/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11476129]

was it autism?

[Anonymous No.11476136]

>>11476129
It was the supreme self-awareness. This man knew that the moment is all that matters. You are free to keep deluding yourself.

[Anonymous No.11476145]

Among friends I said I identify myself as the stranger, and after all they all did give me some strange looks.

[Anonymous No.11476164]

I thought he was pretty based, just dealing with life as it is
But killing someone isnt a solution and was a crazy turn in the story imo

[Anonymous No.11476213]

>>11476129
Camus is my waifu.
Go and die in a ditch.

[Anonymous No.11476222]

>>11476129
yes

[Anonymous No.11476244]

>>11476222
>Many children are excessively sensitive to the quality of the lighting and may overreact.
https://epidemicanswers.org/light-sensitivity-and-autism-adhd-spd-developmental-delays/

[Anonymous No.11476249]

>>11476129
Psychopathy.

[Anonymous No.11476259]

>watch a few videos on YouTube about Camus
>Think Camus is all about "everything's pointless"
>Didn't know shit about existentialism and philosophy in general
>Still don't know shit desu
>Read The Stranger
>It's some autist who just cares about how hot it is and "accidentally" kills someone because it's hot
I still don't get this book.feels bad being a STEM brainlet

[Anonymous No.11476391]

>>11476129
I'm an actual autistic person, and when I read this book I kept thinking "is this protagonist meant to be autistic?", then having to remind myself that autism hadn't been doscovered yet when the book was written. It's a better prortrayal of how I see the world than any book I've ever read with a genuinely autistic protagonist. Broke my heart when I found out that he's meant to be a psychopath. Then again,aspies used to get misdiagnosed as psychopaths a lot back in the day, so maybe it works the other way around, and I'm just an unknowing psycho.
>>11476145
Fuck man, I feel you. I told a bunch of my mates, most of them thought I was trolling them, and one just said "I fucking knew you would" in an obviously dissaproving manner.

[Anonymous No.11476405]

>>11476145
Isn't "the stranger" the arab Mersault murders?

[Anonymous No.11476418]

>>11476391
Where did you get the idea that he's supposed to be a psychopath?

[Anonymous No.11476445]

>>11476418
He kills an Arab for no reason. It's obvious he's a psycho.

[Anonymous No.11476458]

>>11476391
I’m curious as to why you use image boards and have friends. I thought autists weren’t into social interaction.

[Anonymous No.11476459]

>>11476445
Yeah I've heard people say that. I've come to the conclusion that he's simply the extreme manifestation of the 'absurdist', I'm not gonna diagnose this caricature with a disorder.

[Anonymous No.11476475]

>>11476459
>extreme manifestation of the 'absurdist'
shut up..

[Anonymous No.11476480]

>>11476458
I think on some boards the majority are autists. Never seen those autism online test threads on /v/? There's at least one anon each thread who hits the high mark.

[Anonymous No.11476482]

>>11476129
No it was a subconscious desire for violence. Meursault's apathy is a defence mechanism. The proof is in the prose. When he shoots the first shot, the language used is "the trigger gave". This is passive whereas the next four shots an active attempt at regaining control of the situation through apathy.

[Anonymous No.11476488]

>>11476475

[Anonymous No.11476495]

>>11476129
i though the autism of the protagonist wasn't the main point in the novella but his incarceration for the lack of simpathy
though seems extremely farfetched makes a point that it's not your true feeling that matter but people's opinion of you

though now thinking about it i think there was a lot of themes of hypocrisy in romantic novels

i guess i'm a brainlet

[Anonymous No.11476499]

>>11476480
Yea I guess I don’t have a proper understanding of what autism is. My impression has always been that in at least the severe cases they aren’t interested in interacting with people at all and prefer entirely solitary activities. I always assumed that image boards were too social and hence the whole “4chan is autistm day care haha” was just a self deprecating joke.

[Anonymous No.11476510]

Most overrated book I've ever read, only second to that Kundera guy. The protagonist is a complete moron and I don't see what the fuck the book is trying to convey.

[Anonymous No.11476511]

>>11476136
Are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.11476517]

>>11476510
You almost get it.

