Book: The Stranger
Author: Albert Camus
ISBN: 0-679-72020-0
U$1.00-B-0.006065-BE-165
Go to 2017 Directory of Authors & Books
Comments: I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice discovery in my part of finding an interesting writer. I will read his other books.
The first part of the book covers Meursault's life and sets up the fatal day. The second part I found more interesting because it dealt with Meursault's thoughts on how he sees life. It explains his reactions to the first part of the book.
Again, great read.....
Go to The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
My notes on this book
Part One
Chapter 1
1. Old People's home is in Marengo, 80 miles from Algiers.
2. Main character ate at Celeste Restaurant.
3. Meursault's mother's name is Madame Meursault.
4. Madame Meursault came to the old home 3 years ago.
5. Monsieur Meursault didn't visit his mother much at the home.
6. Madam Meursault wasn't religious but wanted a religious burial.
7. The caretaker seemed odd and asked many questions while Meursault was about to see his mother.
8. The caretaker had been there for 5 years.
9. Madame Meursault passed away at the Marengo home.
10. The caretaker came from Paris and he was 64 years old.
11. Meursault and the caretaker had coffee and a smoke next to Madame Meursault's coffin.
12. The caretaker setup the area for Madame Meursault's friends to keep vigil.
13. Madame Meursault's friends sat across Meursault. Meursault felt they were judging him.
14. One of Madame Meursault friend was crying softly for a long time at the vigil.
15. The lady who was crying said that Madame Meursault was her only friend.
16. All the old people at the vigil began to make sucking noises from their missing teeth.
17. Madame Meursault friends shook hands with Meursault as they left the vigil early in the morning.
18. The Director didn't allow the residents of the home to attend the funeral. He only allowed them the vigil. He felt that was more humane.
19. The Director allowed Thomas Perez to attend the funeral procession.
Chapter 2
1. Maman was buried on Friday.
2. Meursault ran into Marie Cardona at the channel.
3. Meursault spent time with Marie on the beach.
4. Meursault asked Marie out to the movies.
5. Meursault hated Sunday. He spent his afternoon looking at the street from his balcony.
6. Meursault spent Sunday on his own, watching people from his balcony.
Chapter 3
1. Meursault's boss asked how he was doing on Monday when he returned to work.
2. Meursault goes to lunch with Emmanuel and they hitch a ride by jumping on a passing truck.
3. They had lunch at Celeste.
4. After lunch Meursault went home to nap.
5. That evening on his way back from working late. He runs into Salamano and his dog.
6. Meursault said that Salamano and his dog look alike.
7. Salamano has a dysfunctional relationship with his dog. He walks his dog twice a day, 11 and 6. The book doesn't say am or pm.
8. Celeste asked Salamano what did the dog do? page 27
a. Salamano replied with a kind of suppressed rage, "He's always there." I don't understand what he meant.
9. Raymond Sintes has a reputation that he lives off women. He claims he is a warehouse guard.
10. Raymond Sintes feels/thinks the relationship Salamano and his dog have is pitiful. Meursault didn't agree with Raymond.
11. Raymond invited Meursault to his apartment for blood sausage and wine.
12. Raymond got into a fight earlier in the day on a streetcar. He ended up beating a man over an argument.
13. Raymond had a mistress that he was supporting. The man he got into a fight with was her brother.
14. Raymond claims he was providing her with money 20 Francs a day, 300 Francs for rent, 600 Francs for food and stockings here and there. A total of 1,000 Francs a month.
15. Raymond found a lottery ticket in her purse. Then he found a ticket for two pawned bracelets from the Mont-de-Piete shop.
16. Raymond claims he hit her a few times before leaving her.
17. Raymond came up with different ideas to punish his old girlfriend.
18. Raymond shared his ideas with Meursault and Meursault agreed to write her a letter.
19. Meursault did a good job writing to Raymond's ex-girlfriend. Meursault noticed she was Moorish by her name.
20. After Raymond finished writing the letter, Raymond accepted Meursault as his friend.
Chapter 4
1. Raymond sent the letter to his girlfriend.
2. Meursault went to the movies twice with Emmanuel.
3. On Saturday, Marie came over to visit him and they went to the beach.
4. After the beach, Marie spent the night.
5. Marie asked Meursault if he loved her. He replied, "It didn't mean anything but that I didn't think so."
6. Raymond started beating on his girlfriend at his apartment. The plumber neighbor got a police officer.
7. The police officer slapped Raymond.
8. Raymond's girlfriend told the police officer that Raymond was her pimp and he beat her up.
9. Meursault's girlfriend left around 1pm. She didn't eat lunch because she wasn't hungry.
10. Raymond knocked on Meursault's door at 3pm to talk. Raymond asked Meursault to act as a witness for him and to say that his girlfriend cheated on him.
