Title: The Outsider

    书名：《局外人》

    Author: Albert Camus

    作者：阿尔贝·加缪

    Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

    出版社：企鹅现代经典文库

    “In our society,” wrote Albert Camus, “any man who doesn’t cry at his mother’s funeral is liable to be condemned to death.” This may seem a bewilderingly dramatic, almost self-indulgent assertion, but it is one which Camus brought to life in The Outsider, and to devastating effect. It is not only perhaps one of the great novels of the Twentieth Century, but also one that provides a useful introduction to one of that century’s most compelling philosophical movements, Existentialism. The Outsider is set in Algiers, where our protagonist, Mersault, leads an unambitious and unremarkable bachelor existence. As such, he seems something of an outsider from the outset, but it is only as the novel progresses that this apparently innocuous characteristic assumes more sinister proportions. The novel begins with Mersault receiving the news of his mother’s death. After this, he sees no need to conform to the expectations of others, is philosophical about his mother’s death, and is constitutionally incapable of feigning a grief he does not feel. Nor does he see any need to assuage the discomfort his attitude causes to those around him. When he is later imprisoned for the murder of a man on a beach, at his trial, the grotesque murder of ‘the Arab’ appears to be of secondary importance; what truly appals the court is Mersault’s unrelenting atheism and his refusal to display any remorse. The Outsider is often unpleasant, but always beautifully written, and despite its short length is often cited by readers as a life changing book. ......