Yes, of course, the central character in The Stranger by Albert Camus, gets a bad rap. Meursault is sentenced to be executed. That's as bad a rap as you can get.
I first read it (in French: L'Étranger) in high school. It took me several decades to read it again, in English this time, one sweltering day on a beach under a torrid late summer sun, comme un été en Algérie.
Plot: Meursault's mother dies, but the vague telegram by which he is informed leads him to be unsure of the date of her death. This fact causes Meursault's growing reputation as indifferent, dispassionate and even heartless. He is surrounded at her funeral by an assortment of ugly characters whose piety nevertheless raises them Pharisee-like above Meursault's supposed detachment: a priest who calls Meursault 'my son' even though they've never met before; an aged 'boyfriend' from the mother's nursing home who ostentatiously doffs his hat; the funeral director, 'a little man in a ridiculous outfit'; and the long-faced unsmiling nurse who will later comment on Meursault's apathy. What hope did the reserved Meursault have against such a bunch of virtue-signallers?
Meursault subsequently helps a petty criminal friend, comforts a neighbour whose dog has died and finally - blinded by the sun - shoots a knife-wielding man in self-defence on the beach. For the latter, he is sentenced to death - largely on the grounds of character evidence from the virtuous crowd.
The book is littered with clues that Camus is toying with his readers. Generations have followed a false trail through Camus' semantic jungle, labelling Meursault 'existentialist' or 'nihilist' or other equally meaningless terms on the basis of a couple of meagre rationalisations, starting with his supposed indifference to his mothers' death (unprovable on the evidence in the book) and finally his 'rejection' of God (likewise: Meursault does not repudiate God, but insists to the prison chaplain that as a faith issue God cannot be 'rejected' and that he simply has no belief).
Ultimately, Meursault's 'existentialism' could be common sense or sheer honesty. After all, why should God suddenly become a necessity when you are about to die? He'll become apparent soon enough afterwards. Or not.
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The Outsider by Albert Camus, first published 1942; English translation by Joseph Laredo, 1982 (Penguin).
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