Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre

My copy of this book dates from 1978 - so old that it still refers to Sartre in the present tense - which, in itself, is testament to the lasting capability of La Nausee (Nausea), and indeed any Sartre novel. The novel is hard to categorize simply - more a full-length psychological insight and penetration into one man's life and personality than, as it is often simply termed, a 'novel'. Written in the form of a diary, it is nonetheless elucidated in simple and understandable prose - although I found some of the plots difficult to follow, at first. Among the major themes are the alienation and loneliness of personality; the mysteriousness essence of 'being'; the nature of time; ...

Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre was a philosopher and is known as the founder of French Existentialism. This school of thought, or the existential idea, deals with the whys and hows of human existence and focuses on the sense of confusion that we feel for being sentient beings in an absurd, meaningless world. In so many words! In Sartre's formal lectures and his academic books he meditates on the themes of boredom, the absurd, faith, freedom and nothingness and explains how these relate to the existential mode of thought. In this celebrated and crucial 1938 novel 'Nausea' these themes are woven into the fictional story of Antoine Roquentin, who is the exisitentialist protagonist. Roquetin is ...