Camus, Cole, and the alienated hero/narrator

As noted yesterday, though it takes a while (finished part 1 of the book) to realize this, the narrator in Teju Cole's "Open City" is a very sad and alienated young man - he seems at first quite engaged in life, has a good and promising medical career, he is very observant and thoughtful, friendly relation with neighbor, warm relation with his mentor professor, girlfriend recently moved away but still seems to have a relationship with her - but over the course of the novel it becomes ever more apparent that he has no relationships of any note with anyone - these characters appear and then disappear, he doesn't particularly think about or care to know any people - as becomes evident in his trip to Brussels, undertaken allegedly in part to try to find his German grandmother from whom, for some reason, he is estranged, but in fact after apparently weeks of rambling around in the city he makes no effort to find her at all. He has a sexual encounter (with a woman about twice his age, after rejecting overtures from someone his own age), and makes no effort to see her (or anyone) again. I noticed at one point that one of the blurbs (which I rarely read, by the way) compares Cole with Camus, which by and large I think is ridiculous, in that his tone and affect could hardly be more different - but now I do see the connection, in that his narrator is a lost sole with no place in the world. In the hands of another author, Julius (the narrator) would be an outsider and a threat, but Cole's style is far more cerebral and Julius seems lost and lonely, but not disaffected or angry in any way. About to start part 2.