Changing blogging domain and site

Image
Dear blogger friends, Lately, I had a few problems with the Blogger web site for my blog The Content Reader . I took this as a sign that I should finally create a web site of my own. I have been checking out other options, but could not get my act together. Finally, I have managed to create a basic web site with Wix, which I hope will be developed over time.  It has not been easy to find my way around. One thing one can say about Blogger is that it is easy to work with.  This site will no longer be updated Follow me to my new domain @  thecontentreader.com Hope to see you there.  Lisbeth @ The Content Reader

The Classics Spin #7 - Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

I managed just in time to finish this book today. I feel happy since I have missed a lot of deadlines lately. Book No. 17 on my list was Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. I find it very difficult to give a review of the book. It is probably for someone that know much more of the philosophical world than I do. But, I will make a humble try!

First of all, what is it all about? This was Sartre's first novel and according to himself, the best of his works. Sartre was an existentialist and his life's studies and research. This you realise when you read the book. The main character, Mr. Antoine Roquentin, a historian lives in Bouville (a fictional seaport town), where he is trying to write a book about an 18th century, French, political figure. During the winter he is taken over by a sort of sickness he calls nausea. It effects everything he does. He looks at everything around him, how people look, what they are doing, how the trees look, why they are blowing in the wind, the waves of the sea, the cafés, restaurants. He tries to figure out what is existing. A meaning to why they are there. Why he is there.

All his questions on absolutely everything happening around him, almost drove me crazy. It is at times very depressing, since however he looks at things, there seems to be no meaning with them. His relationships with various people; an autodidact, Francoise, a café owner and Anny his ex girl-friend, he can't see in a clear light. He is disgusted with everything. While reading I came to think of Kafka. Not that I am an expert on him, but the whole idea of however you turn there is no way out. The book is like a dark, never ending maze and in the end you don't know if you are going to make it through.

According to people who know, in the ending of the book he accepts that there is an indifference between the physical world and the aspirations we have on it. The nausea does not necessarily need to be seen as regret but could also be seen as an opportunity. We are free to make our own meaning of life, but this also brings responsibility and commitment. Without it, it will have no meaning.

Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964, which he declined, saying it is merely a function of a bourgeois institution. The Nobel Foundation gave him the prize "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age."

On the contrary to what one would think, at least me, the book is rather easy to read. We follow Roquentin during a few months, his research, his friends, eating, writing and then of course, all the reflections on everything around him. Although all this questioning drove me mad at times, it still gives you something to think about.



Comments

  1. I haven't seen that cover before - who's the publisher / where's it from? All the Penguin editions here seem to have one Dali painting or another on.

    My review: Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Matthew, well this is a Swedish translation from Albert Bonniers Förlag. This edition was printed in 2012. It says that the illustration is made by Tzenko Stoyanov, and you can find her web-site here http://www.illustrationdaily.com/tzenko-stoyanov

      Having looked through some of her illustrations, I think there might be a slight similarity with Dali, in the ideas behind.

      Maybe you would also be interested in Sartre's life long companion Simone Beauvoir's 'She Came To Stay' which is more or less self biographic (my review here http://thecontentreader.blogspot.be/2014/05/den-inbjudna-she-came-to-stay-by-simone.html).

      Congratulations to your book, fantastic achievement! Thank you for passing by. Now I have also found your blog, which I look forward reading.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson

Searching for Caleb by Anne Tyler

How To Read Novels Like A Professor by Thomas C. Foster