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Loading... Nauseaby Jean-Paul Sartre
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. http://gandhi.com.mx/index.cfm/id/Pro... for anyone who questions things, feelings, emotions that you have, yet don't understand why nor feel as if you should have them, but yet can't help but wonder why... why why why, this book is for you. written in journal format, Antoine Roquentin supposedly hates his life, or is it just existence, the questioning of present, of the next moment to come... his extreme discomfort for existence creates thought-provoking and intellectually stimulating moments as a reader -- i found myself making notes, underlining passages... if you follow his logic, his pulse, it will suck you in and absorb you... i cannot give this book the justice it deserves, you should find out for yourself... but make sure to read in a quiet, dark and lonely place. Perhaps a little slow in the beginning, but rich in experiential and philosophical detail. It's satisfying to read a book that addresses primarily internal rather than external action and change, in which the narrator explores a dense inner life and struggles with themes of meaninglessness, purpose, memory and existence itself. The philosophy of existentialism presented here may not appeal to everyone; however, I think the fictive events presented are an important and insightful record of the kind of melancholy many thinking people experience during some part of their lives. Whether or not they come to affirm, like Sartre's narrator does, the effort of creative self-becoming through work and art, the book offers insight into some key philosophical concepts while retaining the emotional and mental atmosphere in which such ideas might occur. There are interesting portions of this book; interesting enough to make it worth reading. As the first novel by Sartre, it is understandable that it be a treatise for his existentialist approaches. I have not studied philosophy, so I cannot quote you the meanings of existentialism (shy of the comic book snippets one receives in classes, books, and conversations among people who really don’t know what they are talking about). But everything I know (so little) and everything I’ve read indicates this is a pivotal piece. And, as I mentioned, there are very interesting concepts in here. Some I rejected out of hand; others I found resonated. And, while it was heavy slogging through a couple of parts (to be expected in a French book trying to expound a philosophy); overall it was not a difficult read. In all, this is probably not the best way to introduce yourself to Sartre or existentialism. However, if it is your first foray (as it was mine), you will find, if not an in-depth introduction, a nice peek into what it may mean. Read it in college for an Existentialism class, like you do...As a moody character study Nausea is actually quite good, but I just can't relate to the emotional tenor of Existentialism. The intellectual positions I've been able to glean—the absence of any inherent moral structure to the universe, and a correspondingly acute awareness of one's own agency—seem like fair descriptions of the way the world actually is, but these fill me with a sense of freedom, not despair. The famous bit near the end of the book where Roquentin is sitting in a park and has this sudden profound sense of the reality of a tree trunk in front of him—to an atheist, scientist like myself that sounds like it would be a joyful experience, an unvarnished glimpse of the big crazy universe we live in, but it bums Roquentin out. We're just not on the same page, I guess. 0.096 seconds to build listing no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 014118549X, Paperback)Winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher, critic, novelist and dramatist, hold a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. Among readers and critics familiar with the whole of Sartre's work, it is generally recognized that his earliest novel, Le Nausée (first published in 1938), is his finest and most significant. It is unquestionably a key novel of the Twentieth Century and a landmark in Existentialist fiction.Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which "spread at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time—the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain." Roquentin's efforts to come to terms with his life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize trhe tents of his Existentialist creed. he introduction for this edition of Nausea by Hayden Carruth gives background on Sartre's life and major works, a summary of the principal themes of Existentialist philosophy, and a critical analysis of the novel itself. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:00 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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