The Stranger Archive
Finding Shape in an Indifferent Universe
While some critics dismiss fractals as faddish or overly applied, they do offer a compelling vision of a natural world governed by order, pattern, and predictable expansion. And envisioning the world as an organized and predictable place feels mighty tempting.
Fiction Responding to Fiction: Nunez, Rushdie, and Seidlinger
The writers discussed the many ways in which fiction can respond to fiction. Of particular note was the impetus for using a particular source text—what inspired the response—and the extent to which a retelling can or should stand on its own without an intimate knowledge of the original.
Review: YOU TOO CAN HAVE A BODY LIKE MINE by Alexandra Kleeman
YOU TOO CAN HAVE A BODY LIKE MINE Alexandra Kleeman Harper, August 2015 283 pp, $25.99 Buy hardcover | eBook | trade paperback | audio Seeming unmoored from both tangible responsibility and abstract constructs, like Mersualt in Camus’ The Stranger, “A”—the narrator of Alexandra Kleeman’s debut novel You Too
Do-Overs: The Bad Guy Has a Moment
Complicated bad guys are nothing new. There’s something delicious about complex entertainment; we’re able to envision ourselves in the shoes of the antihero and exact revenge or serve righteous justice, but we’re also able to vicariously live through their actions that lie outside the boundaries of acceptable behavior. When
Do-Overs: The Meursault Question
Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation is getting a lot of attention. This retelling of Camus’ classic The Stranger imagines the eyes that stare down Meursault’s gun. The unnamed Arab from the original is given a name, Musa, and a brother, Harun, who tells the family’s story in a bar.