The Stranger

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to B and C Book Club. I'm Kristin. [00:00:03] Speaker B: And I'm Summer. [00:00:05] Speaker A: This is the podcast where we bring. [00:00:06] Speaker B: You all the comfort and gossip of a regular book club. Just between you, me, and her. [00:00:11] Speaker A: And you may be wondering what the B and the C stand for. The B stands for bridge and the. [00:00:17] Speaker B: C stands for cumulus. As in the cumulus Columbus Cloud. [00:00:22] Speaker A: Cumulonimbus Club. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Culeonimbus. [00:00:27] Speaker A: Cumulonimbus. Yeah. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Is that it? [00:00:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:31] Speaker B: And C stands for cloud. Anyway. [00:00:45] Speaker A: Anyway, moving on. How have you been lately, Summer? [00:00:49] Speaker B: I've been good. I've been good. I. Last night at 8pm, 30 minutes before it closed, my dad signed us up for our first Costco card. Oh. And I haven't been to Costco in, I want to say, like, a good six years. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been a very long time. So we went and we got signed up, and then today we actually went to Costco to go grocery shopping and we spent $500. And I the whole time was like, oh, we could get this. Oh, we could get that. And then by the end, I was like, God, I love Costco. Just. I would look at something else and I'd be like, oh, I love it here. I was on cloud nine, and I don't like grocery shopping. Grocery shopping overstimulates me. I absolutely hate it. But I was, like, having a blast at Costco. [00:01:47] Speaker A: Go. That's so funny. [00:01:48] Speaker B: What about you? How's life going over there? [00:01:50] Speaker A: It's going well. Things at school are going much better, and it's been easier this week. Not that any of the kids are listening to me, but I'm actually getting things done, so I don't really care. [00:02:03] Speaker B: That's good. [00:02:04] Speaker A: So normally we do two weeks in a row where it's my turn to do classic novels, because Animal Farm was only, well, in my book, 95 pages. But in your book, 114. And I was going for less than 150 for both of these books. We finished that in one week. And so this week we are reading the Stranger by Albert Camus, which was published. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Did you look up the pronunciation of that one? [00:02:32] Speaker A: No, I didn't. I already. I already know that. I've had this book on my shelf for about 10 years. And so when I first got it when I was in high school, I thought it was Albert Camus. And I probably said that for the first five years and then some. [00:02:46] Speaker B: I can't. [00:02:46] Speaker A: It wasn't even in regards to this book. I think I was Listening to another book podcast. And then they said his name, and then they said the name of the book. And I was like, oh, that's right, he's French. It's Camus. [00:03:00] Speaker B: Okay, that makes sense. I mean, the whole time, though, I was like, camus? Yeah. [00:03:06] Speaker A: No, Albert. This book was published May 19, 1942. So this is still in the general time frame of when Animal Farm came out, because that came out in 45. Yeah, this is slightly before that. So it's sort of reacting to the same things of, like the war and everything. Yeah, but Albert Camus was born in French Algeria in 1913. And then when he was 17, he got sick and he had to stay with his uncle. And that's when he started learning about philosophy. He was already in school and everything, which was cool because he was in a poor neighborhood, so he probably wasn't going to get a good education, but he did. And so he was studying philosophy, and then he ended up studying it in university, but he had another bout of tb. He got sick multiple times. Because he got sick, he couldn't fight in the war. And so that's why he's writing novels. A lot of these people, something is wrong with them or something happened to them or like, this is very war tangential. Everybody. Everybody does the war, obviously. [00:04:13] Speaker B: I mean, that was the major thing going on back then. [00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah. So he published his first play in 1936 and his first book in 1937, which was a nonfiction. He was. He also was wrote in the newspaper and was reporter Blake George Orwell. But I feel like he's not the same type of writer at all. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Definitely. Their writing styles were completely different. [00:04:37] Speaker A: So he moves to Paris in 1940, and it's in Paris where he finishes his first cycle of works. And in his first cycle, it's a novel, an essay, and a play. When he does his cycles, he. In his life, I think he completed three cycles. But it was in his first cycle that he wrote the Stranger. He wrote it with the Mississippi Sisyphus. And that was the essay. And then Calagula, the play, which you know who Sisyphus is, right? [00:05:03] Speaker B: No. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Where he, like, angered the gods. And so his punishment is to roll the boulder up the hill and then it's magically to roll. [00:05:11] Speaker B: That's Sisyphus, who he angered Zeus by giving humans fire. [00:05:16] Speaker A: No, that's Prometheus. [00:05:17] Speaker B: Dang it. [00:05:18] Speaker A: And he gets his liver eaten out. [00:05:21] Speaker B: Yes. He's the one on the cliff. K. Moving on. He's the one rolling the boulder up the hill. [00:05:27] Speaker A: Sisyphus. Cheated death a couple of times or he did a couple of things where, like, they were mad at him for, like, quote unquote, going back to the land of the living when he wasn't supposed to. And so he thought that he was clever than Zeus. And so then because of that, he was punished. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Can't be more clever than Zeus. [00:05:43] Speaker A: Right? [00:05:44] Speaker B: It's just a rule. [00:05:45] Speaker A: And then Coagula is a Roman emperor. [00:05:48] Speaker B: Okay. [00:05:49] Speaker A: So in this cycle, Camus posed a question on human condition, and he wanted to discuss the world as an absurd place and warn humanity of the consequences of totalitarianism. The main myth that was used in this cycle was obviously Sisyphus myth. And then the Bible motifs that he used were isolation and exile. So that was the main theme of, like, all three of his plays. But he himself is an absurdist rather than an existentialist or a nihilist when he was writing these. And so the main character of the Stranger is an absurdist as well. And so that's what his outlook is. He's not technically a sociopath. He's an absurdist. It's the way that he views the world. He won the Nobel Prize in 1957, which is 12 years after this comes out. [00:06:44] Speaker B: That's the only thing I came into this book knowing, is that he was a Nobel Prize winner in literature. And it's because literally the front of my book says the Stranger, Albert and then winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. [00:07:01] Speaker A: And I thought maybe it was for this book, but no, it happened in 57, and this book came out in 42. Maybe 12 is wrong. I can't do fast math. But he did it for something