Meursault, Sisyphus, Sartre, & Septimus: tender existentialism examined (rly long post)

((This blog post is pretty long, but goes much faster if you read it out loud, and sounds  a lot better out loud, too. good luck have fun do well))

so, we've been talking about Meursault's passivity a lot within our two or three days of discussion. I mentioned in class how I couldn't really tell if there was something deeper, and we repeatedly came back to the idea of how Meursault reminded everyone of a child; impressionable, passive, not lost necessarily, but more so allowing things to pass around him. I agree with this train of thought, but the way he writes really reminded me more of the classic "lost teenager" trope. I mentioned a photo series in class today, and here's one of the pics from it:

Here's a link to the i-D article about it

It perpetuates this idea of passivity, calm reaction to the world but no real strong emotions, all that. I'm still kind of drawn to Meursault as a character, because he feels sort of apathetic in an intentional, almost experimental way. He chooses to behave the way he does in reaction to the world around him; there's the part where he says he used to have ambition, and then once he had to leave school he decided nothing mattered. Firstly, this excerpt feels SO classically teenager, like "I used to be a kid, then I realized nothing mattered and GAVE UP"

Meursault is apathetic, but, as within the trope of teenage angst and apathy, his apathy seems to come with a hint of consciousness. He's aware of what he's doing.

His sort of "emptiness," if you will, also reminded me a lot of Yoko Ono's cleaning pieces:

 

I guess they seemed similar because of the whole "no judgement" part. Yoko Ono is famous for her conceptual art, which perpetuates these ideas of the impermanence of life, the lack of importance of the moment, kind of futility but in a conscious and sweet way
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I wrote that part above a couple days into our discussion, when we were at part 1 chapter 3 or 4. I think it creates a really interesting conversation now that we know that Meursault is going to die, he's accepted universal passivity, etc.




I guess the point I want to make with this blog post is kind of hard to communicate, cause for the last 20 minutes I've been writing a sentence and erasing, writing and erasing. Essentially, I think Meursault, in the final chapter and the moments leading up to the end of the book, becomes a really honest, emotional person; even more so than in the rest of the novel. Now, you might be like, "but he didn't FEEL any emotions in the rest of the book!!" but I really have to disagree. There's this recurring line of thought in Meursault's head like, "who am I to judge? What can I say about your thoughts and actions?" and I think as readers we tend to agree with that, then judge Meursault. I believe he had every right to not cry at his mother's funeral. Who are we to say he should be mourning in one certain way? Who are we to say he has to feel despair, has to react in one way, understand her death within one line of thought? Her life was lived, and within it there were moments of joy and moments of despair. Like Meursault mentioned in the last chapter, and I'm quoting from page 122 here, "[s]o close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her." We get so upset over Meursault's lack of tears because at funerals people are supposed to cry, it's an outward display of sadness. But who are we to judge Meursault for not crying, when he doesn't feel grief? Maman lived, Maman died. So is life!

 Early in the novel, I had trouble telling if there really was a deeper emotion within Meursault beside apathy; at the end I can say I do believe there is. Meursault lives life on a very bodily level, does things that will make him happy, feels emotions in a genuine way. We can see throughout the book his justification of his own feelings, and they all make sense to him. So who are we to critique the way that someone experiences the world? It is their conscience, after all.

Obviously, this book is a philosophical vessel. The impulsive murder of another person is pretty hard to justify within the real world, but in a universe where we approach things in a dream-like, Woolf-ish way of "our bodies will fall down dead and become covered in blossoms and moss soon enough," it seems almost,,, acceptable?? Obviously I would never just shoot someone, but I think if we're to throw away personal and social morals for a moment and objectively look at the novel, the Arab man's murder falls into place in relationship to the rest of the happenings well. It provides the later context of Meursault v. society and the court, and gives Camus eventual place to talk about his philosophical ideas. At times, I think our classroom discussions got a little hung up on what WE consider morally right, and how WE think about the world. This book, as I see it, was not written with modern societal norms as the definition of right and wrong, but rather written in a way to bring them in to question, but also keep them on the sideline; make them seem relevant only when directly addressed.

