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 I have forgotten who, but someone in our class once said something along the lines, " I don't feel as though the characters in generosity are flat per se, but just average people." I think I would like to elaborate on this idea a little bit. When I see people, anyone at all--in the dining hall, the library, sitting across from me in class, I suppose they are all flat and undynamic. I don't have an omniscient author speaking in my head. I know nothing about their inner thoughts or workings, nothing about their pasts, their aspirations, and heartaches. I just take people for face value. There is such a massive amount of information flooding us each second, that we quickly make "flat" assumptions about people. Even people I know, quite a few I could simply list off one word that epitomizes the schema I have created in my mind for them. The thing about real life is that all the characters in it are flat--I assign a trait or personality to that person to help me identify them. Then, when I think of them again, I think of that simple trait. 

The absolutely wonderful thing about the novel...or any writing, at that, is it allows us to break free of that--it allows us to delve deep into individuals' minds, to feel their thoughts and taste their sense that would otherwise be unknown to us. I forgot who said it or how is goes, but someone once said something like, the great thing about books is that for a second, it tricks us into believing that we are not alone. Novels make us feel warm, I think, because we never imagined that we could connect with someone else so intimately--that someone else could possibly share the same feelings toward something. 

Camus has a great writing style, but I feel as though many peoples' frustrations with it lie in the fact that it I told as though someone as common as the person sitting next to you is telling it. They don't know the inner workings of every human being--they, like you, have to take other people at face value. In a way, it's like reading about everyday life. We arent granted that intoxicating treat of being able to absorb another human being's entire emotional, complex, inner working. With Camus, we are left simply feeling, "well I could have told you that" This narrator, sadly, doesnt have access int the depths of the human soul--and that is what is perhaps disappointing to some people. It's not that the character are flat..it's simply that we are made to see them like we would see any other person in our real lives. And I think, because we are reading a novel, we feel a little shafted.