Talk:The Stranger (novel)
From Academic Kids
I always thought that this was best translated as The Outsider; I know it's been published as The Stranger but certainly I wouldn't search for this work under The Stranger but as The Outsider. I suspect I am not alone. user:sjc
hey, i understand, and you're right to a point, and it might be a regional thing too, but the french translation is 'foreigner'...I just googled it http://translate.google.com/
- I tend to agree with you, sjc - The Outsider is more familiar to me as well, but a Google search on "'The Stranger' Camus" comes up with a lot more hits than "'The Outsider' Camus". The book has been translated as both, so it doesn't matter that much which one the article is at, so long as there is a redirect from the other name. --Camembert
Personally, I know it best by the French title (probably because I read it for a French language class...) As such "The Stranger" is immediately recognizable; "The Outsider" less so. --Brion 19:50 Oct 20, 2002 (UTC)
Should I really state what I think of having l'Etranger under the title of The Stranger. That's a shame !!! But, of course, I will be told that this is an english wiki with english titles, english everything. Still, that translation is horrible.
This said, Magreb is a bunch of several countries (as defined in the text). I might be wrong, but as far as I know, Pieds noirs are french people who got to Algeria, stay there for a while (more than a generation), and then come back. Most of the Pieds-Noirs settled in Marseille region, Toulon, St Raphaël...A couple of people think they refer not only to french but more widely to europeans, but always, who had been in Algeria only. Not the whole Magreb. This is important imho. I'll check more though.
Reference article http://www.ifrance.com/memo2/pages/nosori.htm
According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), when a non-English book is written up, the article should be named for the most commonly used English title. So I guess The Stranger is what's best. —LarryGilbert 22:41, 2004 Mar 31 (UTC)
(note: my first language is French) I see no reason for the comment concerning l'étranger being rightly translated as 'foreigner'. Étranger does have several meanings in French that need to be disentangled. It does have the connotation of external to one's country, as in Affaires Étrangères => Foreign Affairs. However, it also has the connotation of a generic person unknown to you. In the context of Camus' book I would say that Mersault is an étranger in the sense that he is a stranger in the sense that is world is unknown to even himself. Camus focuses a lot on the way Mersault is unaffected by the world around him, hence making himself a stranger to everyone including himself. Therefore I think the comment about foreigner be removed --Pmineault 06:16, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Did Meursault commit murder?
I was always under the impression from reading l'Etranger that Meursault didn't kill the Arab on purpose, which the word murder would suggest. I think kill would be a better word for describing it.
- I agree that 'kill' would probably be a better word, though I almost wish there was a word in-between 'murder' and 'kill', because its not like any of his explanations actually make sense as far as an accidental shooting go (or, really, as reasons for murder). -Seth Mahoney 02:35, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)
Was this novel actually influenced by Heidegger, as the article says? That seems unlikely to me. --Ilyusha
I haven't read this novel but I was told at school that it is the only French novel written in the perfect tense (all other novels being in the past historic), and that this in itself gives it a feeling of alienation. I don't know if this is true, but if it is, it's worth someone adding to the article. Ben Finn 22:32, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I attempted to clean up this page a bit and add sections. Also, I changed the translation note to reflect Pmineault's comment. removed the clean-up tag, if someone thinks this page still needs clean up, please either clean it up yourself, or return the tag and write on the talk page what is missing.--darkskyz 12:29, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