11. Raymond and Meursault went out for walk. They went to shoot pool. Meursault enjoyed the time with Raymond.
12. As they returned home, Salamano was looking for his dog. Salamano claims he took him for a walk without a collar to the Parade Ground.
13. Salamano acted upset and angry at the dog for running away, but deep down he wanted the dog back. On page 39, Salamano says, "They're not going to take him away from me, are they, Monsieur Meursault? They'll give him back to me. Otherwise, what's going to happen to me?"
14. Salamano cried that night worried about his dog.
Chapter 5
1. Raymond calls Meursault to see if he wanted to go to a beach house near Algiers on Sunday.
2. Raymond also told Meursault he was being followed.
3. Meursault's boss told him he wanted to open an office in Paris and if he was interested in going there.
4. "People never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn't dissatisfied with mine here at all." page 41
5. Meursault: "But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered." page 41
6. That evening Marie asked Meursault if he wanted to marry her. He responded by saying it didn't make any difference to him.
7. Marie then asked if Meursault would marry another women he was involved with like her. Meursault responded with yes.
8. Marie responded that she still wanted to marry Meursault.
9. As Meursault was having dinner that night at Celeste's, he encountered an old lady.
10. Salamano told Meursault that he got the dog once his wife died. He also said he married late.
11. Salamano said he wanted to join the theater. In the army he was used to act in military vaudevilles. After the army he worked on the railroad and he now has a pension. He also admitted he wasn't happy with his wife, but he got used to her.
12. As Salamano was leaving he told Meursault that his mother was fond of his dog. He also told him people thought negative of him when he sent his mother to the old people's house.
13. Meursault ended up having a connection with Salamano that night.
Chapter 6
1. Marie woke him up early to go to the beach house.
2. Meursault woke up angry.
3. The day before, Meursault and Raymond went to the police station to give their statements. Raymond got off with a warning.
4. As they left their apartment, a group of men were waiting for Raymond at the tobacconist's shop.
5. Masson is the name of Raymond's friend who owns the beach house.
6. Masson announced at lunch that he liked Meursault.
7. Raymond, Masson, and Meursault go for a walk at the beach. They run into Raymond's ex-girlfriend's brother. They fight and Raymond gets cut in his arm and face.
8. After getting bandage up by the doctor. Raymond goes to the beach in search for the two men that attacked him.
9. They found the two men and Raymond took a gun. The two men slipped behind rocks and Raymond gave his gun to Meursault.
10. Meursault decides to go for a walk and runs into Raymond's ex-girlfriend's brother at the beach. He was laying down on the beach sunbathing. Meursault decides to sit nearby and they both stared at each other for 2 hours.
11. Something spooked Meursault and he fired at the man. He fired 5 times at the man.
Part Two
Chapter 1
1. Meursault was arrested and taken to jail.
2. He was in an interrogation room where he was asked if he had an attorney.
3. The next day his attorney arrived at prison.
4. The attorney told Meursault that some inquiries about him have been done. Some inquiries came back.
a. Meursault showed insensitivity the day of his mother's funeral.
5. When the attorney asked Meursault if he was sad that day. The question caught him by surprise and it seemed to him that he would have been very embarrassed if he'd had to ask it.
6. Meursault answered: "That he had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing himself and that it was hard for him to tell him what he wanted to know.
7. Meursault thought: "I probably did love Maman, but that didn't mean anything."
8. Meursault told the lawyer, "My nature is such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings."
9. Meursault was thinking, "I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness." Top of page 66
10. The magistrate called Meursault in to see him without his attorney. The magistrate said that "people were describing him as a taciturn and withdrawn person." Then he asked for Meursault's opinion.
