On Camus, Indifference and Truth

Over the last couple of days, I finally found the time to leaf rather lazily through a copy of Albert Camus' The Outsider (1942), which has been waiting patiently on my bookshelf for the past six months or so. When I say that I "found the time" what I really mean, and what I suspect most people mean by this particular phrase, is that I finally mustered the effort required to commit myself to something outside of my everyday routine. And yet even so, The Outsider hardly battles to keep the reader's interest. Rather, it gently ebbs and flows with the same stark indifference displayed by its seemingly dispassionate protagonist. As a result, I found my thoughts occasionally drifting away from those of Meursault before casually picking up where I had left off half a page later; none the wiser to his predicament during my impromptu interval and none too concerned either. Whilst this may seem like a damning indictment of one of the twentieth century's most celebrated philosophical novels, perhaps I am giving you the wrong impression? 

Indeed, what the reader may initially interpret as Meursault's somewhat apathetic detachment from the world around him quickly gives way to a realisation of his absolute honesty in relation to all aspects of life. Therefore, although there is no doubting that Meursault's largely negligent response to his mother's death, and the calm ease with which he murders the Arab on the beach, is shocking, his lucidity with regard to his own indifference is in some way admirable. This becomes most apparent during the trial in the latter half of the novel, in which Camus masterfully subverts the role of the court by performing a literal cross-examination of his protagonist. In the face of such brutal honesty, the court's attempts to justify Meursault's actions expose the arbitrary nature of the judicial process, which relies on the very assumption that everything has a traceable path of meaning. Thus, it is with a certain sense of heroic defiance that Meursault resolutely refuses to allow himself to conceive of his own life as a narrative within the network of predetermined expectations and meanings that govern his society - even if by doing so he effectively condemns himself to death. Camus would later remark that Meursault's ordeal was not born of a lack of sensibility, rather 

he is driven by a tenacious and therefore profound passion, the passion for an absolute and for truth. 

Upon reflection, I feel that my own stuttered reading of The Outsider bares something of this ode to honesty and independence. Yes, there were occasions when I found myself decidedly indifferent to the novel, and perhaps even moments where I was wholly unaware of specific details, but in this manner The Outsider beckons you to trace your own path and find meanings for yourself. That is, if you feel that way inclined.