Grand merci to Catherine on the book suggestion, as the meeting discussion was indeed a very good one. Everyone agreed that The Mersault Investigation was quite extremely creative, well-conceived and presented some interesting and important facts and points of view from the Algerian perspective. We also agreed that it should be read after The Stranger, however, some of us felt that The Mersault Investigation could not quite stand on its own the way that The Stranger did.
Maren was the lone person among us who did not read The Mersault Investigation, and the reason was that she disliked The Stranger so much that she had not the courage to read a follow-up novel. Her precise comment about The Stranger: “It was the first book I ever loathed….” On the complete opposite side of the fence, Caroline has always loved The Stranger and did not like The Mersault Investigation at all. (even having read it a second time !) The rest of the group’s opinions varied in between the two points of view, with most of us having enjoyed both books.
Why is Camus still relevant ? Or is he no longer relevant? This was the subject of some debate with the general consensus being that the book was very well-written and that he did an excellent job of portraying a completely “detached” person, who did not live within the social mores of his contemporaries. Some of us even thought Mersault would be classified in today’s world as someone with Asperger Syndrome. It is as though he had no idea how his actions impacted other people or even himself. He had zero attempt at pretense and could not help being honest even when it cost him dearly.
Regarding The Mersault Investigation, Michel noted some interesting reasons why Algeria was different from Morocco and Tunisia, with more obstacles to overcome. The book did a great job of helping us feel the point of view of Harun, but some of us felt it was a bit heavy-handed and could have been more interesting had a different technique been used than the storytelling from the bar, and if other characters had been a bit more developed. (e.g., the little images of the man who beat his dog in The Stranger were much appreciated.) The parallels between the two books, (the mothers, the presence of the sunlight, events taking place at 14h00, etc.) were clever, but some of us thought a bit gimmicky. Overall, though, we give the author enormous credit for the fantastic originality of the idea for this novel.
Some questions we debated but were never resolved were:
- Would it be harder or easier to exist in today’s world as Mersault did?
- While we agreed he was not a victim, was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time and therefore in a sense a “victim” of bad luck ?
- Did he have actual emotions or was he just unaware of them?
- Does Mersault ever understand why the murder was even committed?
- Was it unrealistic in The Mersault Investigation that the victim’s body was never found ? (Although here Monika did raise the interesting point that it was a driver for the story, since the body being found would have brought closure for the family and therefore taken away part of the novel’s power.)
Cynthia