11. Meursault's reply: "It's just that I don't have much to say. So I keep quiet."
12. Meursault continued to be interrogated by the magistrate. Meursault "found it very hard to follow his reasoning, first because he was hot and there were big flies in his office that kept landing on his face, and also because the magistrate was scaring him a little."
13. Meursault concluded that the magistrate wasn't happy with his confession because he didn't understand why he hesitated on the second shot.
14. The magistrate asked him if he believed in god. Meursault answered, "No."
15. The magistrate asked him if he was sorry for what he did? Meursault replied after a minute by saying, "that more than sorry he felt kind of annoyed."
16. Meursault's investigation took eleven months.
17. Meursault was comfortable with his attorney and the magistrate.
Chapter 2
1. Marie couldn't visit anymore because she wasn't his wife.
2. After a while, Meursault was taken to prison.
3. Meursault was placed in a cell with many men who were Arabs.
4. Marie told him he needed to have hope. Also, that they'll get married when he gets out.
5. "When I was first imprisoned, the hardest thing was that my thoughts were still these of a free man." page 76
6. "Anyway, it was one of Maman's ideas, and she often repeated it, that after a while you could get used to anything." page 77
7. "I was tormented by my desire for a woman. It was only natural; I was young. I never thought specifically of Marie. But I thought so much about a woman, about women, about all the ones I had known, about all the circumstances in which I had enjoyed them, that my cell would be filled with their faces and crowded with my desires." page 77
8. The head guard tells Meursault that "They've taken away your freedom."
9. "Apart from these (no women or cigarettes) annoyances, I wasn't too unhappy." page 78
10. The biggest problem for Meursault was killing time.
11. "And the more I thought about it, the more I dug out of my memory things I had overlooked or forgotten." page 79
12. I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. page 79
13. In prison, days lose their names. "Only the words 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow' still had any meaning for me." page 80
14. Meursault is now hearing his own voice in prison.
Chapter 3
1. Meursault spent a year in jail, from one summer to the next.
2. Meursault's case was in the last session of the Court of Assizes. That session was to end in June.
3. Meursault's attorney felt his case will take 2-3 days.
4. As Meursault makes his way to court. He realizes the courtroom is crowded and people are there to see him.
5. People (policemen and reporters) were nice to Meursault.
6. Meursault trial had three judges, two in black and one in red.
7. All reporters took notes but one reporter kept his eyes on Meursault.
8. The judge asked Meursault why he put his mother in a home. Meursault answered
a. He didn't have money to have her looked at
9. The judge asked Meursault if that was hard on him. Meursault answered that Maman and he didn't expect anything form each other anymore. That they got used to their new life.
10. At trial, the Director of the home said:
a. Meursault was clam at the vigil
b. He didn't want to see his mother
c. He didn't cry
d. He left right after funeral without paying his last respect at her grave
11. Meursault felt that the people at the court hated him.
12. Meursault felt like crying
13. Meursault's lawyer pointed out: "everything is true and nothing is true!"
14. Celeste testified and said Meursault was a man.
15. Meursault was thankful for Celeste's testimony that he wanted to kiss him.
16. Marie's testimony was turned around by the prosecutor and Marie sobbed afterwards.
17. The prosecutor called Raymond to the stand. He told the court that Raymond was a procurer.
Chapter 4
1. My fate was being decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion. p98
2. Prosecutor told the court, "has he so much as expressed any remorse?" p100
3. Meursault admitted in his thoughts, that he didn't feel much remorse for what he'd done. p 100
4. Meursault "had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything. His mind was always on what was coming next, today, or tomorrow." p100
5. The prosecutor said, " Especially when the emptiness of man's heart becomes, as we find it has in this man, an abyss threatening to swallow up society." p101
6. The prosecutor, during his delivery, asked for the death penalty.
7. The judge asked Meursault if he anything to add after the prosecutor was done with his delivery. Meursault said he had no intention to kill the Arab. He shot him because of the sun.
