4chan archive /lit/ (index)
2012-09-23 10:18 3002720 Anonymous (the-stranger.jpg 284x400 40kB)
>tfw I saw some edgy hipster kids today talking about their "favorite" book ever and "objectively the greatest book of all time" called "The Stranger" and how much they can IDENTIFY with the main character called Meursault, they are exactly like him, you know But isn't it like that if you can >identify with Meursault then you're nothing like Meursault?

8 min later 3002749 Anonimus (1338474838474.jpg 452x551 118kB)
why everyfucking day a thread about the stranger?

14 min later 3002769 Anonymous
>>3002720 How do you get a green >implying in the middle of a sentence? I've never been able to do that. call me a newfag, I fucking dare you.

15 min later 3002772 Anonymous
>>3002749 because young white males on the internet need a way to deal with the nihilism they feel as a result of their position in the world (comfortable, directionless)

23 min later 3002790 Anonymous (13243124.png 2076x200 22kB)
>>3002769 Hope this helps. Now please, reply to my thread, and tell me is it normal to identify with Meursault, and wouldn't that actually mean that people who identify with Meursault aren't like Meursault because Meursault wouldn't and can't identify with anyone, because that's just not him and all that stuff.

27 min later 3002801 Anonymous
>>3002772 Thank you for putting my thoughts into words. I don't think it's limited to white males on the internet.

32 min later 3002819 Anonymous (1345590188396.jpg 492x461 35kB)
>implying Nausea isn't a million times better than The Stranger >Lord Almighty give me strength

45 min later 3002854 Anonymous
>>3002819 But dude... Sartre is so boring.

1 hours later 3002913 Anonymous (bean-pic5.jpg 300x200 8kB)
>>3002854 More boring than The Stranger? Mr. Bean doesn't think so.

1 hours later 3002919 Anonymous (Ben Lerner.jpg 264x387 41kB)
>>3002913 >taking Mr. Bean's opinion on literature as valid

1 hours later 3002927 Anonymous (Blackadder460.jpg 460x276 28kB)
>>3002919 He may look like Mr. Bean, but it's a disguise. That is really Lord Edmund Blackadder.

1 hours later 3002932 Anonymous
>>3002927 DRAT!

1 hours later 3002949 Anonymous
>>3002720 I think if there was a real life Mersault he would be a lot less self-aware, to the point where he could have no revelation at the end of the book. You can't consciously say to yourself "I'm going to be detached" and you can't realize to yourself "I'm detached" because to do so would be to enter into the perspective of those who are not estranged.

1 hours later 3003009 Anonymous (Sartreee.jpg 390x560 78kB)
>>3002854 Nuh uh

1 hours later 3003027 Anonymous
They don't "identify" with Mersault in regards to his absurdism; just probably they think, "He doesn't care; I don't care -- thus, I am like him."

4 hours later 3003476 Anonymous (1348436802416.jpg 680x497 76kB)
>>3002819 >implying The Age of Reason and by proxy The Roads to Freedom Trilogy isn't a vastly superior piece of literature than Nausea

4 hours later 3003509 Anonymous
>>3002790 just >testing this

6 hours later 3003754 Anonymous
>>3003476 Are the second and third books any better than the first? The only things i remember from The Age of Reason is a dude cutting his own hand, abortion, and some gay dude wandering around.

6 hours later 3003772 Anonymous (joli-paul sartre.jpg 376x492 120kB)
>>3002854 You just say that because Sartre is ugly.

6 hours later 3003780 Anonymous
I thought it was decent. I think that people over rate it because it's not aloof.

6 hours later 3003790 Anonymous
>>3002749 Because it's a brilliant classic that you can read in an afternoon. Also existentialism.

6 hours later 3003793 Anonymous
The only reason I like this book is its connections to existentialism, and how it's a big slap to the face for those who find no reason to live.

6 hours later 3003796 Anonymous
>>3003772 did you photoshop his chin?

7 hours later 3003940 Anonymous
most of the stuff's been said already, but I think it's mostly just op being angry with himself and bitchin about how everyone's phony. that'd make sense since 90% of what we can find on /lit/ is actually just that.

7 hours later 3003947 Anonymous
Seems like you're just searching for a reason to hate this guy.

7 hours later 3003957 Anonymous
I loved The Stranger, but never finished Nausea. I'm also a huge faggot, so don't take my experience for anything, but I found The Stranger more engaging for sure.

8 hours later 3004023 Anonymous
because I am not going to make another The Stranger post and you are all here, what do you think about it being partly the basis for the queen song Bohemian Rhapsody?

22 hours later 3005217 Anonymous
>>3003790 EXISTENTIALISM IS MY LIFE

23 hours later 3005387 Anonymous
>>3003027 but irony is that they do care.

24 hours later 3005453 Anonymous
>>3002720 I'm sorry, what? Are you trying to make a point? Please elaborate? This so called edgy hipster is probably a cute little baby having his first brush with existentialism, which this book happens to be an excellent introduction to, and is a little bit excited. I would argue that you can very well identify with Mersault on an existential level in many ways. He embodies the "pointlessness" of existence in his attitude, and demonstrates that life is simply a "grand directionless experiment" through his actions. What's not to identify with?

24 hours later 3005468 satan
>>3005217 kell yorsalf

24 hours later 3005485 Anonymous
>But isn't it like that if you can >identify with Meursault then you're nothing like Meursault? wat?

24 hours later 3005529 Anonymous
>>3005485 I think he's trying to say that identifying with Mersault is a contradiction in itself due to Mersault's detached nature. Mersault himself can not identify with anyone, so how can a reader truly identify with Mersault. IT IS A DIRECT CONTRADICTION!?!?!~ mindblown

24 hours later 3005545 Anonymous
Man, I read this book recently and I knew I missed something, or that it was 2deep4me. It just seemed like an unlikeable asshole who shoots an arab and rightfully gets punished for it. God, I wish I could understand. :(

24 hours later 3005557 Anonymous
>>3005545 Gotta check out the background of the writer my brotherman! Would have revealed much. First line about Camus on Wikipedia talks about his "absurdist" philosophy. Has your opinion on it changed as a result of this thread?

25 hours later 3005570 Anonymous
>>3005557 It's starting to dawn to me that the book probably is much deeper than I originally thought it to be. I'll read up a little bit more about it and give the book another shot. It's not very long after all. Maybe I'll be guilty of creating another of these pesky The Stranger threads...

25 hours later 3005616 Anonymous
>>3005545 Well, It's a nihilist, absurdist novel, so that's kind of what it is about. But It's also about how everything is ridiculous and pointless

26 hours later 3005862 Anonymous
>>3005616 By the way what's the point of living if everything is ridiculous and pointless? Didn't Camus propose a suicide as the only option to escape absurdism in The Myth of Sisyphus? I forgot, I read it a long time ago.

26 hours later 3005863 Anonymous
>>3005862 Suicide or Religion

47 hours later 3007852 Anonymous
>>3005863 >>3005862 Sorry, Camus rejects suicide. Read more. He advocates for us to pointlessly rebel against the Absurd.

47 hours later 3007870 Anonymous
>>3002720 I disagree with your assertion OP, I don't see any such contradiction, but then again I interpret Mersault different to everyone else on /lit/.

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