If you want to explore more of Baldwin's fiction, I highly recommend Go Tell It on the Mountain.

Meursault, like the universe, is absurd, in that he defies rational, logical order or comprehensible meaning. We (the readers) never know why he does what he does, thinks the way he thinks, etc. People (whether it is us, the readers, or the characters who encounter him) who attempt to "find" meaning in it/him are absurdists.

In the book, you see countless people "explain" Meursault and his behaviour to themselves in a way that fits with their pre-existing view of the world (the warden and caretaker at his mother's care home, his boss, Raymond, Marie, Salamano, the two lawyers at his trial, the chaplain) but none of these "explanations" are verifiable. All are possible, but none are definitively true.

I teach both The Outsider (some may know it as The Stranger) by Albert Camus, and There There by Tommy Orange, to my senior (in Canada, Grade 12) English classes.

It was only after two years of teaching both that I picked up on a line in the first chapter in There There narrated by Edwin Black, an obese young man who has been constipated for several days. At one point, he comments, "You could either shit or not shit."

I immediately grabbed a copy of The Outsider and turned to a few pages before the end of Chapter 6 in Part I, in which Meursault muses (with a gun in his pocket), "I realized at that point that you could either shoot or not shoot."

The fact that Tommy Orange is very well-read, and his character, Edwin, has a M.A. in Comparative Literature, leads me to think it is not a coincidence.

Art (of any genre) has no "shoulds" or "shouldn'ts".

Consumers of art--in this case, readers--have their preferences, and an author may or may not meet those preferences to one degree or another.

But where a narrative starts and ends, and whatever closure (if any) a story has, is entirely the choice of the person creating it.

“He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”

“If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.”

“Did I do anything wrong today," he said, "or has the world always been like this and I've been too wrapped up in myself to notice?”

"Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans."

"The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied."

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn’t an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn’t an afterlife."

"All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it’s pretty damn complicated in the first place."

Rabbit Hole.

I sense a great deal of cynicism towards educators in general, as well as some pretty big assumptions about the film and its characters. (Full disclosure: I have been a high school English teacher for over 20 years, an DPS was one of my favourite films back when I was in high school.)

First, the question of Mr. Keating's teaching: We see maybe 3-4 scenes in his actual classroom--over what appears to be several months of the school year--and he makes several references to assignments, tests, and papers. It is not like he is burning down the entire educational system of which he is a part. Granted, he has several unorthodox methods and approaches, but there is no indication he has abandoned the content or skills the students are expected to know. As someone already noted, Keating never once tells them that what their parents do--or what the students plan to do--as professions are somehow wrong or devoid of meaning. He is trying to get them to see art (in this case, literature) as a companion to the necessities of life (job, family, bills, taxes, etc.), not a replacement for them.

Second, the kids were already rebelling (albeit in a pretty tame fashion, like smoking) against the norms of their conservative parents' generation. Perhaps they were emboldened in these pursuits by a misunderstanding of what Keating was trying to get them to see/understand about life, but recall the one "phone call" prank from God that got one of them in some trouble with the headmaster. He expects praise from Keating, but while Keating does (eventually) make a light joke about the incident overall, he first calls out the student for being reckless with the opportunity he has been given to attend the school. As Keating tells him, "Sucking the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone."

Again, he is trying to teach them that art and life (or passions and responsibilities) can be a both/and relationship, rather than and either/or one.

Lastly, look at the sequence of events around Neil and the play: He auditions without telling anyone, and gets the part. He tells Mr. Keating that his father will be upset and he doesn't know how to broach the subject with him. Mr. Keating (who never once tells Neil to lie or hide the information or go against his father's wishes) encourages him to speak about what the play means to him with as much passion as he as done when speaking to him (Keating). Neil follows up a few days later by lying to Keating, telling him his father was initially upset, but agreed to let him stick with the play. Keating (you could argue wrongly, I suppose) takes what Neil says at face value and assumes he is telling him the truth.

Yes, there are a lot of topics and conversations and "takes" on the film, to be sure. But I don't know that one can reasonably hold Keating responsible for >!Neil's suicide!<.

As a first novel, The Virgin Suicides is stunning. Middlesex is, in my mind, the pinnacle of his literary career to date.

The Marriage Plot was fine; Fresh Complaint was a letdown.

I have often found myself wrestling with this perspective with directors and bands as well. They make well-above-average art overall, yet audiences/readers and critics frequently can't get past holding them to the standard of their best work, perhaps not realizing how rare such accomplishments are in any medium.

I've taught the book for 10 years in summer school (albeit in Canada, so we may approach things slightly differently in terms of overall aims beyond a "basic" understanding), but I think the standing on the hill scene would have been an interesting place to start a class discussion:

Examine the language of the scene; visualize the physical aspects of the scene (cold, dark, physical distance, watching them from "above", etc.); then, ask the class what kind of "vibe" is being given off. I'm sure--while they may not arrive at symbolism exactly--they could piece together something like "He seems to feel isolated from his peers", or some such "take".

Next, "put a pin" in the idea. Tell the students to keep the scene in mind, and as they read, see if there is any other evidence of loneliness and/or isolation. At some point they will (hopefully) circle back to the scene with additional knowledge and information and connect the proverbial dots.

David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon, The Lost City of Z) and Erik Larson (The Devil in the White City, In the Garden of Beasts, Dead Wake) are exceptional writers that make very specific events/places in history incredibly compelling.

I would also add Into the Silence by Wade Davis.