else. Or are Nobel Prize in Literatures given out for your total works? I'm not sure. [00:07:17] Speaker B: No idea. [00:07:18] Speaker A: It's a good thing to have. I just don't know what you need to qualify for that. Anyway. He died when he was only 46 in 1960. [00:07:28] Speaker B: Sad, tragic. [00:07:30] Speaker A: Tragic. Had you known anything about this book before I assigned it to you to read? [00:07:35] Speaker B: No. So, like I just said, I knew zero things about the book. I didn't know anything about the author except for when I bought the book. The COVID says it. So I read the COVID and I didn't even read the back of the book. So I went into this absolutely knowing nothing, and I wanted to kill you. For the first half of the book, I was like, kristen, what the f do you have me reading? Because I hate it. I hate it so much. [00:08:06] Speaker A: I also had similar experiences through the process of reading this book. I have read this book before. I finished it for the first time last year, December 2023. Before that, I had been trying to read it for years. I got this book recommendation when I was hanging out with you guys. Well, not you. I was hanging out with Tab at the time. And I want to say I was a freshman because this was when she was going to graduate early. Or it was in that time where she was doing all that. Yeah, right. And so I went there. We hung out with her friends. And so it was like a bunch of people. I don't even remember their names anymore, but we went to somebody's house. [00:08:47] Speaker B: Was it a ginger? [00:08:48] Speaker A: One of them was a ginger. One of them was like a preppy boy. And that, like, that was his house that we went to. [00:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah, the ginger. I mean, he was a preppy boy, too. So I. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Maybe he was a ginger. I thought he was blonde. I don't know. [00:09:02] Speaker B: His name was Alec. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. His name was Alec. Yes, yes, yes. Alec gave me this recommendation because for some reason, f. Alec. For some reason, we went to eat with them. And then from there, because everyone had multiple cars, we were driving to somewhere else to consolidate the cars or we were doing something where I somehow ended up in the car with him alone. I was in his car and he was driving me wherever we were going. And, like, I was alone with him and I had just met him, but, like, whatever, it's fine. But I'm also a year younger than them, so we're talking about what my hobbies are. He's like, ask me questions. He was a nice guy. He wasn't like. I don't think he was ever coming onto me. He was just, like, friendly. I was like, oh, obviously I read. And so then we were talking about what I read. And then he was like, oh, have you ever read the Stranger? I really think that you should this book. And like, da, da, da, da, da. And I think he, like, pulled it out from his backseat and, like, handed it to me so I could look at it. And then I ended up getting the book a little bit later, like, like a year or two later. But I was like, oh, this was recommended to me. But, like, I don't remember anything that he had told me at that point. I just remembered that it had been recommended to me. And so then I started reading it and I was like, what the fuck is this? [00:10:16] Speaker B: Funny. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Like, why had this teenager recommended this book to me? He was like, 17, and I was probably 14 or 15. [00:10:27] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:10:29] Speaker A: He was like, you know what you need to read. [00:10:32] Speaker B: That's so funny. [00:10:36] Speaker A: So anyway, I couldn't get through it. Then when I bought it, even when I finally read it in December, I had a bookmark of, like, how far I got, and I was on chapter five out of chapter six of the first section. So I literally hadn't even gotten what the main function of the story was. Was. [00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:53] Speaker A: And I. I just cannot get through this. I just can't. And so there was times where I tried to get there, and I always stopped right before the main thrux of the story happens. And so when I finally read it, I was like, oh, okay, this is a better book than. [00:11:07] Speaker B: I get it. That's so funny. [00:11:10] Speaker A: But also, fuck this book. This book kind of sucks. [00:11:12] Speaker B: I will say Alec was only one year older than you because I went to school with him, which means he was a senior when I was a freshman. Yeah, that's hilarious that you got this off of him. I. I knew him. He was a nice guy, but he definitely. 100%. 100%. When you were starting to talk about this, I was like, oh, it had to have been Alec, because he's the type who would have definitely read this shit, like, trying to talk to someone about it. [00:11:41] Speaker A: Well, I was obviously a person that was there who also read. [00:11:46] Speaker B: You were willing. [00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And was willing. I was ready and willing to have this guy just talking at me. [00:11:52] Speaker B: And he was ready to be the. The essential. I'm smarter than you, douchebag, and be like, you should read this book because it'll make you smarter than everybody else. [00:12:05] Speaker A: So anyway, I was like, you know what book we should read? [00:12:07] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Okay, so this book, it begins with. I know you wrote it down. Oh, here it is. Meer salt. [00:12:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:21] Speaker B: Okay. [00:12:22] Speaker A: I. I don't know how to actually say it. That one I. We should probably look up. But I didn't. Meursault. [00:12:28] Speaker B: Mersault, probably. Actually, that sounds very French. I never once knew the main character's name. I do know that they said it. I never wrote it down because I just was like, why do I even have to prefer to him? He obviously doesn't talk about himself. Yeah, because he's the author or he's the narrator that. [00:12:48] Speaker A: So they call her Madame Merosault. Or how are we gonna say his name? [00:12:54] Speaker B: Merosault. Okay. [00:12:58] Speaker A: They call her Madame Marisol. I thought that was a last name, but that's all I got out of that. [00:13:04] Speaker B: Well, the narrator, he begins the story by telling us that his mother has died. He only has two Days off of work for her funeral. And his boss is not happy about that. He very blandly tells us that he's gonna borrow a tie from a friend. So he goes to see the friend, and everyone's just kind of feeling sorry for him, but he doesn't really feel sorry or sad very much. He takes the bus to his mom's retirement home to see the body. First he has to meet with the director. He goes in to see the body after his meeting, and they offer to open it up so that he can see her because it had been sealed. And he says, no, it's fine. And then he just sits kind of next to the coffin thing that they had sealed, and they're like, oh, okay. And he makes a weird comment. And I wrote this down just because I had, like, no idea if it was relevant or not. The nurse had an abscess in her face, and it's in the middle of her face, so