Nausea
Sartre at the Top of His Game! In Nausea, J. P. Sartre's Marquis is a man haunted by existence. Although Sartre employs the human emotion of anguish in a different context, nausea is very similar in that we all must face the consequences of a world, and an existence, without meaning (unless one turns to the super-natural, of course). This realization can often leave one floundering on the edge of panic, anguish, or even nausea, and in this piece Sartre attempts to classify one man's attempt to cope with the realization. It is almost as if one wakes up one day and realizes that one must forge out his or her own meaning in a cold and cruel world - nd end of innocence, so to speak. This is a classic short book by perhaps the most heavy-hitting of the "existentialists." It is also very nicely translated; not an easy task it seems when going French to English. --Reviewer: Benjamin P. Hayek from Iowa City, IA United States
The Thorough Smell Of Existentialism! French philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre's early novel Nausea is often cited as the essential book of Existentialism. The book follows Antoine Roquentin who illustrates the subject matter by living it in every minute of his life, on every corner and in every situation. The defeatist philosophy is neither negative nor positive. It simply is. It is the hollow essence of man. Having perceived this, Roquentin can not stand himself, the people around him, the objects revolving them and all related actions or outcomes.
The bleakness extends to Roquentin's object of research. He too, not unsurprisingly, turns out to be an adulterer, a charlatan, unworthy and lacking worth. In short, both the story itself and the story within the story are lambasted in futility in the end.
Wither in such a universe? Nowhere, for the illusion is by definition hollow and but a shell of nothingness. --Reviewer: AliGhaemi from Toronto, Canada
