Translating Camus

To be blunt, I am struggling with Camus' writing style. Not because it is too eloquent or uses old English. In fact, it is the lack of ornateness that stumps me. I'm stuck trying to find some meaning in Camus' bluntness. So that's what I'll try to do here: translate one of the most straightforward pieces of literature.

Mersault is obviously not your average character, especially when juxtaposed with exuberant characters like Raymond and Salamano. He bleeds ambivalence. Take, for example, Marie's marriage proposal. Mersault could not care less whether or not he was married or whether he loved her, for that matter. He tends to live in the present, and knows that whichever decision he makes his life will move one way, but does not value one choice over another.

This is definitely a blunt way of living. So Camus must choose to mirror that bluntness in his writing. After all, Mersault is the narrator. So whose words are they: Camus' or Mersault's? It is that blurred line that I get tangled on. Am I analyzing the character or the diction? Could it be both?

Mersault is a character of purity. I imagine him with the brain of his age but the thought process of an infant. He distances himself from those around him, does not care what happens to him, seems to be floating through life with an indifference that I cannot decide if I despise or envy. I wonder if it is truly best to seize the day like he does. Or whether we must weigh our actions deliberately. Does Camus' writing style give humanity something to emulate or something to reject?