The Meursault Investigation 1st Edition by Kamel Daoud (Author), John Cullen (Translator) (Other Press #OtherPress)

On the book jacket of this novel, a reviewer writes that The Meursault Investigation is "a worthy complement to its great predecessor" [Albert Camus' The Stranger]. I wouldn't go that far. Daoud's novel lacks the solid, strong existential and absurdist underpinnings of Camus's work. And, honestly, I almost gave up on the book after I'd read the first couple of chapters. Sort of gimmicky. A retelling of so many plot details from The Stranger, as well as references to so many of its characters (Salamano, Raymond, Marie, the robot lady, etc.). In addition, the post-colonial approach to decolonization, to cultural displacement and to being "unhomed" in one own country is familiar ground at this point in literature, including the "mimicry" of the subjugated individual who feels compelled to learn the language of his oppressors. I get it.


What crept on me---slowly, gradually---was the subtle evolution of the novel's narrator Harun. Progressively, as this short novel unfolds, Harun starts sounding more and more like Camus' Meursault in his assaults on government officials, the judicial system, human hypocrisy, futility of effort, the stupidity of love, the absence of God, and how all religions falsify the weight of the world. And, like Meursault, I think that Harun steps into his true existential self only in the final pages of the novel. In a way---and this is why I ultimately came to appreciate the novel--- this is not the story of The Stranger from an Arab point of view--this is the more universal story of the absurd existence of all humankind, from Algeria to France to every corner of this weird and incomprehensible planet where we are all strangers to one another, and to ourselves. Where we are persecuted for not belonging to the group, for refusing to belong. And how clever Daoud sometimes is in this novel, like when he substitutes the Magistrate waving a crucifix in Merusault's face with the officer in the Army of National Liberation (waving the little Algerian flag in Harun's face and asking "Do you know what this is?"). An excellent transition that speaks volumes about authority, power and societal norms.

And Harun hates Fridays (as Meursault hated Sundays) because of his aversion to Islamic rituals? Ouch!

Intentionally or unintentionally, the murdered Musa in Daoud's novel becomes just as lost in the shuffle as the nameless Arab in The Stranger, as Daoud's investigation into the meaning of life broadens its scope. Also, what seems most interesting is Harun's relationship with his mother---so crippling and debilitating.

I did not like Daoud's lengthy, verbatim borrowing of the text of the Stranger towards the end. It didn't quite work for me. I don't think that was necessary or effective. Still, the novel overall is well worth reading---much better also if you have already read The Stranger.