[Anonymous No.11476562]

>>11476499
I truly believe that no one can live without any social interaction, no matter what ism or phoebia they may have.
I think people are deluded when they say they just wanna go live in the wild to escape from society. It just seems like you'd go mad.

[Anonymous No.11476874]

>>11476458
Sorry for late reply:
1)I don't think imageboards really count as social interaction. It's more like consequence-free, superinformal letter writing. There's no eye contact, body language, facial expressions, emotional nuance, or the possibility of inadvertently creeping someone out enough to permenantly fuck-up one of your lives.
2)I have about ten friends total. They're all either leftovers from High School, or people I met on Facebook. I talk with them almost entirely through text. All but two of them are also autistic.
3)I go outside because I have a job. I spent 1.5 years as a NEET, and failed College twoce due to mental illness. I'm a dishwasher. I manage because I never have to see my boss, and my coworkers don't give a fuck how awkward I am as long as I get my job done.

[Anonymous No.11476915]

>>11476499
>>11476244
>>11476222

The light sensitivity thing is hilarious.

w/r/t autism: first of all it's a spectrum, so a boolean "69% of /v/ is autistic" is not really a useful or interesting metric. On the official criteria for diagnosis: every researcher that does the autism testing has their own thesis, and the result has more to do with what they think will impact the patient's quality of life. Once you are resigned to taking the written tests, the objective data are practically a formality.

I don't remember much about the narrator's ability to maintain eye contact, interpersonal skills, etc., his behavior seems pretty autistic in the sense that he's socially disconnected and basically has that one friend and a girlfriend and like no other social context. I thought that was the point, that he's so socially disconnected it doesn't really matter if he lives or not (which is like the whole existentialist catalyst).

[Anonymous No.11476933]

>>11476874

>I don't think imageboards really count as social interaction [which is defined by]
>the possibility of inadvertently creeping someone out enough to permenantly sic fuck-up one of your lives

A really bad metric. Try posting pipe-bomb schematics or the floor plan of your local high school painstakingly reconstructed in Counter-Strike and then tell me you can't fuck up some lives.

Besides, I go to the gym all the time. I think it counts as social interaction even though those aspects are not the focus. Letter writing is also social interaction. So is D&D campaigns. Or maybe you're right, and nothing is social interaction except improv.

[Anonymous No.11477928]

>>11476488
i kno what you mean bro, don't worry.

[Anonymous No.11477952]

>>11476405
no, the arab is "the arab"

[Anonymous No.11477958]

camus got lots of girls

[Anonymous No.11477972]

>>11476129
I don't get it, is this a fiction book or a philosophy one?

[Anonymous No.11478102]

>>11476164
I think killing the arab wasn't the solution for anything, he was just like "fuck this shit is so annoying, fuck you" a primitive basic reaction to the whole situation, and because he didn't give a fuck about anything he just shoot him.

[Anonymous No.11478126]

>>11477972
>tfw no gf to feign interest in your hobbies and ask you stupid questions like this
why live, bros?

[Anonymous No.11478196]

>>11478126
>feign interest
this is why you're single

[Anonymous No.11478207]

>>11478196
I'm sure many of your past lovers have genuinely shared your interest in philosophy and lit

[Anonymous No.11478276]

>>11478207
yeah, right..

[Anonymous No.11478588]

>>11476391
>>11476445
>identifies personally with a novel
>misunderstood it on a basic level
yep, that's a *snap* from me

[Anonymous No.11478654]

>>11476418
The Arab had been in altercation with him and his friend involving a knife just hours before....

[Anonymous No.11478891]

Is it bad that I can empathize with The Stranger?

[Anonymous No.11478893]

Why did Meursault shoot that guy 4 more times?

[Anonymous No.11478896]

>>11478891
No, most people can empathize with the book to some degree.

[Anonymous No.11479019]

>>11478588
Never said I identified personally with the novel.
Explain why some guy randomly killing an Arab on the street isn't a psycho.

[Anonymous No.11479045]

this is the worst thread I've encountered since first visiting /lit/ 5 years ago holy shit

[Anonymous No.11479055]

>>11476145
My friends said I was the Stranger when we read it in school. One even said I was the type of guy to shoot someone cause of the sun

[Anonymous No.11479068]

>>11476129
>autism

[Anonymous No.11479135]

>>11476249
this

[Anonymous No.11479178]

Just French obscurantism. Fuck France.

