I must admit that I feel I didn't fully understand this book. I was cynical about Camus' writing style at the beginning of the novel and never really gave it a chance. Then I began to discover his brilliance in his writing. Yet I still couldn't shake a certain cynicism I held within me as I was reading it. And cynicism certainly doesn't lend itself very well to the exploration of happiness.
With that being said, I also must degree that this book made me this the most about what true happiness is. Not only in the context of this particular novel, but in how it applies to my life as well. I left this book with the question still looming in my head that I was thinking about all throughout the text, is happiness an emotion or a state of being? I found it so fascinating that the more I read of Meursault's actions and lack of "rational" thought, the more I found myself thinking like him. I don't think I'd classify myself as an absurdist in everyday life, but it truly amazed me how I almost began to think that one, or think like Meursault at any rate, throughout the novel. The idea that there is no rhyme, reason, or meaning to anything in life or life as a whole for that matter struck me very deeply.
I'm still pretty clueless how to answer this question as it applies to my life. But for the book, I think I've concluded that it is neither an emotion or a state of being. It simply doesn't exist. Yet just because there isn't happiness, doesn't mean that it's a constant depression. There's just a void of anything besides the stark facts and actions of reality the happen to the characters. There are no dreams, there are no real thinkings of the future. There is not a tone of happiness or depression. Even at the end of the novel when Meursault is very aware of his impending death and he becomes angry towards the guard and starts to feel some of passion for the yelling crowd outside, it didn't strike me as an emotional scene. It almost had an animalistic quality about it. Nothing about this book is emotional or well thought out in the eyes of the characters.
So, I really don't think happiness is anything in The Stranger. It's not filled with sadness either. I simply believe it's void of any emotion or state of being altogether. Events just happens, consequences follow, and the stone is perpetually pushed up the hill.
