Looking for The Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.62 (862 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 022624167X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2017-05-14 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Kaplan goes a step further and looks for the identity of the Arab involved in the real-life altercation that inspired the novel's pivotal scene. "To this new project, Kaplan brings equally honed skills as a historian, literary critic, and biographer. What she learns about him is fascinating, and how she writes about parallels between him and Camus is a lovely example of her own imaginative powers and stylish prose. Reading The Stranger is a bracing but somewhat bloodless experience. In an epilogue, Ms. Kaplan has hung warm flesh on its steely bones.". Ms
No reader of Camus will want to miss this brilliant exploration. Suddenly, his seemingly modest tale of alienation was being seen for what it really was: a powerful parable of the absurd, an existentialist masterpiece. It’s the rare novel that’s as at likely to be found in a teen’s backpack as in a graduate philosophy seminar. She follows Camus to France, and, making deft use of his diaries and letters, re-creates his lonely struggle with the novel in Montmartre, where he finally hit upon the unforgettable first-person voice that enabled him to break through and complete The Stranger. Even then, the book’s publication was far from certain. In the process, she reveals Camus’s achievement to have been even more impressive—and more unlikely—than even his most devoted readers knew. The murder trials he attended, Kaplan shows, would be a major influence on the development and themes of The Stranger. France was straining under German occupation, Camus’s closest mentor was unsure of the book’s merit, and Camus himself was su
Cultural and personal influences that contributed to THE STRANGER Ethan Cooper In her prologue, Yale professor Alice Kaplan identifies her purpose in writing LOOKING FOR THE STRANGER: “By concentrating on themes and theories… critics have taken the very existence of 'The Stranger' for granted. Biographies have… touched on Camus’s situation while wri