8. As Meursault's lawyer started his defense. Meursault's lawyer kept saying "I." Meursault felt "it was a way to exclude him even further from the case, reduce him to nothing, and, in a sense, substitute himself for Meursault." p103
9. Meursault felt the prosecutor was more talented than his lawyer.
10. Meursault "was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer, the part of town I loved, a certain evening sky, Marie's dresses and the way she laughed. "
11. Marie was sitting between Celeste and Raymond.
12. Meursault heart fell nothing as he looked at Marie. He couldn't even return her smile. p105
13. Meursault asked his lawyer whether he thought there was any chance of overturning the verdict if it was unfavorable. His lawyer said "no."
14. Meursault was brought in to hear his sentence of having his head cut off in a public square in the name of the French people. p107
Chapter 5
1. "I was forced to admit, however, that from the moment it had been passed its consequences became as real and as serious as the wall against which I pressed the length of my body." p110
2. "The condemned man was forced into a kind of moral collaboration. It was in his interest that everything go off without a hitch." p111
3. "My ears had never heard so many noises or picked up such small sounds. One thing I can say, though, is that in a certain way I was lucky that whole time, since I never heard footsteps. Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about." p113
4. Meursault told the chaplain that he didn't believe in god.
5. The chaplain told Meursault that sometimes we are not sure of things even when we think we are. p116
6. Meursault said to the chaplain, "It also meant that they (prisoners who were to be executed) must have had the time for it. As for me, I didn't want anybody's help, and I just didn't have the time to interest myself in what didn't interest me." p117
7. The chaplain told Meursault, "human justice was nothing and divine justice was everything." p118
8. Meursault told the chaplain that he didn't know what a sin was.
9. Meursault got frustrated with the chaplain and he grabbed him and started pouring out on him everything that was in his heart, cries of anger and cries of joy.
10. Meursault heard sirens one night, but those sirens "were announcing departures for a world that now and forever meant nothing to him." p122
11. Meursault opened himself to the gentle indifference of the world. p122
12. Meursault found the world so much like himself.
13. Meursault discovered he had been happy and that he was happy again.
14. For Meursault to feel less alone he wanted a large crowd of spectators for his execution. He also wanted them to greet him with cries of hate. p123
Author: Albert Camus
ISBN: 0-679-72020-0
U$1.00-B-0.006065-BE-165
Go to 2017 Directory of Authors & Books
Comments: I really enjoyed this book. It was a nice discovery in my part of finding an interesting writer. I will read his other books.
The first part of the book covers Meursault's life and sets up the fatal day. The second part I found more interesting because it dealt with Meursault's thoughts on how he sees life. It explains his reactions to the first part of the book.
Again, great read.....
Go to The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
My notes on this book
Part One
Chapter 1
1. Old People's home is in Marengo, 80 miles from Algiers.
2. Main character ate at Celeste Restaurant.
3. Meursault's mother's name is Madame Meursault.
4. Madame Meursault came to the old home 3 years ago.
5. Monsieur Meursault didn't visit his mother much at the home.
6. Madam Meursault wasn't religious but wanted a religious burial.
7. The caretaker seemed odd and asked many questions while Meursault was about to see his mother.
8. The caretaker had been there for 5 years.
9. Madame Meursault passed away at the Marengo home.
10. The caretaker came from Paris and he was 64 years old.
11. Meursault and the caretaker had coffee and a smoke next to Madame Meursault's coffin.
12. The caretaker setup the area for Madame Meursault's friends to keep vigil.
13. Madame Meursault's friends sat across Meursault. Meursault felt they were judging him.
14. One of Madame Meursault friend was crying softly for a long time at the vigil.
15. The lady who was crying said that Madame Meursault was her only friend.
16. All the old people at the vigil began to make sucking noises from their missing teeth.
17. Madame Meursault friends shook hands with Meursault as they left the vigil early in the morning.
18. The Director didn't allow the residents of the home to attend the funeral. He only allowed them the vigil. He felt that was more humane.
