Jul 12, 2004

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die

Albert Camus, The Stranger
Who's more American--Johnny Cash or Albert Camus?

Read The Stranger not to be moved, or to be unmoved, but because you can. Be gripped by its sparing, simple prose (see below). Or, let the waves of anticlimax wash over you; merely bob on the surface, floating in "gentle indifference." The choice is yours.

I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn't done that. I hadn't done this thing but I had done another. And so?


Matthew Ward, in the prefatory note, justifies the Hemingwayesque, crime-novel style of the translation:

Camus acknowledged employing an "American method" in writing The Stranger, in the first half of the book in particular: the short, precise sentences; the depcition of a character ostensibly without consciousness; and, in places, the "tough guy" tone.... In addition to giving the text a more "American" quality, I have also attempted to venture farther into the letter of Camus's novel, to capture what he said and how he said it, not what he meant. In theory, the latter should take care of itself.


The simplicity, though, masks a complex moral anti-drama; for Meursault, the protagonist, events merge seamlessly into each other. He is an observer, objective, detached from his own existence--even killing a complete stranger without reason or remorse--but only when condemned does he realize his beliefs about death and life are illusions.

... everything was very simple: the guillotine is on the same level as the man approaching it. He walks up to it the way you walk up to another person. That bothered me too. Mounting the scaffold, going right up into the sky, was something the imagination could hold on to. Whereas, once again, the machine destroyed everything: you were killed discreetly, with a little shame and with great precision....

Then, in the dark hour before dawn, sirens blasted. They were announcing departures for a world that now and forever meant nothing to me... For everything to be comsummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.


The allusion is obvious, violently and ironically inverting the crucifixion. So much for the promise of future glory, so much for the hope of suffering through a world that is not "home."

I find it instructive to read the one-star reviews on Amazon. They give you the true sense of the book--its capacity to shock, to infuriate, to baffle, even years after The Stranger has become a near-cliche.

Don't Even Waste Your Time, January 12, 2004
Reviewer: A reader from Cincinnati, OH USA
If you are looking for a book to put you to sleep, look no further. Here it is. This is the most pathetic book I have ever read. And not only was the book boring, the main character, Meursault, was an emotionless, hopless, and disgusting human being. His views on women and relationships are no less than vile. He does not even remorse over the death of his mother. He then says that he no emotional attachment to Marie, the lady that he is sexually active with. Thankfully, he commits a cold blooded murder and is put to death. And at his execution, he says that he wishes there be "howls of execration." It is amazing to me that an individual can want there to be people cursing him on the day of his death. Bottom line, this is not woth the time for you to sit down and read it. [this refers to the original British translation]

Disappointing, June 24, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Boston, MA United States
I'll keep this short. The book was an awful read save the last ten pages. Everything before that is terribly uninteresting. It is only once he has been sentenced and awaits his end that it becomes something worth flipping through. I have the utmost respect for Albert Camus, but this is dribble.

A horrible translation, March 29, 2002
Reviewer: Meg from Boston, MA
I have read a previous translation of The Stranger, and was deeply moved. My entire life was changed. The previous translator did Camus justice. Matthew Ward, with this translation of The Stranger, ruined the novel. Ward includes awful cliche and unintelligent description. Unfortunately this is the only translation currently in print in the US. If you are able to, please order from a forgein printer (sometimes printed under the title The Outsider) or consider searching for an out of print copy not translated by Matthew Ward.


So much for being faithful to the original, in all its paradoxical simplicity. Non-flowery prose just isn't as moving.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For all those that liked the flowery prose of the british version... sorry to say it but you kind of missed the point of m. ward's translation. if all you like is flowery prose, then read no further. there is no point in trying to convince you to read beyond anything but pretty words. that's what most american reader's fall for, instead of the grammatic and philisophic discussions present (im an american by the way which is why i make the observation). the first half of this novel is written in the imperfect tense. if you reread the text you'll notice that the actions taken by mersault are usually out of sequence or not in chronological order. the reason for this is for the reader to get a sense of a man who lives with a diferent sense of existence. he's just like everyone else, yet he doesn't judge. if he was truly despicable don't you think he would have gone to the whorehouse? he just doesn't see concepts because he can only see real things. at the end of the book he says no one deserved to cry for his mother because she had the capacity to live and live again (which he didnt bring up during his trial). his relationship with his mother transcended the notion of a simple word as love. philisophically he is outside (a stranger if you will) to such easy and predeictable concepts such as "love" (why he agrees to marry the girl even though he doesnt love her. marriage exists, but love does not). the second half of the book is much more poetic. you can see the language of camus take over and what this effect achieves is the change present in a man who is just now realizing his mortality. the stuart gilbert translation kinda fucks this up. what is interesting is that fact that the man killed is an arab. there is no way this story would work if the man killed was french. and he doesnt kill just to kill, he says during the trial that it was the sun... how very poetic. now one might feel the easy need to just say well that's stupid... but his relationship with the sun, the water the earth is what provides this man chracter. he is a simple man with simple needs and a relationship to the earth because earth represents that which exists and is actually present and tangible. what do they call those things? oh yeah metaphors. what m. ward did for camus was to highlight and do justice to the crucial aspect of the story- the richness of the philosphical discussion of ABSURDISM (man's desire for clarity and understanding juxtaposed with an unresponsive and uncaring world) instead of just pretty words. ward makes the english translation of the stranger relevant again. gilbert just made it british and kinda "diet kafkaesque". there's a reason no one at a higer university level teaches the gilbert translation. now if only ward would translate the plague...

Anonymous said...

ps. about the "sun" and its poetry. if one feels that this needs some clarification then this is what i can offer-

go back and read the part where he kills the arab on the beach. The killing can go in one of a couple ways (if not more)- in one sense it was an accident. he didn't meant to kill anyone. he took the gun from his friend so that the friend woulnd't do anything stupid, and yes the macho mediterreanean misogynist wanted to get away from the cryin females because there weeping bothered him which leads to his encounter one the beach. the sun is important because it is the catalyst for the action to follow. mersault is hesitant to approach the arab because of the prior altercation and because he sees the knife. so he draws the weapon in self defense with no intention of using it. is it the intensity of the sun which gets merault to pull the trigger, or is it the glimmering of the sun off of the arab's knife which promts mersault to shoot? either way the sun is involved and this is a clear cut illustration of a situation in which only the parties involved will know the true circumstances (which in mersault's case is ambiguous at best). you see shit like this all the time, especially on must-see-tv-esque progamming, so its not that far out. the beauty of it is that camus doesnt have a clear cut explanation for why things happened, rather he shows that they do, and that they are beyond human quantification. this mastery of suggestive prose is what makes the parts in relation to the sun very poetic indeed, because poetry's real power lies soley within suggestion.