it's where her nose was. And now her nose is gone, and so there's just a giant wrap on her face. And I was like, this is a side note. No, it's not relevant. I was like, this was an interesting thing to throw in there. The caretaker of the retirement home says that he. He, like, kind of explains to him that he was supposed to be housed there, but instead he offered to be the caretaker. So he refers to the residents as them and not as him as one, even though he is one. And he's kind of, like, separated himself from the patients. All this also a side tangent. Not really relevant to the plot, but fun to know. 10 of his mom's friends come to the sigil that they're throwing for her, and they all just sit there in the crowd. One of the friends is bawling. He doesn't cry, though, and eventually they all fall asleep. He wakes up to an old man staring at him like the old man was waiting for him to wake up, and he has a nasty cough. Finally, our main character cleans up in the caretaker's room and then meets again with the director of the retirement home, who tells him that usually no one's allowed to go to the funeral procession, but they're allowed to go to the sigils. But they made an exception for his mom's friend, who's kind of like her boyfriend fiance thing. It's not official, but they refer to him as her fiance later in the book, so I'm just gonna refer to him as his mom's fiance. He ends up following behind the hearse with the Director and our main character. It's so hot that he's like sweating and coughing and he has to take shortcuts, like cross the street and wait for them to come to the other side of the street in the funeral possession so that he can keep up with them. The rest of the day is kind of like summarized and then they bury the casket. That's the first chapter. [00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah. What were your first impressions? [00:16:10] Speaker B: This is so effing bleak. Why am I reading this? I feel like I'm reading the thoughts of a sociopath. [00:16:21] Speaker A: Yeah, when I was reading this for the first time, I was trying to be open minded about what this could mean. And what I got was like, maybe. I mean, not all men like to express their emotions, even in their minds. Okay. This is a hard time for men. So I'm not gonna count him out. Too bad. But at the same time, you're like. [00:16:42] Speaker B: It'S a good story. It was recommended to me by an older guy. [00:16:50] Speaker A: There has to be something redeeming in this, right? [00:16:54] Speaker B: I can't even drink my water. [00:16:59] Speaker A: Okay, so Merceau realizes that his boss was mad because he took off Thursday and Friday. So he had like a four day weekend instead of a two day weekend. He was like, oh, man, I would probably also be mad about that. No wonder he was upset. And he is home and he goes to the beach and he sees an old co worker there. And by the way, it says that on the back of my book and probably on the back of yours. I think we have basically the same copy. But they are in French Algiers, so that's why it's so hot there. They're not in France. [00:17:33] Speaker B: Wait, what? [00:17:35] Speaker A: They're in French Algiers. [00:17:37] Speaker B: What the F is French Algiers? Not a scholar. [00:17:41] Speaker A: It's the French occupied area of Algiers. I think it's in Africa. Don't quote me on that. Hang on, I'm looking it up. North Africa. [00:17:53] Speaker B: Nice. [00:17:54] Speaker A: It's right by Marrakech. [00:17:55] Speaker B: Okay, don't come at me. I don't know. [00:17:58] Speaker A: No, no, that's fine. I was actually surprised that I got that right for not looking it up beforehand. That was pretty good. But anyway, that's why it's so hot. We're not in a more temperate climate of France. We're in French Algiers. So we're in Africa, basically, which is why. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it now. [00:18:15] Speaker A: Anyway, anyway, so he goes to the beach and he sees an old co worker, Marie, and they swim around and they float around all day and she's just admiring her body and she just Looks so good. And they're together in the water, and then he invites her to a movie, and she says yes. And then after the movie, they're talking, and then he brings up how, like, his mom was just married this past weekend. [00:18:41] Speaker B: He literally is like, yeah, I just buried my mom. And she was like, oh, when? And he said, yesterday. And he was like, okay. And then she doesn't mention it the rest of the day, and they go on as if it never even took place. That's what he said. [00:18:59] Speaker A: So weird. [00:19:00] Speaker B: I mean, distract yourself, buddy. [00:19:02] Speaker A: I get it, I get it. Then they spend the night together, but she's gone before he wakes up in the morning. Marseille just does nothing all day. And he's just smoking, looking at the water and thinking about the people and, like, just not doing anything. He's just around. Another Sunday is over. He has to go back to work tomorrow, on Monday. And he feels even though his mother has died, nothing in his life has truly changed. [00:19:28] Speaker B: Yeah, so at the end of this chapter, I was really bored with the story. I was two chapters in, and if we weren't recording this the next day, I wasn't going to pick it up again. So I was like, okay, I need something to, like, push me through this plot a little bit. So I read the back of the book. I didn't even read the entire back of the book. I read one line on the back of the book where it said that a murder happens at the beach. And I was like, okay, I'm fine. It's like, okay, something eventually is gonna happen. So, I mean, I have to get to that point. Right. Our next chapter begins with our main man. He goes back to work. His boss asks him, how old was your mom? And he seems really, like, worried and concerned. And then he says, 60. And his boss is relieved because his mom died at her old age of 60 years old. It's just rough. Like, that was the life expectancy at the time. [00:20:30] Speaker A: No, it's a different. I was gonna say it's a different time, man. It was just a different time. [00:20:33] Speaker B: It was crazy. A truck goes by when they go onto their lunch break. He goes with a co worker, Emmanuel. They hop on the back of the truck after chasing it and go to Celeste for lunch. Celeste is his friend who he borrowed the tie from, who owns a place that's called Celeste. Okay, let's just establish that now. After lunch, he goes and works all afternoon, goes home to make potatoes. He runs into his neighbor, Salamano. His neighbor looks like his dog. His dog has mange and his dog hates his owner, and the owner hates his dog, and he beats him up constantly. And we feel really bad for his dog. A random neighbor comes by, makes a comment about how the dog and the owner are, like, worse off for each other. And he's like, whatever. But he's like, hey, do you want to come over for some wine and sausage? And our main man's like, sure, I don't have to cook. They get back, and the neighbor tells him about the fight he got into on a streetcar because he called him yellow and is just mad and, like, complaining about everything. And then at the very end of his rant about all the people surrounding him, he was like, hey, are you my pal? And the main man was