"Whichever I choose, It amounts to the same, Absolutely nothing." -The Cure

The Cure’s anthem to ennui, “Killing an Arab” had never made much sense to me as a kid. I remember hearing it as a kid in southern New Mexico and shrugging, the irony passing me by in a blaze at my utter indifference to the song. A very well read friend of mine told me as we set the earphones down on the tile floor that one day it would be one of my favorite songs.

That moment slipped into the file-box of my memories of high school, along with jumping on a trampoline at the Moen’s, watching a kid get beat up in a stair well and hanging balloons for the senior prom.

In 2004 I was at a Hastings in Santa Fe. Lovely Wife and I were doing some record shopping. She had expressed an interest in picking up a Cure album or two and I thought that was a good idea but didn’t have much of an opinion on the whole thing. Again the irony express to told-you-so-ville went blazing past me and I either missed it, or didn’t care that it was there.

One thing that jumped out at me with her selection was the sticker on the front of the CD. I can’t remember the exact wording but it was a public service announcement, of sorts. It said, in effect, that “Killing an Arab” doesn’t condone or recommend violence towards Arabs.

I thought it was funny because the song was about a guy standing on a beach having just killed an Arab.

At the same time in my life I had my first experience reading Albert Camus. It was his essay titled, “The Myth of Sisyphus” and I don’t remember a lot about it except that in college I am pretty sure I got a girl to sleep with because I was able to quote, or fake a quote from it.

Fast-forward fifteen years and I was at Borders browsing books. They had this display out called books you love to read. Among them were a host of the usual suspects of classics: Treasure Island, Last of the Mohicans, Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Bird by Bird (which I picked up) and The Stranger.

This time, for some reason I am unable to explain, I heard the Cure in my head, “I am the stranger.” And with that one refrain I bought my ticket and boarded the irony express.

A couple of days ago I posted a list of books started and not finished and put up there a couple that I was listing as “contenders for a strong finish.” HA! The Stranger came from nowhere rounded the turn and overtook every single one of them on the last straight away. The fact that the whole book weighs in at a little over ninety pages didn’t hurt.

I started reading it at work, and had to set it down because I became too engrossed by it. So I picked it up again for lunch a couple of times and then finished it on—of all places—a train to Portland, Maine.

The story is pretty basic and divided into two parts. The first part is filled with the story of a man who is neither discontented nor particularly motivated. He starts the book attending the funeral of his mother, and then returns home. He helps a friend with a girlfriend problem, drinks a lot then agrees to accompany his friend to the beach for a day of relaxing in the sun. While he is there something happens, he kills a man, and that sets up the second half, which is basically the trial and appeal process.

The thing about the book is that this is a book whose story is more of vehicle to transmit the theme and tone. The first part takes maybe a week or a week and a half, the second part is stretched out over a year. But you wouldn’t know it, because the guy is boring. And that is what the book is about. Whether it is a sardonic self-appraisal of French ennui or whether it seeks to justify it is up for the debate of men and women much smarter than me.

I have to mention the translation specifically now. This version was translated by Mathew Ward and I highly recommend it. In the translator’s notes Ward mentions the impact writers like Hemingway and Dos Passos had on Camus and his translation reflects that in the text. The almost monotonous cadence of the story really accentuates the narrator’s lack of emotion. This device is carried through every aspect of his personality. Everything bears the same weight for him: love, food, friends, fighting, and death are all inevitables that will come in time and so to assign significance to one or the other devalues the importance of the others, or so it seems.

This is by no means a light read. Fast, yes. Light, no. I am already looking forward to a reread to see what I missed the first time.