The Outsider, written by French author Albert Camus, is a book about a small piece of the life of a normal man, Meursault. After his mother’s funeral in the countryside, he goes back to the city he works in. He makes friends with some of his neighbors, and he hang out with a girl named Marie. But one day, when he visits his friends, he is attacked by an Arab; he is arrested and stays in jail for several months. Because of his personality, the lawyer cannot protect him so he is sent to death. 

The entire storyline is flat compared to other novels I have read, because there is no exciting ups and downs or interesting imaginations. However, what I really like about this book is the description of details. The author is very good at depicting natural scenes and people. For example, in order to show the weather of a summer morning, he does not say “very hot,” but rather “The sky was already bathed in sunlight. It was beginning to weigh down heavily on the earth and the heat intensified with every passing minute…All I could feel was the blood pounding against my temples.” The author not only shows what the weather looks like, but also describes the character’s bodily feeling in that temperature, which helps the audience get the feeling as if they were in the story. From this, it is easier to understand how the depiction of any bodily reaction in some sort of surrounding environment can help reflect how the circumstance is, which sometimes cannot be described directly. 

Albert describes people’s appearances and movements mostly in the second part, when the story is happening in the court. Every time when a new character is introduced, the author mentions much about his or her dress, attitude, and any actions even including the details that would be ignored by most people, such as “wiped his forehead,” and “He was wearing enormous glasses with black rims and looked like a fat teasel…”Again, the author uses descriptive phrases to help the audience envision what a character looks like by providing insight of what Meursalt associates with when he sees others. 

It would be good to remember some of the sentences used as a model for one’s own writing. It may help one learn about what kind of description should be use in a specific situation, and allow one to better express one’s own feelings.