"The Stranger" by Albert Camus. A dramanaut review ( spoilers inside )

I am doing this review right after finishing reading the text, but without looking online for what the book is about. Everything listed below is my own view:

1. I felt like I was reading something important that I could not grasp. Like I could understand it was important, but I could not figure out why.

2. I think the basic conclusion of the book is that one life lived is like any other. The universe doesn't care specially for any of us. It is only the judgement of man that gives value to our actions. The main character himself has not in any way acted in a way that truly made him evil. He simply went through life, getting along with those who accepted him and not getting along with those who didn't. The people that society valued more were the ones whose opinion of the main character society accepted.

3. It's a very honest and uncomfortable look into human psychology. We are good and bad by the standards of the people of our time.

4. I think the title of the novella " The stranger" refers to how the man was a stranger to his own mother, how by his strange ways he was a stranger to the society around him, and how he was even a stranger to himself, simply living life from moment to moment, without care for right or wrong.

5. Another conclusion of the story is that one is only well placed to accept the life he has. Everything else is imaginative play. As long as you accept the life you are given you can make peace with it. I personally disagree with this conclusion because I can see such a nature easily being taken advantage of by anyone who wanted to exploit people for their benefit. Humanity did not move forward in the evolutionary arms race by simply accepting their place.

6. I believe even Albert Camus admits that this philosophy is not meant to get you ahead in life, as in his very story he does not depict the narrator as a winner in life. Albert Camus's view seems to be more about what he believes the world is rather than whether that is a good or bad thing.

7. This makes the novella a refreshing read, as it has one of those rare characters who is not spending the story defending himself as a good man. Most novels appear to be focused on showing the main characters point of view as being naturally good or misunderstood. Here the character does not appear to fall into such a natural state. For all appearances he would have been condemned to die even if the jury could understand exactly how he felt about things and what he thought of them.

8. I am confused as the why the woman Marie loved the main character. I am assuming its a mix of Camus using Marie as a tool to keep the attention of the reader ( Hot woman inside. Look our guy gets laid ), and as a self insert of how his relationships go where he just goes through life and ends up getting laid a whole lot but there isn't any great technique or thought to it beyond how the main character went about it.

9. Another theme in the story appears to be how the people would condemn a man not for the crimes that he commits but for any appearance of a bad character he might have. Or punish him in one place for something unrelated he did in another place. For a man to condemn you it needn't require for you to be guilty, but only for you to be disliked to their sensibilities.

10. One bit that hit me specially was when the main character was talking to the jailer about how not being able to touch a woman seemed like double punishment and the jailer explained how that was the taking away of liberty, and I am just thinking of how strange it sounded to hear liberty be used synonymously with making love to a woman. It made sense but still felt so strange to hear. Not in a bad way, it just really justaposed how we live life right now in society and how strange we have become and how not free we are even as we speak of being free.

Final thoughts: Life is. There is nothing more or less to it than that. Make of it what you will.

Your thoughts?