like, sure. And so he agreed to be his friend. This guy, and his name is Raymond. He asked our main man if this fight he got into on the streetcar was his fault. And he was like, no, no, it wasn't your fault, because that's gonna make him happy. And then our neighbor Raymond tells him about how he's been giving a thousand francs a day to this woman he was seeing for her house, and she doesn't have a job, and she's asking for more money. And he's like, what's going on? How do you need more money? And she's like, I just need more. And then finally, he finds out she's been cheating on him, so he beat her. And he says he wants advice on how to punish her. His idea is to write her a letter saying that he doesn't care anymore and he wants her back and she needs to come back. And then when she comes back, he's gonna, like, tell her that she's a horrible person and that he's better off without her and, like, beat her again. And he's like, should I do it? And then our guy's like, no, I mean, the letter's fine, but no, not really. And then Raven's like, can you write the letter for me? And he says, no, I can't. But then Raymond makes him write the letter anyway. So he ends up writing the letter to this girl, begging her to come back, and reads him the letter. And Raymond's like, great. It's great. I knew you were the man for the job, and now we're pals, and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye, buddy. Man, it's literally how the chapter went. [00:23:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is when I started to hate him because I was like, what the man? Like, what the is happening here? What are we doing? [00:23:48] Speaker B: It's Rough. It's so rough. [00:23:52] Speaker A: It's rough out here. [00:23:53] Speaker B: Like, I don't know why. This is our funniest episode, so can't stop laughing. Misrecorded. [00:24:06] Speaker A: I don't know. There's just something so silly about it. When I'm reading the plot out, when I'm reading it, it's so bleak. But when I'm. When I'm reading it, like, with my eyes, I'm like, damn, this is just. This is terrible. He's beating everybody. This person's beating his dog. This person is beating his mistress. Oh, my gosh. It's just so much. And then we come on here, and I'm like, yeah, all of that stuff did happen. [00:24:30] Speaker B: Really did. Anyway, and so I made the prediction during this chapter. I was like, I just read about murder on beach, and so I think Raymond's gonna kill his mistress on the beach. And that's my only prediction in this whole book. [00:24:49] Speaker A: I mean, that's a pretty good one. Yeah. If you just saw murder. And the. The vibes that Raymond is giving right now. [00:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah, Raymond gives horrible vibes. [00:25:00] Speaker A: So we go into chapter four, and that Saturday, Marsal and Marie go swimming again. But he's horny the whole time, and he's just looking at her body, and he just really wants to buck. And so they leave and they have sex again. And this time she stays the whole night. And then she stays until lunch the next day. He tells her about Sal. I just shortened it to Sal because it's easier. He tells her about his neighbor Sal and his abused dog, but all she does is laugh. And I'm like, all these people are just fucked up and crazy. [00:25:32] Speaker B: They really are. [00:25:33] Speaker A: And then she asks him if he loves her, and he's like, well, I don't think it means anything, but also, I don't think so. I don't think I love you. He thinks that. She seems a little upset about that. [00:25:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. [00:25:48] Speaker A: And this is what I was like. Is he a sociopath? Does he just not understand emotions? [00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I've been getting that vibe since chapter one, but, yeah, I just feel bad for her. I mean, she stays. The whole book, too. [00:26:04] Speaker A: The whole thing. Yeah. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:06] Speaker A: Weird. I'm like, what did you see in him? I can't see it from her perspective. And I'm like, I just want to know what you saw in him. [00:26:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:13] Speaker A: What were his redeeming qualities to you? Because I just don't see it. [00:26:17] Speaker B: She wants to marry him. Getting ahead of the gun here. But she wants to marry him. And he's like, okay. And she's like, but do you love me? And he's like, no, but I'll marry you. And she's like, why would you marry me if you mean. He was like, I don't know. You want him to get married? [00:26:38] Speaker A: They hear an argument from Raymond's apartment, and then all of the tenants from this building go onto the landing to see what's happening because he's beating her so loudly that they're all like, what the fuck is happening in there? But they also do nothing. They also just stand there and just listen to him beat this woman. The police finally get there, and Raymond's mistress tells them, oh, he was abusing me. He was beating me. And so then the cop slaps Raymond and orders him to go back into his apartment until they call him down to the station to, like, get his statement and everything. And, like, he needs to go over there and cool down. After everybody leaves, Marie leaves and our main character is back at his apartment. Then Raymond arrives and asks him to come down to the station with him so that he can give him a character witness to say, oh, well, she was cheating on him, so it's fine that he beat her. He's like, yeah, okay, man. And then they. They do that, and they go out that night, and when they come back, their neighbor Sal is like, hey, have you guys seen my dog? When I was out at the parade earlier, he seemed to got out, and I can't find him anywhere. Like, have you seen him? And they're like, no, haven't seen him. And then our main man, Marsal, he's like, well, I haven't seen your dog, but if you go to the pound, you might have to pay some money to get him back. And Sal's like, oh, this dog. Like, and he's just mad and cursing, and then he. They go away. But then when our main man is back in his apartment, he can hear Sal through the walls crying, which is sad, but also, don't abuse your dog. [00:28:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's literally what I said at the end of the next chapter. I still, at this point of the story, wanted to kill you for making me read this. [00:28:21] Speaker A: And this is the point of the story where I stopped the first time. [00:28:25] Speaker B: At least chapter five. So Raymond invites him to his beach house. He says no. And then Raymond invites his girlfriend too, and he's like, okay, fine. During lunch, Raymond tells him about his ex's brother and asks him to warn him if he sees him. Our main guy's boss Tells him about opening a Paris office and asks if he's interested. Our dude is like, yeah, sure. And then he's like, you don't have any ambition. And he's like, no, I mean like, sure, whatever you want doesn't really make a difference. And he's like, you don't want to live in Paris. It doesn't really make a difference to me. Then his girlfriend comes by, Marie, and she asks if he wants to marry her. And this is what I was saying earlier, I got a little ahead of the plot. But she's like, do