The Outsider - Albert Camus

THE OUTSIDER - ALBERT CAMUS

Camus goes for the jugular in what is probably his most famous book, The Outsider, and as everyone knows (or should?) it's all about a man who kills an Arab on a beach though of course we're talking Albert Camus here so it's not just as simple as that.

The man, by the name of Meursault, is put on trial for the murder but it soon becomes clear that he's being judged not so much for the crime he's committed but more for his attitude toward life and the meaning of it. As the prosecutor puts it, Meursault is without a soul, nor 'access to any humanity nor to any of the moral principles which protect the human heart'. Indeed, he's accused of having a heart so empty 'that it forms a chasm which threatens to engulf society'.

There's no denying that Meursault committed the murder but when trying to explain the reason for the killing, all he can say is that it was 'because of the sun'. By this, Camus is putting forward just another way of describing the state of being when everything in one precise moment is absolutely clear to the beholder. The same state of being that Sartre described as 'nausea', that William Burroughs described as 'naked lunch', and that William Blake described as 'illumination'.

Meursault is fully aware of the absurdity of life and of the human condition though there's nothing at all studied about his vision. Rather, it is as natural to him as day and night. He simply accepts it as the way things are and lives his life accordingly. Meursault's neither a rebel nor a social misfit, that is until following the murder he comes up against the mechanism of the law and comes to realise that in actual fact he's at complete odds with the 'natural order' and the games, lies and dictates that govern most other people's lives.

Ever since it was first published in 1942, The Outsider has been pored over by critics, academics, philosophers and intellectuals so who am I to add anything to the study of it? All that I can see in the book has been seen a thousand times already and debated, discussed and dissected accordingly.

I'll say one thing, however: Camus uses an extreme example - as in the committing of a murder - to illustrate his ideas regarding the condition of man. Others have used other examples and in a joining of the dots we arrive at George Orwell who once wrote 'If you want a vision of the future, then imagine a boot stomping on a human face - forever'.

The important thing here being the acceptance of the boot on the face. The acquiescence. The being content with that vision, particularly if the boot is a soft, velvety one rather than steel toe-capped. Whether ruled by an iron fist or a velvet glove, it still means being ruled.

Then with a further joining of the dots we arrive at Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who is worth quoting in full: 

'To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue.

To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished.

It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured.

That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality'.

The common threads running between and linking the words of Camus, Orwell and Proudhon should be obvious. These are universal themes being ruminated over and it's one of the things that makes The Outsider such a powerful and thought-provoking book. And I say that with the caveat that even though The Outsider might be Camus' most famous book, I'd argue that it's not even his best.

John Serpico