[georgemcbay]

> It’s been a while, but I recall finding The Plague more compelling than The Stranger.

> While I agree with Camus’s philosophical points about the absurdity of existence and the indifference of the universe, within the scope of our tiny little lives there is morality and meaning.

I'm pretty sure later-life (relatively, since he died pretty young) Camus would agree with you. The way I view it, The Stranger was him diagnosing the problem of existential absurdism and The Plague was his answer to what you do about it after he discovered it himself as part of the French resistance.

The Stranger is, IMO, mostly interesting to see how his own views changed over those ~5 years and shouldn't really be an introduction to his philosophy.

[nchmy]

Yes, this is the mistake almost everyone makes - stopping at "life is absurd!". The rebel and the plague show how to do something meaningful in spite of that.

I've always pointed the Absurdists to his nobel prize speech as a quick way of showing them that they don't have the slightest idea of what he was talking about. The cognitive dissonance is generally too great, and the leave in a huff.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1957/camus/spee...

[mkovach]

I agree. Camus' work was a larger project. One he sadly never finished.

His works (essays, short stories, plays, etc.) build on one another, gradually unfolding an argument: first confronting the absurd, then asking how one should respond to it, and later exploring what it means to live and act in spite of it.