to-day existence.
Those who practice some form of faith would reject existentialism, and always have, but it’s no longer a matter of urgent debate. Most of us today are existentialists without even knowing it, which is why many viewers will find that François Ozon’s film of Camus’s novel touches parts of the psyche which have lain dormant for years.