Reviews

From a literary perspective, The Stranger is a nice read. Camus draws in Faulkner's superfluous detailing, an occasional flash of romantic personification native to Conrad, a realism from Hemmingway, and pervasive dreadful anxiety from Melville. It is a clean, simple, clean 20-minute read for any age. However, anyone who is well-read will immediately recognize that The Stranger is a cut-rate Crime and Punishment; the narration, the structure, the ideological clash at the end, are nearly shot-for-shot pilfered from C&P. Mersault and Raskolnikov are both Nihilists without knowing it; sociopathic tendencies abound, and moral relativism is a given in their thinking and self-understanding. It's like Crime & Punishment was summarized by a retarded and suicidal labradoodle.
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Camus plagiarized much of the character development from The Adolescent's character Arkady Dolgoruky for The Stranger, just like Nietzsche ironically pilfered his conceptualizations from Dostoevsky's anti-Nihilism characters before Camus. Dostoevsky still perfectly predicted the philosophy of both of them and responded to it a century before. And neither have provided an adequate response to Dostoevsky's powerful and prophetic refutation of Nihilism.
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Camus simply plagiarized his characters from Dostoevsky just like he Plagiarized his Absurdist philosophy from Kierkegaard.
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Camus is certainly not popular due to his philosophic or intellectual merits. He can only speak to edgy hedonists who are looking to justify their self-described "rebel" lifestyle, although these non-conformists inevitably all end up identical in their refusal to take moral and ethical questions seriously. The philosophy of Camus is poorly intellectualized Hedonism.  

Did Meursault’s mother actually die? Was what Meursault and his mother considered Marengo actually Marengo? Were they victims of gerrymandering? Did Meursault ever see his mother’s body?
Marie seems kind of planned. Where did Meursault and Marie plan on spending the night together?
Raymond like Tom of The Great Gatsby, is greedy. Raymond cannot have the faithfulness of his mistress when their relationship is based primarily on his infidelity. He is willing to use the innocence of Meursault to lure his mistress, whose relations with Raymond are as stated earlier based on infidelity, all just to have further retaliation on her infidelity in their already egregious relationship. Raymond’s problems are his greed and his perception. Raymond believes that his mistress must remain faithful irrespective of his other possible relationships.
The policeman is egregious in using authority to address a personal matter which evinces his character and lack of faithfulness to his already personally and religiously defined relationship.
It seems to me that Meursault is a homosexual tangled in relations of infidelity and that Marie is in search of a faithful emotional relationship with a man yet seeking promiscuity and infidelity in her sexual relationships.
In the defense of the mistress, Raymond deserved some type of reprimanding for his behavior towards his mistress, greed, egregious oppression of his mistresses’ decisions to engage in other unfaithful types of relationships due to her lack of fidelity in any of her relationships. Masson may have lured Raymond, Marie and Meursault to the spring for their personal reprimanding of their behavior. Raymond’s bigotry for and retaliation towards any male person of darker skin pigmentation could have been galvanized due to this situation. The ethnic background from Raymond’s mistress’s brother was never explicitly discussed as a result.
Arabs at a Spring is a very vague statement. The family of Raymond’s mistress could have been mulatto, negro or other types of ethnic groups stereotypically featuring darker skin pigmentation. Arabs at a Spring ironically insinuates the recent Arab Spring of the Middle East and North Africa, social movements and collective action designed to instigate political change.
Meursault’s decision to shoot the brother of Raymond’s mistress is quite unexpected. The subject in the courthouse should have stayed on the crime Meursault has committed. Nothing else. The prosecutor has NO right to judge Meursault. The courtroom is intended to address crimes which the accused must address. HOW does the prosecutor and anyone else believe that it is appropriate to JUDGE Meursault’s character? They are supposed to judge the crime not the character.
The “gentle indifference of the world” is the indifference or lack of care which the society which Meursault engaged with on a daily basis exhibited clearly. Meursault seemed loving enough to be engaged with a woman despite his homosexuality and may have been indifferent about the “death” of his mother due to the fact that he no longer engaged with her on a daily basis due to the distance which separated them and his acceptance of her state of health. It seems as though the society which Meursault engaged with on a daily basis became his “accusers of bretheren” and used the excuse of his crime to judge his character not his action, thus becoming his “accusers of bretheren”. Salamano’s and Salamano’s mangy dog could represent Meursault’s Father and Mother.  

This is an excellent exploration of one man's struggle with finding a balance between nihilism, existentialism, life/death, social construct, and absurdism. It's an easy read that can give self-perspective with each re-read.

The Stranger reminds me a bit of Catcher in the Rye. The anti-hero lives by his own rule with little or no regard to the feelings or ideas of others. He is aimless and simply goes through the motion of living because he doesn't seem to be anchored to any particular principal that attaches him to society. He is unstimulated by any kind of input until the killing and only then does he develop a sense of place in the world. Certainly an interesting read, although you could come to a dozen different conclusions about what it means. I assume this is why the book is read today. Readers are all still trying to find solid footing for the meaning of the story.  

Excellent
I had to read this book for an a.p class and I loved it. Slow begining, but it picks up very well.