[.ca] Nausea (ISBN 0811201880)

the dread of living:
The whole plot is but a motivation of making us understand author's theory of existence devoid of essence. That existence is devoid of essence is clear. Even more, existence IS only when seen from an inward perspective (through an existent). Outside of it, existence is just a mass of attributes (SOME OF WHICH WE, THE LIVING, AGGREGATE AS "BEING"). The driving force behind any human's actions, just among any OTHER animal, is his instinct of self-preservation. Characters other than Roquentin skillfully represent the mirrored variations of ONE archaic being who lives in complete stupor, operating on a multitude of automatisms, instincts and archetipes. This is man: a product and bystander of many illusions, a BEING conditioned through its very nature. To say EVEN ABOUT the one who knows this that by such he TRANSCENDS such order would be as idiotic as claiming a rebelious fish left his seas and built a shelter on mainland... How man reacts when confronted with such absolute inescapable realities. Can the instinct of self-preservation withstand such vicious assault which threatenes to destroy the beautiful heartfelt love for the self? It can, in theory: since being conditiones thinking and not the viceversa. However, in practice, it does BADLY, since the very basis upon which automatisms are built gets downgraded towards a pitiful state, when you KNOW you are nothing more than disposable meat mass...

awful book, awful people, silly message:
Sartre built a career as a misanthropic intellectual. His characters (and his analyses) brim with the most total alienation imaginable, with the strong dose of narcissism that comes along with slef-declared geniuses. The protagonist of this novel is a bored scholar, researching an ancestor. He is incapable of love and in the grips of a depression and loathing that fill him with waves of nausea. That is it in this novel! There is meaning in nothing. The only thing I felt reading about these sick people was nausea - and boredom. In writing a negative review of such a famous novel, I know there will be lots who disagree, but I am sick of novels like this that are held up by a national cultural establishment as "great," i.e. enhancing their international image, rather than works that should be read more openly and naively. You can tell the difference in so many media: look at Michelangelo and you immediately feel his genius, whereas if you fail to perceive the artistic "value" of many contemporary works, you are condemned as lacking the finesse and brains to see what you are told to see. Not recommended. This is the ideal novel for a high school student to read ostentatiously, exhibiting some kind of "depth."

Self-absorbed, but not self-admiring:
Antoine Roquentin, the protagonist of Sartre's "Nausea," is a man who stands in awe of himself. No, he's not an egotist or a narcissist in the self-admiring sense; he is completely and intensely absorbed in the contemplation of his own existence. That is to say, he constantly ponders the fact he exists, that there is a consciousness connected to a body whose collective name is Antoine Roquentin. For some, the reaction to such a realization might be wonder and amazement, perhaps an acknowledgement of the omnipotence of a higher power; for Antoine, the reaction is horror, a perception of the void enshrouding existence, leading to a feeling of what he calls nausea. To evade the nausea, Antoine immerses himself in the study of those that have existed in the past, and he is currently in the city of Bouville (possibly a renamed Boulogne), France, researching the history of the Marquis de Rollebon, a courtier of Marie Antoinette and a most adventurous scoundrel. The ordinariness of Antoine's career emphasizes the absurdity of existence in a world designed for those who are content to live the unexamined life. At the local library, he makes the acquaintance of a Self-Taught Man (the only name by which he is known) who endeavors to educate himself by reading every book available to him, in alphabetical order. The Self-Taught Man, an ex-soldier who had spent some time as a prisoner of war, is the essence of bourgeois humanism and optimism; he mistakes Antoine's inquiries into existence for a search for the meaning of life. Another perspective on existence is given by Antoine's snide ex-girlfriend Anny, whose childhood experiences have led her to the conclusion that death, or dying, is a "privileged situation" because of the importance it is attributed not only in actuality but as the subject in so many works of art, where it is portrayed as the transcendence of existence. Written in the style of a diary, "Nausea" reads like a memoir containing many personalized aphorisms about existence and its opposite, nothingness, which ironically also must exist; but these are too subjective to be universally useful. Rather, the novel's biggest triumph is the convincing expressiveness of Sartre's protagonist, who manages to convey in lucid language the ideas behind coming to terms with one's own existence. Antoine may be morose and introverted, but he is an excellent analyst of nature and has intellectual energy to spare.

Just too boring:
It is difficult to call this a novel as the plot seems non-existent. I must confess I was too bored after 50 pages or so to finish the book. It does present important philosophical ideas but you might be better off either reading the philosophy of existentialism or reading novels by authors like Camus or Kafka.

Great Work:
I loved this work when I read it, but I grow to love it more and more each day. I believe that Sartre is right in many of his points in this work, especially the idea of the nausea, which I have experienced first hand. If you are looking for someplace to start with Sartre, this is the place.