In 1960, Albert Camus accepted a ride from his friend Michel Gallimard. Gallimard was driving while Camus was in the passenger seat. Gallimard's wife and daughter were in the back. Ironically, Albert Camus had a train ticket in his pocket but that day he chose the car instead.

When the car hit the tree near Villeblevin, Camus was killed instantly. Michel Gallimard was thrown from the wreck and was gravely injured. He died five days later. Gallimard's wife and daughter survived.

The man who wrote about the absurdity of existence died beside his friend. In the car he didn't have to take while Gallimard who was driving him lived just long enough to leave the scene then followed him into death.

Sometimes the universe writes the ending with brutal precision..

Would love your thoughts on this video

I’ve been sitting with the connection between Heidegger’s concept of anxiety (Angst) and Camus’s description of the Absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus, specifically how anxiety acts as the exact moment the "stage sets collapse."

First, the mechanical loop outlined by routine - "Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm..." - that keeps us on autopilot.

Next, Fear v. Anxiety, where Heidegger distinguishes fear, which has a specific object, from anxiety, which has no object. The sudden, dizzying realization that our familiar world has lost its pre-packaged meaning, revealing the raw reality of finite time and ultimate isolation.

Finally, the awakening, where Camus uses this exact Heideggerian anxiety as the catalyst for the Absurd—the moment the mind stops the loop and asks: "Why?"

Where they diverge is that Heidegger looks for deeper metaphysical ontology, whereas Camus rejects that as "philosophical suicide," choosing instead to stay with the friction—defiance, freedom, and passion without illusion.

I'd love to hear how fellow Camus readers think about this! How did that initial shift from "routine" to "existential anxiety" hit you? Do you find that staying with the Absurd feels like a weight, or does the defiance of Sisyphus actually offer a strange, sovereign sense of liberation?

​

I read The Stranger as a teenager and came away thinking okayyyy… that was certainly a book

I understood what Camus was doing on paper, but emotionally? Nothing. I didn’t particularly like the book and I definitely didn’t understand why people seemed so affected by it.

Years later, I picked it up again because it kept showing up on my feed.

And weirdly enough, for most of the reread, I felt exactly the same.

Meursault was still Meursault. Still detached. Still observing everything with that almost unsettling lack of reaction.

Then I reached the final chapter.

And suddenly I was sitting there like wait. What the hell.

I kept underlining sentence after sentence:

“One always has exaggerated ideas about what one doesn't know.”

“I have never liked being taken by surprise…”

"There is no idea to which one doesn't get acclimatized over time.”

“I always began by assuming the worst.”

“Though I might not be so sure about what interested me, I was absolutely sure about what didn't interest me.”

None of these lines felt particularly profound when I was younger. Now they felt way too familiar.

I think the book changed less than I did.

As a teenager, I saw Meursault as someone who simply didn’t care.

All these hit very different when you've lived long enough to recognise those tendencies in yourself.

Not the dramatic kind of darkness either. More like the quiet, mundane kind knowing what you don't care about, expecting the worst because it feels safer, getting accustomed to things you once thought you couldn't live with.

And maybe that's why the final chapter hit me so much harder this time.

I don't suddenly think Meursault is “just like me” or anything that dramatic. But there were moments where I thought, oh. I recognise that.

Which honestly made the book considerably more uncomfortable than it was the first time.

Has anyone else had a book completely change on a reread? And if you've read The Stranger more than once, did the final chapter hit differently for you as you got older?

Wanna start reading this masterpiece 🔥.

Confusion ,

1 .is there any translation problem with different translation editions of The stranger ?

2.Which translator should I rely on ?

3.anything important which I need to focus on while reading this masterpiece?

Hoping for a great discussion

​

In The Stranger, Meursault finds a quiet truth in his mother's words. Even in the depths of misery, something remains to be thankful for. Each morning the light enters his cell and he accepts it..

This shows us that meaning is not given by the world. It is claimed, simply and without illusion, in the ordinary facts of existence..

I do not believe I am good with words so if this is long please forgive me.

I often wonder what the odds that someone else is doing the same thing. Whenever I am on a hike there it appears inevitable that another person on the same trail will appear. Or the odds that the same person is on the same road. In essence: there is an unfathomable amount of people.

When I'm super happy a thought always hits me; It's the same thought everytime. I think, "Right now, someone else is likely having the worst day." Even when I am at my lowest point, or when I am sad. The opposite thought occurs; I think "Right now someone is having a great time."

This does not cause envy, rather a feeling of security and a feeling I cannot describe. There is some emotion I cannot find words for. It's quite familiar to the absurdity Camus describes.

I think of a quote (translated), "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

I seem to be having trouble making a connection and I would appreciate any discussion regarding this topic.

How does Camus deal with failure (e.g., in one’s career or other areas of life)?

As humans, we have two voices. One that insists the mystery of human existence is not simply staying alive but finding something worth living for. Without that purpose even abundance feels empty.

And the other warns that the moment you turn happiness and meaning into objects of endless search, you stop living them. You will never be happy while dissecting happiness. You will never live while hunting for the meaning of life.

Two radically different answers to the same human hunger.

Was beginning to re-read The Rebel, a long time in between, and ran into something that confused me in the introduction. (You find it on bottom of page 8, going into 9.)

"In a certain way, the absurd, which claims to express man in his solitude, really makes him live in front of a mirror. And then the initial anguish runs the risk of turning to comfort. The wound that is scratched with such solicitude ends by giving pleasure."

I'm a little lost with this. How does the tension of absurdism ever result in pleasure/comfort? I may be leaving something out in the quotation but I re-read the paragraphs that come before and it did not help me personally. Anything helps, thanks.

​

Absurdism begins with the clash between our need for meaning and a silent universe that offers none. Camus rejected both despair and false consolations. Instead, he called for revolt. Clear eyed acceptance of the absurd, lived with full awareness and passion. Meaning is not foun. It is created, moment by moment, in the act of continuing. One must imagine Sisyphus happy..