Could any of us face the stark indifference of the universe courageously and alone? Camus offers us the character of Meursault in this novel of 1942, who attempts exactly that. Meursault is short on any kind of emotion and reacts (if at all) to the world with a kind of deadpan indifference.
The novel is an expression of absurdism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism) and the concise and pared down writing style of Camus perfectly matches the baldness of the outlook. It is a state of mind which has had profound influences on all aspects of culture in the twentieth century.
Listen to the BBC Radio 4 ‘In Our Time’ broadcast from January 2008 about Camus available as a podcast at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008kmqp
Follow up an interest in Camus with SAGI, Avi, Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd (Amsterdam: Rodopi,
2002) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Albert-Camus-Philosophy-Absurd-Sagi/dp/9042012307/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388234389&sr=8-1&keywords=sagi+camus)
and McCARTHY, Patrick, Camus: A Critical Study of his Life and Work (1982) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Albert-Camus-A-Critical-Study/dp/0241106036/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1388234336&sr=8-6&keywords=mccarthy+camus)
and for a more in depth approach HUGHES, E.J., The Cambridge Companion to Camus (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007) (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cambridge-Companion-Camus-Companions-Literature/dp/0521840481/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1388234268&sr=8-1)
Albert Camus gazing into the Absurd
128 pages in Penguin Modern Classics paperback edition.
ISBN 978-0141182506