Book Review: Nausea (Sartre)
Have I read this before: Yes…I think? Maybe in high school.
Review: I dig Sartre. I dig existentialism. I like the way that he represented the idea of the existential angst of existence via the “nausea.” You don’t need to know about existentialism to dig this book, but it helps to give it depth!
Favorite part: A few quotes:
“And I – soft, weak, obscene, digesting, juggling with dismal thoughts – I, too, was In the way. … I dreamed vaguely of killing myself to wipe out at least one of these superfluous lives. But even my death would have been In the way. … I was In the way for eternity.”
“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.”
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: The Age of Reason (Sartre)
IT’S SARTRE TIME!
(Sorry for the long break between books. I got busy packing/panicking/wishing for death over the summer, but now I’m back and now I have the giant U of Calgary library to quench my reading needs. At least until I forget to return the books I check out and I rack up a $200 fee for late books.)
(It’s happened before.)
ANYWAY.
Have I read this before: Yes. End of 2009 I think? Not so long ago compared to some of the books I’m re-reading.
Review: I really didn’t remember much of this book from my first read. I remembered the names Mathieu and Marcelle, but that was pretty much it. I’ve heard a lot of people say that they find Sartre a very dry writer (both with his fiction and his philosophy), but I enjoyed the writing. I liked how he jumped between Mathieu and Daniel as kind of the “main” narrators for different parts of the story. And, of course, the angst they all feel—at different levels, of course—regarding their notion(s) of freedom. Interesting stuff.
Favorite part: The razor scene with Daniel. I guess it’s not so much of a scene as a pondering. But it’s very poetically written.
Rating: 6/10
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