1 November 2025
Camus, The Stranger (The Outsider here in the UK). Meursault's harmonious state is detached—self-denial cloaked in self-acceptance. He isn't doing the crucial thing of confronting futility, in his case the kind he feels under the hot sun (which reminded me of a familiar, languageless vitality I have often felt myself, especially floating in the Pacific Ocean under the California sun).
Made me think of Cézanne with regard to lucidity and vision. Been spending a lot of time with Cézanne this week. There's almost a strain that comes through from the intensity of his yearning to wrangle a force along the lines of the very thing Meursault can't accept. Even as it resists him. Which it does by nature. So the work is the attempt, the proof of care in the face of indifference.