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Albert Camus, 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

We read The Stranger for the first time in college. Fast. From “Mother died today” to “they should greet me with howls of execration,” it felt like one sharp intake of breath. We weren’t sure we understood it, but we had a sense that this was not merely a book to read for class. It was a guide.

On November 7 we mark the centennial of Camus’s birth. The only way to honor a writer who has meant so much to us is to ensure that his work lives on and is read by as wide an audience as possible.

Let’s translate The Stranger into Tagalog.

Unfortunately our French is nonexistent, but we can use the English translation by Stuart Gilbert, the full text of which is available at the Internet Archive. It’s a short book, just 76 pages that we will divide among our translation volunteers. (If we get ten volunteers, that’s only 7 pages each.)

Our ancient paperback of The Stranger

You do not have to have beautiful Tagalog to join the translation team. Our goal is to come up with an accessible translation for the general reader. Later, we can ask an editor to go over our draft. (And then we can do a Camus podcast series and record different people reading The Stranger in Tagalog.)

To join our team of translators, drop us a line in Comments. We will post the page assignments tomorrow night.

Our translation volunteers will receive assorted books by Albert Camus courtesy of our friends at National Bookstore.

Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.

Commissioned by J.J. Abrams who, between Star Trek and Star Wars projects, still has the time to think up these things.

– Hmm.
– Hmmm.
– This prologue with Elves just screams Peter Jackson’s Weta Digital. I’m going to call the villain Bad Legolas.
– Asgard looks like Rohan, Gondor and Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings movies.
– And the score is very Howard Shore.
– It’s kind of crowded. I recall Asgard being more…monumental in the first movie.
– (Moment of respectful silence as Thor takes his shirt off.)
– Who directed this?
– Alan Taylor. Did several Game of Thrones episodes.
– Did he do the Red Wedding?
– Naah, that was David Nutter.
– Game of Thrones has a movie feel, this has a TV feel. As in network TV.
– Yeah, I get the impression that the director was directed by a lot of people.
– That’s what happens when you have a big movie franchise. Too many cooks. All of them trying to relieve the pressure of making 200 million dollars on the first weekend.
– Aaaaa! Loki looks like he’s auditioning for a Goth band.
– Or covered in Ly-Na pearl cream.
– That’s it?? Jane Foster’s been looking for him for two years and he just appears?
– I think they crammed in too many plot points, characters, details to satisfy the fanboys, so everything feels rushed. There’s no time to enjoy the moment.
– Why is Erik Selvig suddenly a comic character? He was a serious man in Thor and in The Avengers.
– Maybe there’s a clause in the Skarsgard family contract that says they all have to be naked.
– If someone had to be naked, why couldn’t it be Chris Hemsworth?
– Darcy gets some funny lines, but they fall flat because they’re not set up right.
– The sudden tone shifts from serious to comic are jarring.
– Even in the big emotional moments, you feel like you’re being rushed. Hurry, hurry, we still have a lot to work in.
– I liked the Branagh Thor, it was all about character.
– Remember, this isn’t just a movie anymore, it’s an installment in a big franchise that is part of an even bigger franchise. They have to expand on stuff from the earlier movies and then set up plotlines for the next several movies.
– Disney, will you please allow Loki to be an evil supervillain already? Get over your crush.
– Ah well. I like it, though.
– It’s fun, just overloaded.
– We love you, Thor! We wish there were more of you in your movie.
– Remember, we have to sit through the credits.
– Ooh, stinger.
– So that’s the storyline of the next Avengers movie. It involves…a bunch of items.
– Oh, he’s joining the Marvel universe.

Verdict: Watch. It’s not as if you had a choice (Nothing else is showing).

Kristen Schaal of The Daily Show on sexy Halloween costumes.

Listen to Part One of our interview with pediatric psychiatrist and human sexuality expert Dr. Agnes Bueno here.

Napier, New Zealand was levelled by an earthquake in 1931. Students from Auckland University’s architecture school contributed to the rebuilding of the city, which is considered the Art Deco capital of the world. Photo from mkiwi.

Read our column at InterAksyon.com.