you want to marry me? And he's like, whatever you want. And she's like, do you love me? And he says, probably not. And she's like, why marry me if you don't love me? And he says, it doesn't really matter either way if I'm being honest. And she's okay with that and moves on and just assumes they're gonna get married. At this point. I think he wants to invite her to dinner at Celeste, but she has to leave because she has something to do. And then she's kind of like leaving out the door very slowly going away. And she's like, wait a second, you don't want to know what I'm going to do. And he was like, ah, I actually do, but I forgot to ask. And she's like, whatever. And she just leaves. He goes to dinner at Celeste. A random lady sits at his table. She lists the radio programs on a note and then leaves. He follows her randomly until he loses her and then he goes home. When he gets home, his neighbor Sal says that his dog is gone and he's sad about it, but he doesn't openly say he's sad about it. He just looks really distraught. He explains that he got the dog after his wife died. But honestly, he didn't like his wife very much. She was just used to having her around. So when she died, he got the dog and now he's used to having the dog around. He got the dog as a puppy and has been feeding him. He even bottle fed the dog as a pup and has been beating him and feeding him his whole life and taking him out. So that was, that was a little fun fact about our neighbor Sal. Our main man says, sorry about your dog. And then they talk about his mom and he's like, I hope the dogs don't bark tonight because I always think it's mine. And we leave on that grim note. And that's pretty much the chapter. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Yeah, he also says something about like I don't even listen to what everybody else says about you, about being mean to your mom and putting in her home. I know that you just did it because you were scrappy. It's fine. [00:31:21] Speaker B: Yeah, so weird. Like, just made him feel so guilty. [00:31:24] Speaker A: And I also jumped the plot a little bit. But still it remains. He should have been better to his dog this whole time, especially if he bottle fed him and nurtured him. Why are you constantly beating him? [00:31:34] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. [00:31:36] Speaker A: Men in the 40s. We are at chapter six, and it's a little hard for him to wake up on Sunday. But his girlfriend Marie is eventually able to wake him up. And then they go pick up Raymond at his apartment. And then they go to the bus station so they can go to Raymond's friends. His last name is Mason. So they go to Mason's beach house. That's further down the road. They pass a group of men, and I'm so sorry, but they don't refer to him as anything else. And so I'm going to have to call him this moving forward. But Ray's mistress's brother, he only calls the Arab. And I guess the men that are with him also look similar to him. And so he calls them all Arabs. They pass them and they're staring at them the whole time. But they don't go on the bus. So our main character is happy. And so then they're at Mason's house and Marisol and Marie go swimming. And because he just saw Mason's wife, he thinks about what it must be like to get married. And maybe he would like it if this is how it would be. And then they go back and they have dinner. And then the three men go to walk down the beach after dinner. The whole time Marisol is just like, oh, my gosh, this heat. This heat is terrible. I don't feel good. We're just walking. We're just walking. This heat is terrible. And then they notice two men, and one of them is the Arab. And so quickly a fight starts. It seems like they're probably going to win. But then the mistress's brother pulls out a knife and he's able to cut Raymond's arm and his mouth before Mason and Marisol are able to get him away. They bring him back and the women are frightened. They're like, oh, my gosh, what happened? Like, what's going on? And Mason takes Raymond to the doctor. And Marisol just doesn't want to talk about anything. He just smokes and is like, whatever. And Then looks out the window, and it's just silent. Like, you. You're no help. [00:33:36] Speaker B: Drama queen. [00:33:37] Speaker A: For real. He doesn't do anything ever. Like, bro. Well, he does, but, like, at the wrong times to an outsized proportion. Later that afternoon, Raymond comes back, and he's bandaged up. And then Raymond's like, oh, I have to go back. Walking on the beach, Marisol goes after him, even though Raymond doesn't really want him to go with him. They find the two men at a spring, and they kind of just stare at each other, but he has a gun in his pocket, so he's kind of reaching for the gun, but the Marisol is like, no, don't do this. We can just walk away, but the entire time, they're staring at each other while this is happening. Then Raymond is like, okay, whatever. And so he gives Marisol the gun. And then as they're talking, they find out that the two men had already went away and they were hiding from them. And so then they're like, okay, I guess we're going to leave, too. And so they're walking back, and again, he's just so hot. It's hot. There's sweat in his eyes. He just can't think. He's so exhausted. The whole time you're in. In his head, he just complains and complains and complains. [00:34:44] Speaker B: That's true. [00:34:46] Speaker A: And then we get back to the beach house, but then when he's there, he's like, well, I don't want to go see the women. They're just gonna ask me questions. And so I don't really want to go up to see the women. So he decides that he's going to stay on the beach. Finally, he gets too hot on the beach because he was too hot walking in general. And so he's like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go back to the spring. And so he goes back to the spring. But lo and behold, the Arab is back there as well. Again, they're staring each other down, and now Marisol has his hand in his pocket for the gun. And then he, like, starts walking to the spring. And then the Arab gets his knife out, and then from the sunlight glinting off of the knife, and then just how there's, like, sun in his eyes, and he's so tired, and he's so hot, and he just can't understand what's happening. And then the gun fires, and he just pauses a little bit. And then he fires four more times into this guy's chest. And now he's dead. Yeah. [00:35:41] Speaker B: And that's how we end the first part of this book. [00:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Which, again, wasn't expecting that. I did not read the back of the book. [00:35:53] Speaker B: I was like, okay, makes sense. Connected to the mistress who I thought I was going to die. But also, why did you need to do this? None of this was needed. You're a little dramatic. [00:36:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Where did you think the rest of this book was going? Did you think it was gonna turn into a courtroom drama? [00:36:15] Speaker B: I did not think it was gonna be courtroom drama, but I definitely thought it was gonna be like, I went to jail, and then we were gonna learn that the prosecution sucks and he gets let go. [00:36:27] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:36:28] Speaker B: You