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The Stranger

By: Albert Camus - Read: September 2023 - Rating: 9/10

Camus's absurdist masterpiece. Meursault refuses to play by society's emotional rules and pays the ultimate price.

The famous opening: "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure." Meursault's emotional flatness isn't sociopathy; it's radical honesty. He won't perform feelings he doesn't have.

The trial isn't really about the murder. It's about Meursault's failure to cry at his mother's funeral, to express proper remorse, to be legible to society. A devastating critique of how we demand emotional performance.