19. The Director allowed Thomas Perez to attend the funeral procession.
Chapter 2
1. Maman was buried on Friday.
2. Meursault ran into Marie Cardona at the channel.
3. Meursault spent time with Marie on the beach.
4. Meursault asked Marie out to the movies.
5. Meursault hated Sunday. He spent his afternoon looking at the street from his balcony.
6. Meursault spent Sunday on his own, watching people from his balcony.
Chapter 3
1. Meursault's boss asked how he was doing on Monday when he returned to work.
2. Meursault goes to lunch with Emmanuel and they hitch a ride by jumping on a passing truck.
3. They had lunch at Celeste.
4. After lunch Meursault went home to nap.
5. That evening on his way back from working late. He runs into Salamano and his dog.
6. Meursault said that Salamano and his dog look alike.
7. Salamano has a dysfunctional relationship with his dog. He walks his dog twice a day, 11 and 6. The book doesn't say am or pm.
8. Celeste asked Salamano what did the dog do? page 27
a. Salamano replied with a kind of suppressed rage, "He's always there." I don't understand what he meant.
9. Raymond Sintes has a reputation that he lives off women. He claims he is a warehouse guard.
10. Raymond Sintes feels/thinks the relationship Salamano and his dog have is pitiful. Meursault didn't agree with Raymond.
11. Raymond invited Meursault to his apartment for blood sausage and wine.
12. Raymond got into a fight earlier in the day on a streetcar. He ended up beating a man over an argument.
13. Raymond had a mistress that he was supporting. The man he got into a fight with was her brother.
14. Raymond claims he was providing her with money 20 Francs a day, 300 Francs for rent, 600 Francs for food and stockings here and there. A total of 1,000 Francs a month.
15. Raymond found a lottery ticket in her purse. Then he found a ticket for two pawned bracelets from the Mont-de-Piete shop.
16. Raymond claims he hit her a few times before leaving her.
17. Raymond came up with different ideas to punish his old girlfriend.
18. Raymond shared his ideas with Meursault and Meursault agreed to write her a letter.
19. Meursault did a good job writing to Raymond's ex-girlfriend. Meursault noticed she was Moorish by her name.
20. After Raymond finished writing the letter, Raymond accepted Meursault as his friend.
Chapter 4
1. Raymond sent the letter to his girlfriend.
2. Meursault went to the movies twice with Emmanuel.
3. On Saturday, Marie came over to visit him and they went to the beach.
4. After the beach, Marie spent the night.
5. Marie asked Meursault if he loved her. He replied, "It didn't mean anything but that I didn't think so."
6. Raymond started beating on his girlfriend at his apartment. The plumber neighbor got a police officer.
7. The police officer slapped Raymond.
8. Raymond's girlfriend told the police officer that Raymond was her pimp and he beat her up.
9. Meursault's girlfriend left around 1pm. She didn't eat lunch because she wasn't hungry.
10. Raymond knocked on Meursault's door at 3pm to talk. Raymond asked Meursault to act as a witness for him and to say that his girlfriend cheated on him.
11. Raymond and Meursault went out for walk. They went to shoot pool. Meursault enjoyed the time with Raymond.
12. As they returned home, Salamano was looking for his dog. Salamano claims he took him for a walk without a collar to the Parade Ground.
13. Salamano acted upset and angry at the dog for running away, but deep down he wanted the dog back. On page 39, Salamano says, "They're not going to take him away from me, are they, Monsieur Meursault? They'll give him back to me. Otherwise, what's going to happen to me?"
14. Salamano cried that night worried about his dog.
Chapter 5
1. Raymond calls Meursault to see if he wanted to go to a beach house near Algiers on Sunday.
2. Raymond also told Meursault he was being followed.
3. Meursault's boss told him he wanted to open an office in Paris and if he was interested in going there.
4. "People never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn't dissatisfied with mine here at all." page 41
5. Meursault: "But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered." page 41
6. That evening Marie asked Meursault if he wanted to marry her. He responded by saying it didn't make any difference to him.
7. Marie then asked if Meursault would marry another women he was involved with like her. Meursault responded with yes.
8. Marie responded that she still wanted to marry Meursault.
9. As Meursault was having dinner that night at Celeste's, he encountered an old lady.
10. Salamano told Meursault that he got the dog once his wife died. He also said he married late.
11. Salamano said he wanted to join the theater. In the army he was used to act in military vaudevilles. After the army he worked on the railroad and he now has a pension. He also admitted he wasn't happy with his wife, but he got used to her.
12. As Salamano was leaving he told Meursault that his mother was fond of his dog. He also told him people thought negative of him when he sent his mother to the old people's house.
