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Title: Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, Lloyd Alexander, H. Carruth ISBN: 0-8112-0188-0 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: January, 1975 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.11 (74 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Brace yourself for Existentialism 101
Comment: Existentialism is a horribly broad term that has lumped together quite a motley collection of ideas. From Dostoyevsky and Kierkegaard's God-infused to Nietzsche's Godless scrutiny of individual struggle, existentialism remains a vague caption for all thoughts concerned with man's experience, alone and in a mass.
So what did Jean-Paul Sartre, once described as the most brilliant Frenchman of the twentieth century, have to offer to modern inquisitors? In Nausea, his first major work, Sartre promulgates his own creeds through the listless eyes of a writer Antoine Roquentin. Like the fictional intellectuals before him, Roquentin finds himself paused and later haunted by the great question of existence. Unable to continue in his historic research on Marquis de Rollebon, Roquentin is seized by a nausea of the mind that ponders the point of existence. In the famous chestnut tree scene, Roquentin confronts the nausea by feeling the strangle on man by the two moieties of life: existence and essence. Sartre explains that essence includes all the physical properties and in my opinion those understood and replicable by science. Existence on the other hand, is purely a product of the cognitive, therefore one either knows he exists or he doesn't. Roquentin experiences the acute prick of his existence and thinks himself freed from the common lot because of his acknowledgement. But trapped in the same pessimistic realm of Nietzsche, Roquentin finds the world a place of terrible voids and he himself unable to take advantage of the freedom of choices. Alone and without a purpose, Roquentin nonetheless chooses an optimistic enough ending by moving to Paris to pursue fiction writing.
Unlike other philosophers, Sartre was also a marvelous dramatist and novelist whose craft could be appreciated for its literary value alone. And so lurking behind Roquentin's stream-of-conscious narrative, his dry humor, and caricature-like surroundings is Sartre's contribution which leads straight to the core of existentialism's concern with the individual struggle against isolation in a hostile world.
Rating: 5
Summary: Expect to be challenged
Comment: Nausea is not an easy book to read, not because of length or complexity of writing but because it forces the reader to confront some of the most frightening questions about life. The plot is largely uneventful, and yet this is where the majority of the book's philosophical questions arise. It's amidst the mundane, the every-day, the common interactions in life wherein the main character Roquentin questions the foundations of reality: what is this world I live in? why am I here? what does my life mean?
The thing Roquentin encounters most dramatically is existence: dull, ever-present, unable to be explained, a hidden and dumb force that waits silently behind the meanings we ascribe to it. And it is this force, the force of existence, which is the ultimate source of humility, for in it all of our actions are rendered meaningless.
Why do we do what we do? What are our motivations, our ambitions, and why do we have them? Sartre explores questions like these in a variety of daily situations and presents a concept of reality that has no mercy for the squeamish mind. He approaches his reader with such intensity that one cannot look away, one is forced to follow his reasoning to its unconventional and disturbing conclusions. Still, as the introduction points out, "Coming for the first time to the works of Sartre, Japsers, or Camus is often like reading, on page after page, one's own intimate thoughts and feelings, expressed with new precision and concreteness."
This is an excellent novel, very thought-provoking, best approached with an open mind and the courage to listen patiently to that which may frighten one the most. Regardless of your reaction to it, Nausea will have you thinking for quite some time afterward.
Rating: 2
Summary: Just too boring
Comment: It is difficult to call this a novel as the plot seems non-existent. I must confess I was too bored after 50 pages or so to finish the book. It does present important philosophical ideas but you might be better off either reading the philosophy of existentialism or reading novels by authors like Camus or Kafka.
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Title: Being And Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre ISBN: 0671867806 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1993 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: The Stranger by ALBERT CAMUS ISBN: 0679720200 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 March, 1989 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Wall: And Other Stories by Jean Paul Sartre, Lloyd Alexander ISBN: 0811201902 Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: February, 1988 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: No Exit and Three Other Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre ISBN: 0679725164 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 23 October, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Plague by Albert Camus ISBN: 0679720219 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 May, 1991 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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