The Outsider (Book Review)

“Given that you’ve got to die, it obviously doesn’t matter exactly how or when.” The Outsider is a novella which addresses the problem of the nihilist. Given that we all cease to exist one day, as far as Meursault, the protagonist, can see, it doesn’t make a difference when or how that time comes, because afterwards there is only nothingness. And so Meursault embraces nothingness while alive, within the context of what he keeps repeating throughout the novel: “It didn’t really matter.” To him, even getting his head decapitated in his youth doesn’t make a difference in the long run, since he will not be able to dwell on or remember it (or create any new thoughts or ideas, for that matter) immediately after his cranium hits the ground. “Everyone was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others too would be condemned one day,” he says. Indeed, he enjoyed life for all the aesthetics and sensuality it had to offer him, and he knew it was a privilege to be able to experience existing at all. But, to him, in the end, nothing mattered, because we would all eventually be condemned – to death. Read more