What literary work is similar to The Stranger by Camus?

Answer 1

Are you looking for another work by Camus, or another work similar to The Stranger (by a different author)? Another popular existentialist work is "The Little Prince" by Antoine Saint-Exupery. They don't appear to be very similar on the surface, but they have the same philosophical base (so there are a lot of similarities once you start looking for them).

Answer 2

There's nothing quite like The Stranger. It's one of those works of art that are so complete, there's not much to say about them except maybe, "oh."

You might enjoy some of Camus' other novels, such as The Fall. The Fall is basically a one-sided conversation in which a guy at a bar tells a listener about how his life fell apart. You might want to consider A Happy Death and The Plague as well.

Answer 3

'similar how' is the first thing that came to mind. There are lots of books that are similar in theme. I'll restrict myself to what i've personally read so I can give a personal recommendation.

'Nausea' and 'No Exit', by Sartre
Notes from the underground, by Dostoevsky
The Trial, by Kafka
'Waiting for Godot' and 'Murphy', by Beckett
The Balcony, by Jean Genet
or even more Camus. I really enjoyed 'the plague'.

Of course, none of them quite have Camus sense of language and style and you might even find lots of major differences, but these thinkers do generally concern themselves with the same ideas of responsibility, interpersonal alienation, a persons place in the cosmos, personal meaning, God, and other similar ideas.

As for the differences in style and so on. Dostoevsky is much more wordy and does a lot more psychological analysis, Kafka is stark, bare, and surrealistic and not as easy to read as Camus I think. Beckett is also sparse with the language and has a more intellectual type of humor. Sartre comes closest to matching Camus themes but writes like a philosopher, a bit too obviously and rigidly, not as freeflowing or as good a writer as Camus in my opinion. Genet writes in a very sensual way kinda similar to Camus.

Also, there's nothing wrong with other texts by the same writers as well. but it may be better to read the ones i suggested first as they're shorter texts so you can get a sense of whether you even like it or not before investing in a larger book by the author.

Answer 4

the danger by shamus