The Stranger really reminded me of The Book of Monelle by Marcel Schwob. My copy is currently being lent out to someone, so I can't include any passages. However, I know Schwob was an early surrealist, and the book was written for this prostitute he fell in love with, and is all about love, heartbreak, the death and creation of the moment, and the ultimate passing of the world around us. One major concept in it is that people come and go, and the relationship between a pair of people and their love, their love being this separate entity that ebbs and flows around them. The novel approaches the universe in a fairy tale way, and teaches the lesson of "you can't change the inevitability of death, so make those moments you have now tender and real." It's another really cool philosophical book and i highly suggest it if you liked The Stranger.

I would also say that, at its core, The Stranger is a really "life affirming" novel, as Mr. Mitchell put it. Meursault reminds me of Septimus in a couple ways, and if not Septimus, he reminds me more broadly of the way Woolf approaches characters. A primary point in Woolf's writing is the beauty of life, the preciousness of the moment, yet the futility and undeniable passing of the world around us, just like Schwob's thoughts in The Book of Monelle! I imagine Meursault's understanding of the universe as sort of similar to Woolf's in The Waves, a book all about consciousness and "what does it matter? I just want to go back home and lay in the grass where I'm happy, out in the sun." Camus seems to also love this idea of being out in the world, which is expressed through Meursault really well. Meursault loves and thinks of, primarily, physical passions, being on the beach, and sitting out in the open air. Camus also talks about this idea in his essay about Sisyphus, which has this as the final few lines:

"But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. 

He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him 

neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain,

 in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. 

One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

There is something so basic, so human and bodily, about the brilliance of, quite simply, consciousness -- of being. To feel those things as integral as physical satisfaction, standing in the sunlight, breathing in cool air, etc. is what life is all about. Sisyphus works endlessly in an ultimately meaningless limbo, yet everything around him and everything about existing brings him joy. His ability to resist, to shout angrily up at the sky, shake his fist into the darkness, is what makes it good. It's about pushing against whatever threatens that basic right of being able to step outside when you wish. Meursault thinks of running away from the guillotine, as one final "fuck you" to the French people, the force that wants to kill him for not crying at his mother's funeral. He brings a chaplain to tears because the chaplain wants Meursault to fall in to faith, when Meursault is utterly uninterested in faith -- faith will not stop the ever-encroaching end of life, faith will not bring meaning to us. Ultimately, I think Camus's main point is this: we're all going to die, and there's nothing sad about that. Life is good, the sun is hot (eh?), run like hell when people tell you to live in  a way you don't want to. Bring your own meaning to your life, or don't; it's up to you. Who am I to say anything about you choices? Breathe deeply, feel honestly, lay down in the sand and close your eyes, feel the sun on your eyelids.

There's something really tender about this idea, something human and bodily. The Stranger is often talked about in combination with Nausea by Sartre, which is funny to me because the title, which is also a recurring theme in the book, is literally a bodily feeling. Ultimately in Nausea, the main character comes to the conclusion that, though life will undeniably end in death, and this fact constantly looms, it is up to us to bring our own meaning to the table. The world -- in a physical sense, as well as in the larger concept of the universe -- hurdles endlessly forward -- we can do nothing about that, and the world does not care for us. Therefore, it is our job to create our own meaning.  This conclusion is pretty much the exact same one Meursault comes to in the final chapter of The Stranger.
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I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say in this blog post, just that we can't approach this novel with a sense of "he needs to fit our idea of moral righteousness," because who are we to judge? Meursault lives with the constant knowledge that the human conscience means nothing to the world, and it is his own job to create a sense of purpose. He chooses to do this through impulsive pleasures, and, truly, how can we blame him for that? It's a beautiful novel, in my opinion, and I love this "life affirming" take on existentialism; it feels tender, sweet, honest. IDK, just some ideas. ALSO, I know I'm leaving out a lot of plot points, but they didn't really seem suuuper relevant when talking about broader points in relation to other books and ideas. Sorry for the super long post again, LOL