Confusion and Captivation

The next novel I am going to discuss in my blog is The Stranger by Albert Camus. I have only read the first two chapters so far, and I am already feeling mixed emotions about the novel. I am confused and captivated by it at the same time.

The first sentence in the book is “Maman died today.” After reading this sentence, I immediately felt sympathy for the narrator, and expected him to go into some sort of explanation of the death. After this sentence, however, he questions whether his mother died today or yesterday. These statements confused me because they gave a sense that the narrator did not even care his mother was dead. These statements also captivated me. Even though it seems that the narrator does not care about his mother’s death, I was captivated into reading more of the story to find out how she died, or just more about the situation in general.

In addition to the beginning statements, the set up of the rest of the first two chapters confuses me. To me, the story, at this point, is just the narrator’s stream of consciousness. I see no plot or point to the story yet. Usually when I read a book, I can sort of get an idea of what the plot might be like, or what the point of the story is quickly after starting to the book. So far, the narrator’s stream of consciousness has not shed any light on what might come in his story.

I am again captivated at the same time though. As I have been reading, I have not seen any real change in the narrator’s way of expressing his story, and none of the plot points have really connected to one another. I believe that this lack of change and connection is what has captivated me into reading the story more. I want to see if the narrator will tell part of the story differently, or suddenly connect two seemingly different, unconnected plot points, and turn them into a prominent part of the story. My hope or wonder as to whether a change will occur captivates me into reading the story.

After reading the first two chapters, I know that while I continue to read this novel, I am going to want to continue to feel confused, but at the same time captivated. I feel that if the narrator continues to tell his story how he has told it in the first two chapters, I will initially think that he is crazy, and I just want to stop reading. Ultimately, I think that I will always have the tendency to stay captivated also, despite the lack of continuity. I am excited to see whether the novel does ultimately culminate into one large plot point that makes all of the previous discontinuities connected.