Explorations Read-Aloud: “L’Étranger / The Outsider” by Albert Cumus / Sandra Smith (Translator)

Every Friday, at 11:00 am, on the library’s YouTube Channel and Facebook Page, the library will stream a brand new recording of local thespian, Joseph Coté reading aloud selections from a wide variety of fascinating and entertaining books of fiction and non-fiction.

For January 23, Coté will read aloud from Sandra Smith’s translation of Albert Cumus’ L’Étranger / The Stranger.

‘My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.’ 

In L’Étranger /The Outsider (1942), his classic existentialist novel, Camus explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to social norms. Meursault, his anti-hero, will not lie. 

When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. 

And when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers, his lack of remorse compounds his guilt in the eyes of society and the law. Yet he is as much a victim as a criminal. 

Albert Camus’ portrayal of a man confronting the absurd, and revolting against the injustice of society, depicts the paradox of man’s joy in life when faced with the ‘tender indifference’ of the world. 

Sandra Smith’s translation, based on close listening to a recording of Camus reading his work aloud on French radio in 1954, sensitively renders the subtleties and dream-like atmosphere of L’Étranger.

Click the links to find the library’s YouTube Channel and Facebook Page.

Thoughts to share? Book ideas to suggest?
Contact Joseph at friday-explorations@usa.net