jakewelch • read

06/30/2025-07/03/2025 – Profound and yet short and sweet. There was something sad and helpless, yet somehow calming in this story. Meursault, in many ways, reminds me of myself. I too struggle with indifference and shortsightedness in many aspects of my life. I find it difficult at times to have a strong opinion about anything, and don't always think ahead in life. Not to the same degree as the protagonist, (I mean he couldn't even admit his love for his girlfriend and even killed a man with little remorse), but his passivity about his mothers death, his calm indifference at being incarcerated, it felt startlingly relatable to how I have weathered grief in my own life. I've always considered these qualities in to be virtues–they've allowed me to remain grounded and level-headed in times of turmoil–so to read of how these traits betrayed Meursault and how the prosecutors used his character against him in his trail to eventually condemn him to death, I found myself reexamining these traits and putting myself on trial, so to speak. This was a very existential read for me, and I'm grateful for it. 5/5 stars