13. Meursault ended up having a connection with Salamano that night.
Chapter 6
1. Marie woke him up early to go to the beach house.
2. Meursault woke up angry.
3. The day before, Meursault and Raymond went to the police station to give their statements. Raymond got off with a warning.
4. As they left their apartment, a group of men were waiting for Raymond at the tobacconist's shop.
5. Masson is the name of Raymond's friend who owns the beach house.
6. Masson announced at lunch that he liked Meursault.
7. Raymond, Masson, and Meursault go for a walk at the beach. They run into Raymond's ex-girlfriend's brother. They fight and Raymond gets cut in his arm and face.
8. After getting bandage up by the doctor. Raymond goes to the beach in search for the two men that attacked him.
9. They found the two men and Raymond took a gun. The two men slipped behind rocks and Raymond gave his gun to Meursault.
10. Meursault decides to go for a walk and runs into Raymond's ex-girlfriend's brother at the beach. He was laying down on the beach sunbathing. Meursault decides to sit nearby and they both stared at each other for 2 hours.
11. Something spooked Meursault and he fired at the man. He fired 5 times at the man.
Part Two
Chapter 1
1. Meursault was arrested and taken to jail.
2. He was in an interrogation room where he was asked if he had an attorney.
3. The next day his attorney arrived at prison.
4. The attorney told Meursault that some inquiries about him have been done. Some inquiries came back.
a. Meursault showed insensitivity the day of his mother's funeral.
5. When the attorney asked Meursault if he was sad that day. The question caught him by surprise and it seemed to him that he would have been very embarrassed if he'd had to ask it.
6. Meursault answered: "That he had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing himself and that it was hard for him to tell him what he wanted to know.
7. Meursault thought: "I probably did love Maman, but that didn't mean anything."
8. Meursault told the lawyer, "My nature is such that my physical needs often got in the way of my feelings."
9. Meursault was thinking, "I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn't much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness." Top of page 66
10. The magistrate called Meursault in to see him without his attorney. The magistrate said that "people were describing him as a taciturn and withdrawn person." Then he asked for Meursault's opinion.
11. Meursault's reply: "It's just that I don't have much to say. So I keep quiet."
12. Meursault continued to be interrogated by the magistrate. Meursault "found it very hard to follow his reasoning, first because he was hot and there were big flies in his office that kept landing on his face, and also because the magistrate was scaring him a little."
13. Meursault concluded that the magistrate wasn't happy with his confession because he didn't understand why he hesitated on the second shot.
14. The magistrate asked him if he believed in god. Meursault answered, "No."
15. The magistrate asked him if he was sorry for what he did? Meursault replied after a minute by saying, "that more than sorry he felt kind of annoyed."
16. Meursault's investigation took eleven months.
17. Meursault was comfortable with his attorney and the magistrate.
Chapter 2
1. Marie couldn't visit anymore because she wasn't his wife.
2. After a while, Meursault was taken to prison.
3. Meursault was placed in a cell with many men who were Arabs.
4. Marie told him he needed to have hope. Also, that they'll get married when he gets out.
5. "When I was first imprisoned, the hardest thing was that my thoughts were still these of a free man." page 76
6. "Anyway, it was one of Maman's ideas, and she often repeated it, that after a while you could get used to anything." page 77
7. "I was tormented by my desire for a woman. It was only natural; I was young. I never thought specifically of Marie. But I thought so much about a woman, about women, about all the ones I had known, about all the circumstances in which I had enjoyed them, that my cell would be filled with their faces and crowded with my desires." page 77
8. The head guard tells Meursault that "They've taken away your freedom."
9. "Apart from these (no women or cigarettes) annoyances, I wasn't too unhappy." page 78
10. The biggest problem for Meursault was killing time.
11. "And the more I thought about it, the more I dug out of my memory things I had overlooked or forgotten." page 79
12. I realized then that a man who had lived only one day could easily live for a hundred years in prison. page 79
13. In prison, days lose their names. "Only the words 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow' still had any meaning for me." page 80
14. Meursault is now hearing his own voice in prison.
Chapter 3
1. Meursault spent a year in jail, from one summer to the next.
2. Meursault's case was in the last session of the Court of Assizes. That session was to end in June.
3. Meursault's attorney felt his case will take 2-3 days.
4. As Meursault makes his way to court. He realizes the courtroom is crowded and people are there to see him.
5. People (policemen and reporters) were nice to Meursault.
6. Meursault trial had three judges, two in black and one in red.
7. All reporters took notes but one reporter kept his eyes on Meursault.
8. The judge asked Meursault why he put his mother in a home. Meursault answered
a. He didn't have money to have her looked at
9. The judge asked Meursault if that was hard on him. Meursault answered that Maman and he didn't expect anything form each other anymore. That they got used to their new life.
