In the bonkers universe of Kurt Vonnegut, one of the chief characters, Kilgore Trout, has “come unstuck in time”. He glides emotionlessly through the universe while coming up with poetry which is the equivalent of random “modern art” brushstrokes on canvas. The protagonist of The Stranger, Monsieur Meursault, is the literary ancestor of Kilgore Trout. Meursault has come unstuck from society itself. To the extent that he does not mourn the death of his mother. It seems he is incapable of all emotion. There are no bonds that tie him to the world around him. He is the pure version: alienated, alone, feelingless, apathetic, and without any ambition in life.

Albert Camus’s The Stranger is an examination of a life without any meaning, attachments or feeling. It is a very short book that is divided into two parts, told from the point of view of Monsieur Meursault. In the first part, we see him live his daily life and attitude towards society. He has a girlfriend and a job with “growth prospects”. He is disconnected with everything around him and does not have a care in life. In the second part we see him stand trial for murder and his life in jail while awaiting execution by guillotine.

The book opens with the famous line: “Mother died today.” It is an absolute burden for Meursault to go to the home for the elderly where his mother has breathed her last. He does not see her face, does not stay for the burial and cannot wait to reach back to his room. Here is an appalling man who does not feel sad even at the death of his mother. The only thing that he seems to enjoy is working hard at his job, but in that too there is no particular affection for his work or any joy that he gets out of it. He just goes to the office and works hard. Perhaps the daily drill masks the emptiness inside him which makes him devote himself wholly to it. For Meursault, there is no good or bad, no right or wrong. Nothing is dear to him. Devoid of any such compass in life, he is driven purely by his urges and never by consequences. When he wishes to have a good time, he goes to the beach. He is cold towards his girlfriend and when she repeatedly asks him if he loves her, he says it does not matter. When he feels like it, he kisses her. When it is hot and the sun is blazing in the sky, he heads straight in the direction of his enemy and shoots him dead.

Meursault refuses to play by rules of the society. He refuses to accept religion, he refuses to say anything that would ostensibly support his case in court. He does not feign repentance even when it could have helped his case. He is true to his innermost beliefs that nothing much matters as to what goes on in his life. Yet when he is on the death row, he worries. He is eaten from within by his constant thoughts on his impending death and the horror of walking up to the guillotine.

One can read the book and put it down, or one can keep on wondering why Meursault is the way he is. If you throw a person into the jungle, he is forced to band together with those around him and create a code for everyone to live by. Surely a Meursault can’t be born in such circumstances. But ours is a world of laws, rules and procedures. There are institutions that help preserve and promote traits of isolation, individuation, and suppression of the inner humanity. If this book were written today, we could have dubbed Meursault as the extreme outcome of corporatisation of the human mind. However, it was published in 1942, and perhaps the critics at the time blamed Meursault being Meursault on the war and the misery that ensues from it. It would be fair to say that Meursault is the product of a more abstract version of capitalism and its ill-effects.

While Kilgore Trout is indifferent to the world around him, he is so by choice. He fully understands the strange rituals of society and chooses not to delve into that. On the other hand, Meursault can’t help but be indifferent. He lacks the power to reflect on the world around him. There is nothing heroic or admirable about him. He is not evil, but one would not want people to become like him. He is animal hardware with a bare minimum operating system.

Overall, this book can be read easily and quickly. The prose is cold, unemotional. It unfolds as a trial. On one hand is a man who cannot feel except through his primal urges. On the other, or rather in the seat of the judge, sits Society which wants each and every person to feel and play all that is sanctioned by it. It doesn’t care who was killed, it matters more why the man who killed him can’t repent, can’t explain why he killed him, and can’t accept God. You could say that Meursault is “bad”. But it is only because he does not follow the sanctioned pathways built by society. He chooses to thrive outside of them.