Stranger Than Fiction

"Raymond told me he didn't think he could write the kind of letter it would take and that he'd thought of asking me to write it for him. Since I didn't say anything, he asked if I'd mind doing it right then and I said no." - page 32, The Stranger

In the early chapters of The Stranger, the only thing more bizarre than the world of main character Meursault is the nonchalance with which he inhabits it. From his seeming indifference to his mother's recent death (he can't remember what day she died) to his lack of concern about the violent stories his neighbor Raymond tells him, it is somewhat disconcerting to read about this world through Meursault's eyes. In the scenario from the quote above, Raymond enlists Meursault to write a letter punishing Raymond's ex-girlfriend, "one with a punch and also some things in it to make her sorry for what she's done." Meursault, seemingly unconcerned with the implications of such a letter, obliges. What explains his lackadaisical attitude in the face of the absurd? Has something happened to him to make him this way?