The Meursault Investigation: A Novel

_The Stranger_ is the classic of existential lit. Daoud's novel is the parallel, antithetical, yet reduplicated story of the unnamed 'Arab' whom the anti-hero of Camus' novel kills. But, be warned - If you haven't read _The Stranger_ recently and haven't had to read it critically, then The Meursault Investigation will fall short. The brilliance of this novel is the layering that creates at first a contrast between Camus' Meursault and Daoud's narrator Harun, who tells the story of his dead brother Musa - 'the Arab' shot in Camus's novel -- but ultimately shows they are two sides of a single coin. Absence of a god versus the killing of god/religion; the death of an unnamed local by a privileged colonial vs the death of a colonial after the end of the war for independence; the failure of that war and independence to live up to the expectations of those who wanted better and how the victors destroyed their own world in that reach for freedom; and trials not for killing someone but for their failures of character -- these are some of the complex comparisons and contrasts Daoud explores as his narrator tells his tale in bar over a series of nights. We are eavesdroppers on an intimate conversation 70 years after the death of Musa. We only hear one side, but the interviewer carries his copy of _The Stranger_ (here presented as a factual account written by Meursault) and we can glean what it is he asks periodically. Harun is witty, and contemplative, but angry and obsessed, his entire life revolved around the incident of his brother's death and the book written about it. He is a hard man, and ultimately unsympathetic. There were moments where I wondered if his brother had been in fact the 'Arab' at all - that instead he became the substitute for the brother that disappeared and gave him a target for his righteous indignation at the colonists and the religious. This is the type of novel that provokes thought, and argument, but leaves no solution, ties up no threads, fills in no blanks. It is the type of novel that inspires critical papers and if I were still teaching high schoolers, I'd pair these two novels because, in the end, they enhance each other while simultaneously making us question both.

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.

This is a classic example of a book the critics were too kind too.It's not a bad book and you're bound to be intrigued by it if you are interested in Algeria- I am- and have read The Stranger.But notice , I've already listed two conditions, a bad omen !The style is taken from Camus' The Fall, a strange book I love.The story is , obviously, based on The Stranger.The premise is that the brother of the dead Arab in The Stranger gets to tell his story.That doesn't really make sense.I feel like laughing, This is a novel .The Stranger is a novel.Are we in a meta novel land? Is Meusault really the author of The Stranger and is it really an autobiographical account ?He didn't get executed? Well why nitpick! More important is the book is absurdly repetitive.If the author says it once , he says it five times.The dead Arab never comes to life.instead we have his sad sack brother who is a bit of a bore.Perhaps. he's a metaphor for Algeria , which sounds dull and repressed.( So sad when you think of the dynamic pop music scene that existed not that long ago, especially in Oran , where much of this novel is So what's worthwhile here? I just said Algeria sounds dull but what a great fascinating and martyred country! So many in the third world placed so many hopes on the Algerian Revolution to see it degenerate in the hands of military oligarchs and Islamist fanatics who tore the country apart for a second time.What you see here is the massive hangover that isn't even allowed to be alcoholic.Our Virgil in this Hell is the sad narrator.He does score some points and Douad can write and is - to quote the movie Hustle and Flow- a brave mother.Read this book and I urge you to read Aziz Chouaki's powerful and brilliant The Star of Algiers and Boualem Sansal"s Harraga- not as good but perhaps necessary! You'll get a bit of an education.For that matter give a listen to Cheb Zahouani's Moul El Bar- another brave mother!

This is an excellent novel that, despite its brevity, packs quite a punch. It would be very difficult to appreciate The Meursault Investigation without having read The Stranger, if you are planning on reading this book do yourself a favor and read The Stranger. If you haven't read The Stranger, you can easily do so in a lesiurely afternoon at a coffee shop. And if you haven't read The Stranger since High School, read it again. It is very unlikely that you appreciated it in High School. The Meursault Investigation is the story (as told by Daoud) of one of the characters from Camus' book. Without giving anything away from either book, this character had only a brief scene in The Stranger, but was the hinge-point of that novel. Daoud takes one of the seminal works of 20th Century literature and gives us a plausible and moving backstory on one of the characters - quite a unique feat. The writing style (like with The Stranger) is easy to follow, and the story is straight-forward. Those who appreciate fiction cannot deny the importance and influence of The Stranger, and The Meursault Investigation would be of interest to anyone who read Camus. There are many books that center on characters from the Canon, and many that fail either because they don't match the mood of what the original work they are springing from or because the writing isn't even close to the writing of the original author. The Meursault Investigation is one that succeeds. And if you don't like it (and you read The Stranger), then I will send you a piece of cheese pizza and a diet coke.

this fine short novel could be read as a stand-alone, i guess, but i suspect it's best enjoyed after reading albert camus' "the stranger"(sometimes translated as "the other) whose main character is the meursault of this "investigation." the book is a widening out of the story in the french existentialist classic, narrated by the arab victim's younger brother, this beautifully observed and smartly observant novel gives family and humanity and dimension (not to mention a name!) to the anonymous arab victim whom meursault murders -- seemingly at random, the author both echoes and refracts camus' highly praised prose which, by his own admission, the author-as-narrator here can never quite match. still, it's very engaging -- though less riveting than I expected based on the reviews. there are excellent "set-pieces" and revelations throughout, though, for me, rather unevenly distributed. (one great revelation is presented very, very late.) even so, this novel is a powerful rejoinder to -- occasionally a rebuke of -- the infamously famous "the stranger."