know, the first guy got away with beating this woman because she cheated on him. Because, like, lawfully. That was okay, apparently. So I was like, I don't know. The law system of the 1940s in France. I don't know what's going on. I don't really understand. So, yeah, I thought there was definitely a chance for him to get away with it, because. [00:36:54] Speaker A: I mean, I feel like most stories, he would get away with it. [00:36:59] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He's the main character. I don't know. Whatever. The next part of this book starts off. He's been arrested. He is getting questioned at the police station. Then he's in prison. His lawyer is visiting him. The lawyer's asking if he's sad about his mom's passing. And the guy's like, I mean, not particularly sad, but I would rather she be alive right now. And it was just very weird answers. He cannot admit to loving his mother at any point in this book. Which again, brings me right back to the sociopath thing. He says if he says that he loved his mother, it would be a lie. So his lawyer's like, all right, whatever. And then he goes and gets interviewed by who they call, quote, unquote, the judge. By the way, I don't know how the court system works here, but basically this is the. The police interviewing him about what happened. They call him the judge. The judge is focusing on why he paused between shooting the guy the first time and shooting him the second time. Because there was a big pause between when he explained what happened. He always says that he paused. Then the judge shoves a crucifix in his face and uses it as the reason he should confess and is like, don't you believe in God? You need to confess your sins so that you can have repentance. And he was like, I don't need to do anything. This doesn't matter. And he was like, do you believe in God? And he was like, no, I don't. And then he's like, do you care if you go to hell? Or any of that? And he was like, no, I don't, because I don't believe in God. And the judge is, like, freaking out on him and basically, like, shouting religious things at him this whole time. And then eventually he stops questioning him, and this all happens, like, in a paragraph or two. He's like, so I, like, left there and I went back to prison, and I ended up visiting the judge a couple of different times. Never as intense as the first time. He always just saw me, would ask me a question or two. I always went with my lawyer. I actually kind of liked it when I saw him. It was like, a little bit of a relief. And apparently he spends 11 months in jail waiting for his trial. Woof, woof. Fun fact, the judge nicknamed him Monicieur. [00:39:40] Speaker A: Antichrist because he was like, I don't care about God. [00:39:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:46] Speaker A: And he's like, who are you? You're a devil. [00:39:48] Speaker B: Exactly. He was like. During that first rant, he was like, you're the only person who has not been begging for God to forgive him for his sins by now. You're crazy. [00:40:01] Speaker A: He's like, nothing matters. It's fine. [00:40:04] Speaker B: It really doesn't matter to me. Sorry, buddy. [00:40:07] Speaker A: My life existence is basically the same no matter where I am, which is what he learns in this chapter. So at first he was put into a cell with a bunch of people, but then eventually he's taken to a private cell and he just talks about, like, his time in prison, and he was there for 11 months. So this is kind of like a rundown of everything that happened. Marie visits him, and it's noisy and crowded in the waiting room, and there's, like, a lot of people there. And she smiles at him, but it seems a little false. And she tells him that he needs to have hope because she thinks that he'll get acquitted. And then after he gets acquitted, then they can get married. Which girl? Miss Girl you are visiting him in jail. [00:40:47] Speaker B: She's perfectly fine with marrying him still. [00:40:50] Speaker A: But Meursault is not really paying attention to her because there's somebody that's next to him, like a younger guy that's next to him that, like, is in prison with him, that's seeing his older mother. And so then he's distracted by that, but also he can't admit that he ever loved his mother. So it's like a weird thing to be distracted by. Well, this lady is telling you that he wants. She wants to marry you, but whatever, he's. He's never all there in general. [00:41:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:17] Speaker A: So then Marie leaves, and then right after this, she sends him a letter saying that she can't go back and see him because they're not married and she's not allowed, apparently. [00:41:28] Speaker B: She was like, get me out of this loveless relationship finally. [00:41:33] Speaker A: And he just feels like he really wants to swim. He wants to smoke, he wants to have sex, he wants to. He wants to do all of these things. But confinement actually isn't as terrible as it was before because he just basically sleeps the whole time. And it's very nice routine that he gets to eat. They give him food, they tell him when to go to bed, they tell him to shit, they tell him when to wash his face, they tell him everything that he needs to happen. So he just is living his life. When he isn't asleep, he thinks about a newspaper article that he found that was about a man who, like, went off when he was younger and then made a bunch of wealth. And then he came back to the town that he grew up in, and his mom and his sister now, like, had a hotel. And so then he stayed at their hotel and he was going to tell them that he was the brother son of theirs. But before he could do that, the mom and the sister ended up killing him and robbing him and taking all of his money. And then when they found out that he was actually related to them, then they committed suicide. And so that's what he thinks on his daily life, just whenever he's not sleeping. So that's fun. [00:42:42] Speaker B: He was like, in order to make conversations, I've decided that I'm okay with telling people why I'm here. Like, at first I wasn't okay with telling people, but now I am like, it's fine. And now my new conversation topic is this article I found about a mom and sister who murder their brother. This is dark. I was like, what? What are we talking about? [00:43:05] Speaker A: Who are you? Are you okay? It doesn't seem like it. I mean, this whole book is telling me that you're not okay, but really, it doesn't seem like you're good. [00:43:14] Speaker B: Really. I think you need to see someone. So sorry. Hold on. Oh, dumb. [00:43:33] Speaker A: I mean, it's just so absurd. He's right. He is an absurdist. He's right. It's like everything about it is just so absurd that you're like, really? Really? We're Doing this. I don't know if this is the book being super absurd, if this is the 40s. And I'm just like, I didn't understand it. I'm like, I. I no longer understand. [00:43:51] Speaker B: It is a wild thing to read today, that's for sure. Okay. [00:43:56] Speaker A: Anyway, this book got recommended to me by Alec. [00:44:03] Speaker B: Okay, next chapter. We're starting court. He sees the jury, notices that the courtroom is very full. And then he asked the police about it and they're like, yeah, it's because