Camus’s affectless protagonist mirrored both his own trauma and wartime France’s suppressed surface

Evidence

It may seem odd that the man Beauvoir described as warm, funny and gushingly emotional should have been able to write so well about a man who is an affectless blank — or who, at least, cannot express emotion in the ways society expects. It is not hard to find possible reasons in his background: his father’s pointless death, his own recurrent life-threatening illness, and his whole family’s silence and disconnection. Yet the novel also captures something of the French wartime experience in general: again there is that seemingly bland surface, under which the abyss lurks. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 482

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Existentialist theme of lived experience beneath social masks; ties to the ‘weariness tinged with amazement’ moment in [485] and to Sartre’s nausea. — connects to: Camus’s absurdist trilogy emerged directly from pre-war Paris alienation — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 452; Camus’ The Stranger drew on his own disorientation while traveling abroad — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 1472

Broader Connections

• Camus’ The Stranger drew on his own disorientation while traveling abroad #corroborates (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1472