"L'Etranger" being one of my favorite novels of all time, I tucked into this book with high hopes based especially on the title. I appreciate the fact that the author is trying to pay tribute to two of the works of Albert Camus, basing his novel more or less on the plot of "L'Etranger" while employing the writing style and devices of "La Chute," and for the shamefully little that I know of modern Algerian politics Kamel Daoud may have achieved his expository goal in flying colors. Even allowing for that, though, "The Meursault Investigation" is repetitive and quickly became boring to me, mainly because of two plot twists that were virtually unbelievable: in this reading of the fictional events, there was no relationship between Sintes' mistress with any of the Arabs who followed Meursault, Sintes, and Marie to the beach, and more importantly, no one was ever able to find the body of the murdered Arab, thus basing Meursault's execution solely on the basis of circumstantial evidence! How and why, then, was Meursault arrested? Who witnessed the murder besides he himself and the other Arabs, and was he therefore convicted in a French-Algerian court on the basis of the testimony of one or two members of a race that even Daoud admits the pieds-noirs considered inferior and untrustworthy? The two ideas are absolutely as annoying as the fact that William Faulkner based his arguably greatest work, "As I Lay Dying," in a universe without flies, but in Faulkner's work the poetry of his style made his books successful. No such mitigating circumstance here, although I admit that it's entirely possible that "The Meursault Investigation" may very well lose much of its punch in translation.

I was first introduced to Kamel Daoud's latest work, The Meursault Investigation through various reviews most of which recognized it's importance and some of which suggested that it was an instant classic. With anticipatory curiosity I ordered it, only to discover that one needed to first reacquaint oneself with Camus' The Stranger. That was evident in the mirror like structure of both works each of which are divided into two separate parts, each beginning with similar wording relating to philosophical issues of death and hate. Sort of like discovering an insect on the kitchen counter, and then evaluating its existence in terms of the chain of being - I was forced into an awareness of the historic setting of each book: Camus' Algerian war of independence and Daoud's Algerian Civil war, both of which are trapped in the parallel philosophical absurdity of their respective times. Quite evident these are philosophical issues, unfortunately trapped in the logic inherent in modern western thought that can only conceive of universal matters such a hate and love in terms of created secondary realities created by a system which leads to the nothingness of absurdity. A recognition of this dead end is evident in Daoud's venture into Buddhist thought, where he finds not nothingness but emptiness -- no one there, the mosque is empty, the minaret is empty "It's emptiness itself." Hopefullly he will continue this investigation. This in my understanding of Daoud's venture into what I consider an unrecognized philosophical "Vedic awakening" which is occurring, parallel with an "ideological" so called Arab awakening which underlies much of today's middle east political confusion . I look forward to Mr. Daoud's future work as he frees himself from the chains of positivism which underlies much of the western scientific view verses the equally troublesome Muslim theological view . We are a log way from clarification of these issues, but I think Daoud is aware of the nature of the problem in our continuing quest for meaning.. Therein lies the importance of his work for all of us. .

I rarely write book reviews online, as I teach literary criticism and try not to sound highfalutin or judgmental in my reviews. I had a difficult time reading this book, though it is fairly short. The premise, of course, is interesting, told as it is from the viewpoint of the brother of the Arab, who was killed by Meursault in Albert Camus's _The Stranger_. But the story dragged on in a defensive tone without the critical nuance we see in many novels and stories from a postcolonial perspective. The fact that the murdered Arab had no voice, and that someone now had to give voice to the silenced victims of colonial oppression, has been repeated so often that it has become a trope. Without mentioning his name, Daoud portrays Camus, a brilliant philosopher novelist, who himself was disparaged by the members of the French literati like Jean-Paul Sartre as the "Other" (a French Algerian), as the colonizing silencer. While the premise of resurrecting the murdered Arab as a flesh and blood person, who was a good son and a brother and a person of integrity, was a promising beginning, the story slipped quickly into a monotonous monologue--literally--and turned what could have been a novelistic postcolonial critique into the defensive yammer of a man tormented more by his mother than by the loss of his brother. One final twist at the end of the story, which broke the monotony, increased my rating from two stars to three.

Clever premis but did drone on

Beautiful

THE MERSAULT INVESTIGATION (no francês original, “Mersault, contre-enquête”), do jornalista argelino Kamel Daoud, é, geralmente, chamado de uma releitura de O ESTRANGEIRO, de Albert Camus, mas eu acho que a palavra ‘resposta’ é mais honesta. Publicado na França em 2013, o romance dialoga com a obra original ao contar uma história a partir do ponto de vista daqueles que lá são silenciados. Aqui, o narrador/protagonista/foco narrativo é o irmão do personagem chamado apenas de O Árabe no livro original, que irá contar a história de vida de seu irmão e o que aconteceu com sua família depois do assassinato. A estrutura estabelece um diálogo do narrador com o leitor – que se materializa na figura de um estudante com quem ele conversa num bar (algo parecido com o que Moshin Hamid fez em THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST). Num fluxo que combina diversos momentos do passado dele e sua família, ele vai e volta no tempo, e resgata numa intertextualidade discreta a narrativa do Estrangeiro. Daoud não faz de seu romance um espelho do de Camus, não, ele cria uma trama própria, mas que, a partir de agora, deve ser impossível reler o original sem ler este. Escrevendo em francês, Daoud toma a língua do colonizador para si, e faz dela o seu instrumento, esmiuçando um passado colonial, e um futuro e um presente de incertezas. No momento em que vivemos – especialmente com a xenofobia crescente – a voz do autor surge com força, levantando questionamentos e clamando uma revisão histórica. Creio que muita atenção se deu ao livro de Houellebecq, SUBMISSÃO, mas acho que esse, sim, é o livro importante, que merece ser lido e entrar para a posteridade. Está previsto para ser lançado no Brasil ainda esse ano.

The translator John Cullen may indeed have been a foremost translator, but his English grammar is irritatingly awful. Most odd!

Simultaneously demanding and captivating in all the best ways of literature.