[Anonymous No.11479192]

>>11479055
>My friends
sure

[Anonymous No.11479237]

As someone with Asperger's, I can say that there definitley are some similarities that I share with the protagonist. Especially the fact that he is so disconnected from his own emotions, that he has no actual goals and so on and so forth is something that is really relatable to me. But I don't think the question wether or not Mersault is autistic has any relevance, since he is nothing but a personification of absurdist philosophy. At all points of the story, he acts according to the philosophy that the whole book was based on. Probably no real person would have always acted this way, because actual people have personalities that can incorporate philosophies but rarely make use of it in every situation. In the end, you could say the protagonist was merely a "face" for Absurdism.

[Anonymous No.11479240]

>>11476418
>has to make sense of abnormal behaviour through a clinical framework because he is a slave to a moral of the norm

[Anonymous No.11479243]

>>11476129
I don't know how you can have problem understanding it. It is just a philosophical idea of absurdism presented in novel. It exists for you to understand the philosophy. Everything else is just speculation and useless garbage thoughts. Just take it as representation of absurdism and how someone holding that principle would probably live or see life in general. And no it was not autism at all. Autists have problems with communication, understanding others, have rituals and stereotypical behavior and interests, sensory overload and other things. It was more of personality disorder or if you want to psychopathy but psychological diagnosis or worldview was not the point of that book. Next time please put some effort into your post, it is neither funny nor original. If you want yous, just ask.

[Anonymous No.11479244]

>>11476129
>Finally after all these years I have become the Stranger.
Fucking dropped

[Anonymous No.11479449]

It was Schizoid PD.

[Anonymous No.11479555]

>>11478588
Those posts are from two different people. I wrote the post about identifying with the protag, some other guy wrkte the post saying he must be a psycho cause he killed the arab.

[Anonymous No.11479568]

>>11476129
Ol' Mersault was an alright guy, in the end, I think. He wasn't autistic, he had his girlfriend, he had his friends- in fact, he was quite popular. However, just like how this thread fails to understand him, that is the tragedy of his character. He lived his life with certain obligations and didn't pay much mind to that which was outside that. He lived a life absolutely meaningless from an outsiders perspective, but that's not what matters, all in all, it's his own that does.

[Anonymous No.11479572]

>>11476405
other editions have the title of the book as "The Outsider", which I think should make it clear

[Anonymous No.11479586]

>>11479055
?WHY DID I MOVE HERE?

[Anonymous No.11480179]

it was shit that's what it was. main character at first seems kinda nonchalant cool but is just a really fucking jerky dude, even a murderer. how am I supposed to relate to him, to be invested in him? very bad book.

[Anonymous No.11480269]

How can so many people miss the point of the book? I get that it takes some knowledge of Camus to understand it's essence, but I am sure most people can relate to Mersault to some degree.

To put it simply: the book is about a person being out of synch with the world: being part of it but at the same time not fitting into it. His character of non-rationality, impulsiveness and lack of emotion/meaning collide with the agenda's, emotions, desires and rationality of the people and the world around him.

Nothing shows this better than the scene of his trial: the court/jury/judges try to connect all the dots that lead up to the murder and that make Mersault seem like a psycho: humanity tries to put everything into reason, while for Mersault these things are just meaningless actions that stand alone and have no connection what so ever. The most harmful and decivise act that condemn him is his apathy towards his mother's death.

He is judged and prosecuted by humanity for his indifference to the world: the absurd.

[Anonymous No.11480666]

>>11476475
what why

[Anonymous No.11480685]

>>11476510
lemme break it down for you

>oh man im mersault life is ass cause nothing really matters man oh man im really depressed because of this >:(. nothing i do really has any relevant consequences. imma shoot this arab lole
>oh boy im about to die it seems the meaninglessness isnt as hostile as i had thought it is. it feels so warm now wowee it feel good UwU

[Anonymous No.11481196]

>>11476475
>>extreme manifestation of the 'absurdist'
>shut up..
If you actually knew anything about Camus you would know that the guy is correct in his statement. Go read The Myth of Sisyphus