10. At trial, the Director of the home said:
a. Meursault was clam at the vigil
b. He didn't want to see his mother
c. He didn't cry
d. He left right after funeral without paying his last respect at her grave
11. Meursault felt that the people at the court hated him.
12. Meursault felt like crying
13. Meursault's lawyer pointed out: "everything is true and nothing is true!"
14. Celeste testified and said Meursault was a man.
15. Meursault was thankful for Celeste's testimony that he wanted to kiss him.
16. Marie's testimony was turned around by the prosecutor and Marie sobbed afterwards.
17. The prosecutor called Raymond to the stand. He told the court that Raymond was a procurer.
Chapter 4
1. My fate was being decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion. p98
2. Prosecutor told the court, "has he so much as expressed any remorse?" p100
3. Meursault admitted in his thoughts, that he didn't feel much remorse for what he'd done. p 100
4. Meursault "had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything. His mind was always on what was coming next, today, or tomorrow." p100
5. The prosecutor said, " Especially when the emptiness of man's heart becomes, as we find it has in this man, an abyss threatening to swallow up society." p101
6. The prosecutor, during his delivery, asked for the death penalty.
7. The judge asked Meursault if he anything to add after the prosecutor was done with his delivery. Meursault said he had no intention to kill the Arab. He shot him because of the sun.
8. As Meursault's lawyer started his defense. Meursault's lawyer kept saying "I." Meursault felt "it was a way to exclude him even further from the case, reduce him to nothing, and, in a sense, substitute himself for Meursault." p103
9. Meursault felt the prosecutor was more talented than his lawyer.
10. Meursault "was assailed by memories of a life that wasn't mine anymore, but one in which I'd found the simplest and most lasting joys: the smells of summer, the part of town I loved, a certain evening sky, Marie's dresses and the way she laughed. "
11. Marie was sitting between Celeste and Raymond.
12. Meursault heart fell nothing as he looked at Marie. He couldn't even return her smile. p105
13. Meursault asked his lawyer whether he thought there was any chance of overturning the verdict if it was unfavorable. His lawyer said "no."
14. Meursault was brought in to hear his sentence of having his head cut off in a public square in the name of the French people. p107
Chapter 5
1. "I was forced to admit, however, that from the moment it had been passed its consequences became as real and as serious as the wall against which I pressed the length of my body." p110
2. "The condemned man was forced into a kind of moral collaboration. It was in his interest that everything go off without a hitch." p111
3. "My ears had never heard so many noises or picked up such small sounds. One thing I can say, though, is that in a certain way I was lucky that whole time, since I never heard footsteps. Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about." p113
4. Meursault told the chaplain that he didn't believe in god.
5. The chaplain told Meursault that sometimes we are not sure of things even when we think we are. p116
6. Meursault said to the chaplain, "It also meant that they (prisoners who were to be executed) must have had the time for it. As for me, I didn't want anybody's help, and I just didn't have the time to interest myself in what didn't interest me." p117
7. The chaplain told Meursault, "human justice was nothing and divine justice was everything." p118
8. Meursault told the chaplain that he didn't know what a sin was.
9. Meursault got frustrated with the chaplain and he grabbed him and started pouring out on him everything that was in his heart, cries of anger and cries of joy.
10. Meursault heard sirens one night, but those sirens "were announcing departures for a world that now and forever meant nothing to him." p122
11. Meursault opened himself to the gentle indifference of the world. p122
12. Meursault found the world so much like himself.
13. Meursault discovered he had been happy and that he was happy again.
14. For Meursault to feel less alone he wanted a large crowd of spectators for his execution. He also wanted them to greet him with cries of hate. p123
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