There's nothing I love more in a book than an author's note or translator's note, and I'm really pleasantly surprised to be finding it at the start of my edition instead of at the end where I've more commonly seen it. I feel like it is such a gift to get a peek into the "why" of the writing or translation, and this note in particular made me really reflect on the artistry of translation and what a labor of love it is to try to take one text and turn it into another. Words like "faithful" and "honest" and "thoughtful" come to mind as goals of this effort, and Ward digging into some choices he made to try to get it "right" (if such a thing is possible) just filled me with a lot of appreciation before I've even started reading. I also thought it was kind of funny - like was that a little dig at Gilbert's translation's "paraphrastic earnestness" I detected?

There's plenty of discussion in the forum already about the famous opening line and I've seen that discussion already includes some of what Ward mentioned in his note, so I won't rehash that. Instead, the part of the note I wanted to mention that I particularly liked and felt set my expectations well (and that others without a note at the start might enjoy) was from the very first paragraph of the note:

"The Stranger demanded of Camus the creation of a style at once literary and profoundly popular, an artistic sleight of hand that would make the complexities of a man's life appear simple. [...] What little Meursault says or feels or does resonates with all he does not say, all he does not feel, all he does not do. The "simplicity" of the text is merely apparent and everywhere paradoxical."

For lack of a proper literary way of saying this: that is just so delicious to me. It makes me so excited to sink my teeth into what sounds to be some really juicy negative space in this book.

Can we talk about how much drinking and smoking is happening during all of this? Just inebriated the whole way through. Drank too much at lunch then split two bottles for dinner anyway. And countless cigarettes the whole while. Curious how much of this is just appropriate to the cultural context the book was first written in, and how much of it is intentionally added for the character?

"And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness."

Did not expect the novel's events, but it is promising and the writing style adds to the themes in a unique way.

Okay MC is kind of annoying but if I had someone waving a crucifix and yelling in my face about God forgiving me when I’ve already said I don’t believe in God, I too would act like that.

There’s something really interesting about how the novel explores the gap between how people feel and how they’re expected to look like they feel. Meursault moves through life in a way that resists emotional performance, which makes even ordinary moments feel slightly off-kilter. Like we’re all socially expected to act or react certain ways and Meursault basically says, “mmm, how about no.”

I also found it intriguing that everything seems grounded in physical experience, heat, fatigue, comfort, discomfort, while emotional or moral expectations feel secondary. Almost as if they belong to a different system he isn’t fully plugged into.

I’m left with a lot of questions. Is it better to feel the “right” things, or to refuse to pretend? At what point does emotional detachment stop being honesty and become something more troubling? And should we all participate in the emotional language everyone else understands?