Absolutely, the original ranch buildings already burnt down, it sounds like long past time to leave everything about this in the past.

https://blog.humanesociety.org/2018/07/a-death-at-chincoteague-once-again.html

There are already so many domestic ponies needing safe homes, without preserving a contribution to the problem.

Ironic that the ranch buildings all burned down a couple of years ago since the funds raised by the famous pony run are supposed to go to the town fire department, which if it was true must have been the best funded fire department on delmarva.

I read this

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Dude can we please just leave nature the fuck alone.

Oh no! I hadn’t heard this! I’ve never visited Chincoteague, but we vacationed on Assateague when I was small, and I adored the book.

I frequent Chincoteague regularly. I’m an engineer for NG and we process our cargo module for the ISS in Wallops. I will absolutely donate! Thanks for sharing this!

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I think it’s personal interpretation/background. I “understood” The stranger and Crime and Punishment, but I did not The Little Prince.
Quotes because Dostoyevsky can’t be understood IMO, just felt.
My point, it’s up to every individual. If the book made you think outside your box, it worked

Can only hope you're trolling

For some reason I don’t think he’s a sociopath at all. I know the shoe fits and all, but there’s something much more relatable to his lack of feeling. And I think that’s half the point of the book. Anyways. Thanks for the post. I love this book so much.

And to my point earlier— we do everything we can to try and socialize humans nowadays. But I don’t think that’s what created writers like Camus—guitarist like Hendrix—thinkers like— poets like Thomas etc etc etc. We do lose sincerity as we try to fit in with others, and when we lose sincerity, we also lose a natural ability to think differently with imagination. And to me— we’re living through times that reflect that problem.

Well— I read it in University. Prime years of development for a kids disposition in the world. My take away was this: Most of our social interactions are based on our need to fit in, and if one was to turn off that part of your brain— which people do— I think they would be heavily punished for it just as the main character was in this novel.

Great post and sums it up well

That's fine! After you read it, you came away with what exactly? If I may ask you to provide a sentence or two

I think this book is more of a must read than ever in todays society.

I haven't read it in a long time, but the impression I was left with is that Meursalt is existential in philosophy. But he takes it to a place of nothing matters so I'll just swim through life and what happens happens. (As opposed to a more positive form of existential philosophy - nothing matters and therefor I get to create my own meaning)

It's an overrated /r/im14andthisisdeep book with a poorly presented message. Authors like Kafka and Gogol did existentialism better. Its only saving grace is the iconic first line.

(By the way, why is this man always writing about Arabs?)

Wasn’t East of Eden a Cain and Abel story? I read it so long ago I don’t remember anything except it being about two brothers.

Philosophy graduate here, I've read the book, and I don't think anyone is too stupid to understand the book, it just requires you to think in a different frame of reference. It's been a long time since I read the book, and a proper analysis would probably run to novel length, but I'll try to summarise if I can.

Meursault is a character very much operating on his own wavelength. He simply doesn't see the merit or meaning of the kind of social and interpersonal structures that other people take so much for granted that it's hard to see past them.

The trial at the end is a really good example of all of this. At first instance, Meursault is French and his victim is Algerian. Politically this means he really does have every possible opportunity to make something up and people will convince themselves that his story is the truth and then he will be set free. He doesn't do this, because it would be inauthentic to do so. He spends his trial concerned with the fact that he's too hot, the possibility that he might be imprisoned, executed even, is nothing he worries about.

The key point here is authenticity. At every point, Meursault is exactly who he is, expresses exactly what he is thinking and feeling, and often that is apposite to the customs (like drinking coffee during the vigil) and social mores of his time (like not protecting himself in the trial even when people are expecting him to do so). When he tells his casual sexual partner that he "probably doesn't" love her, he's being authentic, but it's to his detriment.

What this means is that his immediate concerns are way more important to him than conceptual ones. When he shoots the Algerian, he does so simply because he wants to get some water because it's hot. He doesn't have any higher motive than that. When he's in the prison cell, he manages to be quite happy, remarking that you can get used to anything, because his experience of life expands and contracts with his circumstances without his intervention.

What Meursault is missing is a psychological conception of the future. When we plan, or consider things, we make strategic decisions about how and what we choose to do. We construct rational arguments for why we might do this or that thing, and then use those reasoned constructs to inform behaviour. The problem is that this can be conflicting with our feelings, and to existentialists like Camus or Sartre this was inauthentic because it didn't reflect the reality of what the person was thinking or feeling.

I see this in two ways. Meursault is completely authentic in every way, he never lies, or hides anything from anyone even when it would be to his advantage. He refuses to feel differently, or pretend to feel differently, for the comfort or benefit of anyone else. In this way he is wholly himself in a way other people are not. He is univocal, straightforward, and unsentimental.

On the other hand, he is willfully ignorant of the feelings of his fellow men and women, to the point where he simply is unable to understand why they would need to inform their impression of his character by tertiary sources. He fails completely to grasp the social shorthand of interpersonal interactions, and doesn't use them to his benefit even when it would be moral and sensible to do so.

I think it would absolutely help to learn a bit about Camus' philosophy first. To me, reading it through this lens, the stranger is an exercise in absurdism. And without this absurdist background, this would just be a book about a sociopath. But it's not.

Mersault is simply fully aware of the meaninglessness of life and the complete and utter indifference of the universe towards him. So he lives indifferent to it. He's not excited about a job in Paris, because that doesn't matter to him. This is also why he isn't sad about his mother's death. He seems to be perpetually living in the now, focusing on the tangible world around him rather than emotions. At least, that's what I get from it.

You can just not find it meaningful?

It doesn't mean it is a bad book or that you are a bad reader, but nobody has a "perfect" understanding of literally any book ever. Not even the author themselves.

Just read more and these things come easier, but don't expect to be a literary critic and philosopher right off the gate.

To be honest I think rather than studying philosophy you might want to try just reading lighter books. If you're not particularly drawn to reading, it suggests you're not that interested in the books you're picking up. Why not try some popular fiction? You develop your critical reading skills with everything you read, not just the big serious heavy books, and after a while you might find you come back to something like The Stranger with a new perspective.

You can't act like a sociopath if you're not one. But I would guess Meursault is a psychopath, not a sociopath. While both are antisocial, there has been some talk of prosocial or maybe neutrally social psychopaths who still don't feel things but also don't go out of their way to hurt people. They generally just want to leave people alone and be left alone in turn. But as you see in the novel, that's really not an option in our very social world.