of the press. And he was like, oh, the press. And then he goes to his place, but he kind of talks to a reporter who's friends with the cop that's escorting him around. This reporter says, oh, we blew up your case a little bit because it's the only interesting going alongside a parricide. And nobody really has anything else going on. So we chose to write about it a lot, just so you know. Sorry. Yeah, I didn't know what that was until later. Just so you know, later in this book, I never even looked it up. It was like explained to me it's not Patrick's side of the book, so couldn't even put context clues together. Our prosecutor arrives and they have three judges. One is in the middle with a bunch of red on, and that's who's like the main judge, I guess. They begin and name all the witnesses and he's kind of like, oh, look, I know these people. They have the caretaker and the director from the old folks home. They have old Thomas Perez, who was his mom's fiance. They have Raymond, his neighbor, Mason, the owner of the house at the beach, and Sal, his neighbor. And then Marie and Celeste, his friend. [00:45:26] Speaker A: I looked it up. Parricide is actually correct. It is the killing of a father, mother or close relative. So it's just a relative killing rather than patricide is specifically for your father. [00:45:39] Speaker B: Interesting. They begin with their super simple questions. In the beginning of the trial, they ask why he went back to the spot armed. And he says that it just happened that way. And then they ask another question. He's like, it just happened that way. And then they were like, okay, let's take lunch. Because he was being kind of annoying. He goes all the way back to the prison to just eat lunch. And then they escort him all the way back to the courthouse. Now they call on the witnesses. They're interviewing director, the caretaker. He's like just listening to them talk about him. And he's saying it's not looking good for him because they're not saying he showed any emotion for his mother during her funeral, basically. And they ask about his mother's death a lot during this trial. Next, we call on Celeste, and he's staying by his side. He's called on by his side of it, so the defense side. And he was called as a character witness, and he's saying that he's a good guy. Yeah, he's not very emotional. He only says something when he has something to say. So he doesn't talk very much, but he's a good guy. And they kind of just cut him off, and they're like, okay, bye. So then we testify with Marie, and she explains that the day they met is actually the day after his mom's funeral. And the prosecutor really gets into that and is like, oh, so the day after his mom died, he's going on dates and hooking up with women just for fun. And, like, honestly, like, you can't judge someone on their grief. But he was sketched. Yeah, she's getting mad because it's not going her way. And the way she wanted to say things. She's saying that everything she's saying is opposite of what she wanted to, but she gets called off the stand and actually taken out because she couldn't stop talking. Then we have Mason testifying. He's saying he was an honest man and that he didn't do it on purpose. Then our neighbor Sal testifies, and he's like, yeah, he's a good guy. And then we get Raymond testifying, and he basically. Just because they're asking him very specific questions about the events that happened, he's like, oh, it just happened by chance. And they're like, oh, he got the gun. It happened by chance. He wrote the letter. That's the main one, is he wrote the letter to your mistress. And he was like, it happened by chance. And so he's kind of written off because that's all he keeps saying. And they're like, okay, so everything's gonna happen by chance to lead up to this murder. Finally, the day is over, and he goes back to prison. [00:48:20] Speaker A: And this day didn't go well for him. Not that it should go well for him, but you just. Like we said, you kind of expect it to go well for him because you expect him to get off. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I definitely expected him to get off. That was my prediction for him. But, like, he is a sociopath. [00:48:37] Speaker A: It's very hard for him to hide that. [00:48:39] Speaker B: Yeah, he does not care about any of this. [00:48:42] Speaker A: Literally, everybody is like, there's something wrong with you we are now at the next day, the prosecutor says that Mercel, his intelligence and his lack of remorse means that this murder was premeditated. And that's the case that they're trying to build here, was that everything that happened was premeditated and he wanted to kill this guy. This is their closing statements, by the way. So he calls for the death penalty because in a moral sense, Marisol is just as bad as the other guy that killed his own relative. And in fact, Marisol should actually be guilty for that crime, too, because it's his sin that paved the way for all the other sin. And so really, it's because he's such a bad person that he should go to prison and that all this was premeditated and that the world's sin should lie on his lap because he's a crazy person. [00:49:37] Speaker B: Wild. [00:49:38] Speaker A: Wild. [00:49:39] Speaker B: Just pure wild. I read this, and I was like, what are you going. And embarrassed. That's crazy. That's a slippery slope if I've ever seen one. [00:49:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:51] Speaker B: They were like, actually, the parasite that we're going to put in trial tomorrow is his fault as well. And if you don't think he's guilty, then the person who murdered their own kin is not guilty. [00:50:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, wild. Just wild. [00:50:08] Speaker B: A wild argument guy was like, so that's not normal. Our narrator was like, so apparently I'm. I'm guilty of that. I'm equivalent to the man who killed his own father because he was being abused constantly. But, okay, yeah. [00:50:31] Speaker A: So he obviously denies that that's the reason for it, and he denies that going back to the beach was with the intention of killing this guy. But when he's asked, his reasoning then, like, okay, so then why'd you do it? Why'd you go back? Why'd you pull the trigger? Why'd you pull it again? And he's like, well, it was the sun, and that's about it. [00:50:54] Speaker B: He said that? And I was like, so this is why serial killers get these weird prenatal. They'll be like, actually, I kill them because the voices told me to. We're the voices. [00:51:09] Speaker A: That's even worse. Like, the son told me to. You can't get away from the son. The son is always going to be there. So then Marisol's lawyer says that he was a good son. This is his closing argument. And he put his mother in a home because they provided better for her there, and her son couldn't provide for her and give her the care that she actually needed. So putting in her home was actually better for her. That all of this is crazy, that you would say that he also has to do the other murder in a moral sense. And then he just kind of starts speaking as if he's Moreau and starts speaking in the first person. And because he's doing this and it's just so far removed from anything that he ever thought during the day. Moreau