Top Takes: The Stranger by Albert Camus

Take another look at the post that, as of this writing, has the thirteenth most pageviews on this entire blog:

The Stranger by Albert Camus

It's one of the many "mini term papers" I tend to offer up, free of charge, to desperate freshman English majors the world over.

The Stranger is not a novel that turns on characters or plot. It turns, rather, on ideas, indeed, the one powerful idea of our own death that we must all come to terms with if we ever hope to transcend it, to act in opposition to the patterns of thought and behavior that keeps us a stranger to ourselves. Even though that realization only makes us a stranger to the rest of humankind.

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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.