Our neighborhood book club read The Stranger by Albert Camus. Everyone thought it was worth reading, and we had a good discussion about the fiction/story aspect of the novel, the philosophical aspects, and the psychological possibilities. Probably modern readers immediately focus on the last possibility as think, “Oh, some guy with severe Asperger’s syndrome?” I don’t really think Camus intended that. I found it an excellent provocation for thinking about meaning in a world without external “truths” that by osmosis infuse lives with meaning. the scene of the prosecutor and his crucifix was key, for me, in underscoring that point. Just as the reader is intended to think, “How could anyone actually think that?” Camus is asking, “How is that different, really, from any other meaning-infusing story about the universe?” Fortunately, I was born with the pragmatic get on with life gene, so I spent only a few minutes feeling that despair, before “i should feed my sourdough starter” popped into brain. I did read in French, and enjoyed a few interesting words not immediately obvious to me from context. Followup is to reread Bartleby, The Scrivener, which anticipated Camus by almost by 100 years.