Continuing on my February shorter novels I came across Albert Camu's The Outsider. I read the Everyman's Library copy and enjoyed turning the quality bound pages of what I suppose is quality German paper, as Everyman's are printed and bound there.
The story of Meursault doesn't initially touch me, I find him indeed to be like everyman, a "man of the world" as Celeste describes him later in the courtroom. Celeste, his friend, means well in saying so, he means that Meursault, our guy, is just a Joe, just a regular dude with no depth, no ill intentions. But halfway through the book my love for him awakens, I understand him there's a huge soft spot in his character. There is depth to him. He is not a sociopath, he is not autistic he is a man with a particular and beautiful inner world and indeed he means no harm. The killing was perhaps not solely caused by the sun shining mercilessly in his eyes, but he was only half self aware in committing the crime.
The first one who brings the crucifix into the picture is the judge who rages and waves the religious paraphernalia in Meursault's face in the court room shouting "Repent, repent!" The judge sets the tone for later hearings, and the prosecutor delights in bringing up Meursault's faults, especially that he didn't cry for his dead mother. In fact the prosecutor is dressed in a red costume reminding of a devil suit for Halloween and the whole crowd including the judge goes with him.
Perhaps Meursault didn't cry at his mothers funeral (prior to the murder of the Arab) because maybe the mom was wicked, accounting also for Meursault's particular emotional life. But later as he tells his story I come to know that he did love his mother and he didn't particularly have anything against her and furthermore that he was capable of love. He loved Marie, he loved his friend Celeste who tried to stand up for him. And perhaps one of the most truly Christian characters of the story is Celeste who often fed him and then at the court defended him in his testimony. One Orthodox monk once said that maintaining to always think the best of people is love. The jury and the court were merciless.
While in his cell awaiting the final judgement a priest (I suppose a catholic one) tries to see Meursault and is refused by him, eventually he comes forcefully to his cell anyway and tries to force a confession out of him. All this while, just like the reader, God had seen and heard and felt Meursault's life more than I could as his pulse palpated on the pages, he was human, gentle, intellectual and valuable as he was. The priest becomes then desperate and ushers Meursault to see the face of God in the stones of the wall. And the reader wonders if the priest has read his Bible at all 1 Cor. 13:12 "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known." We do not know God, nor have we seen His face in the wall of prisons. Pressurizing a doomed man into doing so, is to me, quite cruel.
The priest, the judge, the prosecutor, the jury, the condemning outside world, all believe that they see and they urge Meursault to see "reality" as they, yet seeing in unison is a myth because in actuality the story is dealing with conformity yet the fault with our guy is that he will not dance to their tune, and maybe if he had, he would have been pardoned. In a world that exclusively is becoming only one dimensional allowing no opposing views I believe that I understand why The Outsider has 200 000 new readers every year. Calling people tin foil hat's or witches, what is the difference, the majority rule has always been conformity, it is the sin of humankind, as exemplified by the story of Joseph and his brothers in the book of Genesis.
Unlike many I don't think that the point of this story is that "nothing matters" quite contrary "everyone matters" it breaks my heart that Meursault was so lonely that he got so little compassion in a world that should have been filled with people who love like Christ. Meursault fed on the crumbs off the table and the story doesn't tell if he came to know God as He is, and to see Him face to face. After all, the existence of God doesn't depend on weather or not Meursault believed in His existence at all. This is the whole point of the story, do we allow the existence of Another if it would annihilate our own reserved right to be right.
There are many real life Meursault's out there who feel that they would rather go to hell than to experience the kind of God that so called "Christians" describe, therein lies a huge misunderstanding, because God IS love, and those who fail to commit this message to their neighbor and next of kin should first turn inward and examine themselves. Christ Jesus said "Judge not" because by the measure we use to judge others we ourselves too will be judged.
Now naturally the task of a magistrate is to judge, this is the court and it's final verdict, Meursault is beheaded. To me, it's a heart wrenching story of a sensitive and good man faced with a merciless world.
Lastly I want to include some of the authors own thoughts on the text (from the afterword)
"A long time ago, I summed up The Outsider in a sentence which I realize is extremely paradoxical: 'In our society any man who doesn't cry at his mother's funeral is liable to be condemned to death' I simply mean that the hero of the book is condemned because he doesn't play the game. In this sense, he is an outsider to the society in which he lives, wandering on the fringe, on the outskirts of life, solitary and sensual." Camus then describes that Meursault is not a reject his fault is that he simply refuses to lie. To lie is, according to Camus; to say more than the heart feels and that people do this quite habitually and daily. The author includes that Meursault had in some sense a passion to die for truth and in so doing "I tried to make my character represent the only Christ that we deserve" I suppose he means, a man of truth. But Christ was not only a man, He is also God, and so there has never been and can never be another Christ but the Jesus from Nazareth.
Despite the fact that Camus was from Algeria and wrote with his French audience in mind, I think this last remark concerning Meursault being instead of Christ deserves a bit of a comeback, see, I don't think Camus was very different from any other navel gazing European writer of his time, why! We can't gaze much further than deeper into our own navels can we? I do not know how he remained to the end of his life, but when he wrote The Outsider he was a young man, and did he maintain atheism, this I don't know, but I am quite certain that the aversion against Christianity that he displays in the novel has nothing to do with the real Christianity as in the Orthodox Church, but everything to do with peoples pettiness and judgmental attitudes and the motivations of old conquistadors. There has always been men (and perhaps a few women) who are ready to kill for a God who said "Thou shalt not kill" and these have primarily been dwellers in the western culture of Europe, not so much the ancient East. Camus is a product of his culture, and naturally if he didn't have any personal agenda to push into knowing more about God, he would have stopped right there and believed that these know it all's, the western hypocrites are what defines Christ.
We actually know nothing except the plain truth of what the Bible tells us in that we cannot really know God nor the Son. The shroud of mystery remains and one day we will see face to face, and I guess many of the fiery servants who condemn people with waving a crucifix in their hand might be mightily surprised, that God after all, had care for even the sparrows who don't sow or reap, as well as for the birdlike man who makes his way across the sky in his own way.
Now in my own defense here, as I've condemned a greater part of the western Christian world since the great Schism of 1054 I will say that I want to read Les Misérables (in March) and The Hunchback of Notre dame (later) I'm not insensitive to the fact that there have been millions of Christlike believers in the catholic and protestant world and continues to be, I am in no way above that. What I try to criticize is establishments such that say they have figured out things, which God clearly states (in His word) are above man.
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