is just disassociating. He's kind of just looking and la de da ing about and not really listening to what his lawyer is really having to say. Then he's found guilty of premeditated murder, and he is sentenced to death by guillotine. I didn't know they still had guillotine deaths in the 40s, but, okay, I. [00:52:13] Speaker B: Didn'T see it coming. So next, our main man, Maricel, is brought to a different cell than his original one. And the reason is that he's now on death row, I would assume. So he doesn't get the same cell. He's kind of separating reality and questioning everything that's around him. He says, men who change their underwear have decided my fate. And he's talking about this vague notion that he calls, quote, unquote, French, and then in parentheses, or German or Chinese, people that had handed him this sentencing. He's going off the rails a little bit. He doesn't agree with the guillotine because he thinks that it would be more humane if he was given something that will kill him nine times out of ten just to give him that one out of ten chance that he will get to live. He's spiraling. He's trying to remember what a guillotine looks like. He's talking about how he's seen a picture of one before, and he would have assumed that you would have to climb a fixture to get rested on a guillotine to meet the blade. But actually, I think he said it was, like, propped up so that all he had to do was put his head down at level, like he was walking up to talk to a person. And that made it really weird for him because he wouldn't have assumed it was like that. And then he briefly talks about how he did go through an appeal, but it was denied. That in his final days, a priest comes and visit him, and he keeps shooing him away, saying he doesn't want to talk. And then finally the priest visits him at a different time of the day, like during lunch or something, so he's forced to talk to him. He says, do you believe in God? And he says he still doesn't. Believe in God. The priest says, you know, out of everyone who's ever been in the death penalty, you're the only one who's not begging for God at this point, which is kind of, like, ominous. Okay. The priest is pushing him hard to get him to repent and see that there is a God and he has things to ask for forgiveness for before he dies. And then our main man, like, snaps finally and starts yelling at him, saying none of this has any meaning. His existence doesn't make a difference and neither will his death. And he's going on this tangent. And then finally the priest leaves because he was basically, like, thrown against a wall, like, valid. And then our main man goes on to say that he understands why his mom took a fiance at the end of her life because she was trying to live a different life than she had before, and it gave her something to do and it kept her occupied. And then he says he can't wait to live a new life after he's been killed. And his only wish now is that the big crowd shows up to his execution and that everyone greets him with shouts of hate. And that's how we end this book. [00:55:07] Speaker A: Yep. It's like he resigns himself to the indifference of the world, but then in his death, he hopes that there is some emotion in it which is kind of crazy, but not even emotion that he's expressing. It's people emoting at him as if he's their final expression of life. And he can see it. I don't know. It's interesting. [00:55:26] Speaker B: It's. It's an interesting read, for sure. I literally wanted to murder you in the beginning of the book. I was like, this is the most bleak thing I've ever read. And I am dragging nails on chalkboard trying to read this. But by the end of the book, I was like, okay. It's kind of interesting to see into the mind of a sociopath. And it was intriguing in the way that we're seeing this man being faced with guilt. Like, we know he's guilty, he knows he's guilty, and yet he really doesn't look at things as if guilty and not guilty. He's kind of just looking things head on and saying, this happened, and now I'm doing this, but I'm not showing any emotions or feelings for it because it's just what's happening and it won't make a difference. [00:56:14] Speaker A: Talk about nihilism. [00:56:17] Speaker B: Rough read. [00:56:18] Speaker A: Yeah, this was a rough read. It was a hard book for me to read. I mean, just getting to reading it the first time. It took me 10 years to actually fully finish it. [00:56:26] Speaker B: Understandable. [00:56:28] Speaker A: So it's not even the ease at which this book is hard to read. Like, it's not a hard book to read. It's not hard to understand. I mean, obviously, because you're in the mind of him. It's a little bit weird to read just because you're like, what is this person doing? Like, he doesn't think like a normal person. He's just kind of drifting through life and, like, not reacting to things. It makes it a little difficult just because you're not used to that. And that's not how you typically books are structured. But at the same time, it wasn't a hard book. The problem is that it's just so fucking bleak and that he is so apathetic and everything that you're just like, bro, like, what am I even here for? What are you doing? Why are we doing this? [00:57:04] Speaker B: But that's why we're doing it, right? Is because we're looking at the world from a bleak perspective. Like this. [00:57:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I know that Camus himself was an absurdist, but I also feel like it's a cautionary tale of, like, don't think like this. [00:57:16] Speaker B: Yeah, No. I. [00:57:17] Speaker A: Live your life the way that you're supposed to. [00:57:19] Speaker B: If you do think like this, we should be a little concerned. [00:57:22] Speaker A: Right. Because thinking of the world through that lens doesn't help anybody. [00:57:26] Speaker B: No. [00:57:26] Speaker A: End up committing murder and then you die. [00:57:28] Speaker B: Well, you end up not caring about anything. Yeah. Or anything that you do. You have no morals. [00:57:34] Speaker A: Right. [00:57:35] Speaker B: Which push people through life. I can get on a whole discussion about morals. I mean, we can sit here for like an hour just talking about morals. Morality. [00:57:45] Speaker A: Morality. It's a tough subject. [00:57:48] Speaker B: It is. It definitely is. [00:57:50] Speaker A: Well, that's your overall thoughts. You just. You kind of hated it, but it was fine. [00:57:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I kind of hated it. But the end, I was like, interesting. [00:58:00] Speaker A: Honestly, that's kind of how a lot of these classic book ends. As you're going through, you're like, what is happening? And then once you're finished, you're like, oh, okay. Yeah, I get it. [00:58:10] Speaker B: I will say, and this is my last remark. This book, more than any of the books we've read so far, definitely made me feel like I was an English student reading for my English teacher. And then I was like, isn't that our book club? We're kind of like a discussion on English subjects right now. [00:58:29] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a mixture. [00:58:31] Speaker B: We're a fun English class. [00:58:34] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:58:35] Speaker B: We'll talk to you all later.