I started reading Albert Camus' The Outsider (L'Etranger) last night. It was incredibly beautiful when I started it, but I was simply too tired to read it (although intending to have an early night I ended up going to sleep probably around 1:30am).

Anyway, I was reading it this morning, but I realised I had to go off and run errands. So I took it with me to Cavendish. I started some of my errands, stopped for coffee at Vida and then I promptly finished the book. I couldn't help myself – it accelerated into absolute (yes this is a funny term to apply to the book) brilliance.

Having finished the story and having read the afterword by Camus I was stunned. I simply sat lopsided in my stool for about five minutes. Realised someone had noticed me and I got up. I was quite unfocused. I wondered around Cavendish in a jubilant daze, struck with both the horror and the glory of the book. It was an astonishing read, so valid. I immediately understood why he had received the Nobel at such a young age (as far as I know (and I haven't researched this properly) he was one of the youngest authors to receive the Nobel for Literature).

I don't think that everyone will have as vivid or as tumultuous a response to this book as I did (although many people claim it as one of their favourites I have been told). It is a remarkable book and deserves to be read, it could easily be read in an afternoon. I will read it again. Undoubtedly. I have this craving to read more of his work. I went into Exclusives and bought the plague, but I am going to force myself not to read it because I want to derive as much enjoyment from the reading of it, separate from The Outsider as I did from The Outsider.

I am not going to go into why I loved it so much, I will simply sponsor it as an incredible work of art and hope that my support of it will get you to read it. I know that many will dislike it, even be disgusted by it (not that there is much aesthetically wrong with it as far as I can tell), Afterwards, we can discuss it, think about it, chat, whatever. Just give it a read, it's only 118 pages.