Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre
Translator: Lloyd Alexander
Original publication date: 1938
Edition: New Directions (paperback) 1969
# of pages: 178
Source: Local library
Back of the book: 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 "spreads 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 life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize the tenents of his Existentialist creed.
The blurb on the back of the book set expectations of a didactic and dreary novel, and I was not looking forward to reading this book. I didn't do any other research, didn't read the introduction and just read the book as a novel. What I found was a novel without much plot, very much a literary novel, which reminded me of Beckett's Waiting for Godot. And I enjoy Godot which I have read more than once.
There is more action in Nausea than in Godot, but nothing really happens. At the beginning, Roquentin decides to keep a diary to ". . . determine the exact extent and nature of this change."; he works on and then abandons his historical treatise on Adhèmar de Rollebon; and by the end he has decided to write "A book. A novel." so that some day in the future he might accept himself. The "diary" is Nausea (which is of course, a novel.)
The novel covers the month of February in 1932 (actually starting on the 29th of January) and is set in the seaside town of "Bouville" which is supposed to be modeled on Le Havre where Sartre taught. We don't get too much of a picture of the town, however, because all the action is Roquentin's head, in what he observes and what he thinks about what he observes. The particular settings for many of the episodes are described quite carefully but at least in my mind they don't cohere into the concept of "town." Roquentin is frequently alone but he does interact with various characters though they rarely interact with each other.
Certainly the words "exist" and "existence" appear frequently: I realized that there was no half-way house between non-existence and this flaunting abundance. If you existed, you had to exist all the way, as far as moldiness, belatedness, obscenity were concerned.
and The true nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, and all that was not present did not exist. The past does not exist. Not at all. Not in things, not even in my thoughts.
but there aren't long speeches or conversations about existentialism or philosophy, just interactions with a few people and things, and observations. Roquentin also considers his own mental state, including the feeling of nausea, "…a sort of sweetish sickness. How unpleasant…" Actually, remembering back to the Back of the book, the novel itself is made up of "wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain."
Once I had finished the book I read the Introduction to the book and the Wikipedia article on "Existentialism," and I skimmed the article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Frankly, having never studied philosophy, I can only make a tenuous connection between Nausea and existentialism but apparently many of the episodes in the book are Roquentin groping his way to existential meaning, evaluating and discarding false paths as he goes. The resolution is a little vague to my mind and to the writer of the Introduction. My limited research also revealed that Samuel Beckett was considered to be among those linked to existentialism, so my association with Godot wasn't so strange.
So why should you read this book? It's apparently an important work by a famous author, it's pretty short, it's not too tedious to read. For me personally, the episodes were somewhat humorous but your mileage will definitely vary. I wouldn't have gone out of my way but it wasn't unpleasant. Is that a 3 out of 5? Or maybe a 2.
Back of the book: 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 "spreads 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 life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize the tenents of his Existentialist creed.
The blurb on the back of the book set expectations of a didactic and dreary novel, and I was not looking forward to reading this book. I didn't do any other research, didn't read the introduction and just read the book as a novel. What I found was a novel without much plot, very much a literary novel, which reminded me of Beckett's Waiting for Godot. And I enjoy Godot which I have read more than once.
There is more action in Nausea than in Godot, but nothing really happens. At the beginning, Roquentin decides to keep a diary to ". . . determine the exact extent and nature of this change."; he works on and then abandons his historical treatise on Adhèmar de Rollebon; and by the end he has decided to write "A book. A novel." so that some day in the future he might accept himself. The "diary" is Nausea (which is of course, a novel.)
The novel covers the month of February in 1932 (actually starting on the 29th of January) and is set in the seaside town of "Bouville" which is supposed to be modeled on Le Havre where Sartre taught. We don't get too much of a picture of the town, however, because all the action is Roquentin's head, in what he observes and what he thinks about what he observes. The particular settings for many of the episodes are described quite carefully but at least in my mind they don't cohere into the concept of "town." Roquentin is frequently alone but he does interact with various characters though they rarely interact with each other.
Certainly the words "exist" and "existence" appear frequently: I realized that there was no half-way house between non-existence and this flaunting abundance. If you existed, you had to exist all the way, as far as moldiness, belatedness, obscenity were concerned.
and The true nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, and all that was not present did not exist. The past does not exist. Not at all. Not in things, not even in my thoughts.
but there aren't long speeches or conversations about existentialism or philosophy, just interactions with a few people and things, and observations. Roquentin also considers his own mental state, including the feeling of nausea, "…a sort of sweetish sickness. How unpleasant…" Actually, remembering back to the Back of the book, the novel itself is made up of "wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain."
Once I had finished the book I read the Introduction to the book and the Wikipedia article on "Existentialism," and I skimmed the article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Frankly, having never studied philosophy, I can only make a tenuous connection between Nausea and existentialism but apparently many of the episodes in the book are Roquentin groping his way to existential meaning, evaluating and discarding false paths as he goes. The resolution is a little vague to my mind and to the writer of the Introduction. My limited research also revealed that Samuel Beckett was considered to be among those linked to existentialism, so my association with Godot wasn't so strange.
So why should you read this book? It's apparently an important work by a famous author, it's pretty short, it's not too tedious to read. For me personally, the episodes were somewhat humorous but your mileage will definitely vary. I wouldn't have gone out of my way but it wasn't unpleasant. Is that a 3 out of 5? Or maybe a 2.