Nausea

Rating:
Summary: Effective and shocking, but contrived and awkward
Review: Having read many magnificent authors of existentialist fiction, from Camus to Dostoyevsky to Mishima to Laxness to Selimovic to Abe, I picked up Nausea, a work by an author whose name is synonymous with his philosophical movement. I was very disappointed, however, in Nausea's tone, theme, and progression. It is intended to be a work of literature, not a work of philosophy, but at times I wished Sartre had discarded the pretense of writing a literary masterpiece and presented a mature treatise on existentialism. I always feel that a valid philosophy (or theology) should be easily evident in a real (or literary) situation, and does not require an endless philosophical dissection. While existential literature is often bleak, that is a function of the philosophy itself. Nausea, however, is simply bland. The narrator is without charisma, and therefore can hardly be identified with, and his experience of 'nausea' at his own existence is ultimately tedious and unrealistic. Unlike certain magnificent literary expositions of existentialism, like "The Woman in the Dunes" by Kobo Abe, and "Death and the Dervish" by Mesa Selimovic, "Nausea" did little more than whet my appetite for a better existentialist work and leave me with an unpleasant taste in my mouth. In short, Sartre missed the mark--he tried so hard to paint this portrait of meaningless bleakness that his novel has all the life of a smudged black and white newsprint photo. Nonetheless, it is very short and worth reading just for the perspective, but "No Exit" is a far superior venture on Sartre's part

Rating:
Summary: Depicts an existential option not to be lightly chosen
Review: This is a literary, not a philosophical work, but it deals with issues fundamental to the human quest for meaning and with the question of our relation to being. Sartre paints a portrait of a life lived in reaction to the seeming absurdities underlying the most fundamental metaphysical principles. The reaction is poetic: in place of the romantic poet's ecstatic embrace of the natural world is found a poetic nausea in reaction to the meaninglessness and unjustifiability of this world. It is not to be taken as a "proof" of any sort, but as brilliant and terrifying artistic vision of a life lived in accordance with the existential option to reject rather than to embrace the whole of Being.

As always, Sartre's language and style are such as should make most contemporary claimants to the title "existentialist" lay down their miserable pens and write no more. His hero's rejection of an unjustifiable world is justified, as Nietzsche would have it, aesthetically--by Sartre's transformation of the horror of nausea into an artistic masterpiece.

Not a book to be recommended to those too easily swayed by something that sounds "deep," rather, a book which should jolt the sincere but naiive out of their complacency, and which any seeker after the ultimate significance of things--if there is an ultimate significance, and if there are things--ought take into consideration. And, of course, for the mere esthetes who too rarely find art unburdened by kitsch--well, if there are any such out there, you've already read it, and there's nothing I can tell you that you don't already know

Rating:
Summary: If you only read one book in your lifetime, read Nausea
Review: From page 21: "I grow warm, I begin to feel happy. There is nothing extraordinary in this, it is a small happiness of Nausea: it 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. No sooner than born, it is already old, it seems as though I have know it for twenty years." If you only read one book in your lifetime, read Nausea

Rating:
Summary: A book from which everyone should learn something
Review: Maybe it is the only book I ever read which changed my way of thinking. It is crude and a little depressing but even if not being a specialist (as I am not) it is impossible not to get moved by this absolutely shocking flow of ideas. Let us see as a little example:

"Un homme c'est toujours un conteur d'histoires. Il vit entouré de ses histoires et des histoires d'autrui. Il voit tout ce que lui arrive à travers elles et il cherche à vivre sa vie comme s'il la racontait"

"A man is always a story-teller. He lives surrounded with his own stories and those of other people. He sees all that happens to him through them and he wants to live his life as if he was telling it."

Another example: A man wanted to learn everything. He took an Enciclopedy and began to study all the entries. Inquestionably it is The Method. But... when all the entries will be assimilated ... then, what ?

Highly recommended for people looking for something else in life.

Rating:
Summary: Complex and raw but not a classic
Review: I read "Nausea" wanting to see Sarte's other work besides his plays and philosophy. This Novel is both challenging but doesn't quit hit the bulls eye and has a poor ending for the point Sarte's trying to get across.

"Nausea" is about a writer Antoine Roquentin who keeps a diary of his day to day life and catalouges his emotions and explores them deeply. In the beginning of the novel, Roquentin throws a rock into a river and feels something extreme but doesn't know what it is. From there he explores his own existence and soul. Later on he finds powerful truths about life and existence.

One problem I had with this book is that the main charector is so empty and lonely to begin with, I knew he would be horrifed with his own existence and gives us no hope. However I loved this novel for Sarte's ideas on existence, life, people, art, innocence, loneliness etc... and its worth reading for this factor even if there are some flaws and the ending isn't really awarding.

I read one reviewer's comment on this book on Amazon( Sorry I don't have the reviewer's name) which I really felt true, which meant something like 'If Existence is meaningless why didn't Sarte kill himself?'. Existentialism is some of the most true writing in the world but you can't believe it to an extreme. If existence is meaningless then you've just wasted life in vain of others. However I'll spare you my philosophy and conclude this review by saying this novel is very much worth reading but is not an existentialist classic. Check out Camu's "The Stranger" and Sarte's "No Exit" for classic existentialist works.

Rating:
Summary: Self-absorbed, but not self-admiring
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: The persistence of existing
Review: Nausea is a mystifying look into the persisting existence of Antoine Roquentin. A French man who has all the wealth he’ll ever need and done all the travels any man could wish for. Yet, Antoine is beset by his very own existence and life. Antoine longs to find place within (or outside) the world, but his conscious keeps him from finding this. Antoine seems only to find nothingness and void, and in turn nausea, with his search for freedom. This is Sartre’s great work of a novel telling existentialism; a must read for anyone looking into existentialism or Sartre.

Rating:
Summary: I do not like it very much
Review: Hannah Arendt claimed that this is Sartre's best book. I do not like it very much.
Camus could write of life's absurdity in a beautiful way. Sartre writes of the vague repulsion his Roquentin feels toward his existence and everyone else's without the same kind of literary and aesthetic appeal.
This is one way of feeling and seeing the world, but life and literature are filled with many others more humanly interesting and meaningful.
Even loneliness and boredom can be better than this.

Rating:
Summary: Nausea
Review: With his first novel, Sartre began to explore what would later come to be known as existentialism, or the philosophy that: 'Holds that there is no intrinsic meaning or purpose, therefore it is up to each individual to determine his own meaning and purpose and take responsibility for his actions'. While this line of philosophical thought does have its origins in Kierkegaard, it was in the writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and Sartre that these ideas were fully developed.

Antoine Roquentin is a solitary man, recently afflicted with a recurrent feeling, one that he terms 'the Nausea'. At times, he feels that life is repugnant, a vapid, shallow game between mindless people who have no real idea of their own purpose or consequence, himself included. At first he dismisses these feelings as the typical lonely thoughts of an ageing academic who is unable to complete the book he has been researching for years, but as the feeling continues and he is able to examine himself with greater and greater clarity, Roquentin begins to learn that maybe he has stumbled upon one of the great truths of our reality.

He discovers that there is no essence, no importance in motion or in the petty labels that people like to attach to themselves and others in a bid to catalogue the world and everything in it, and by cataloguing, to control. He reasons that we are essentially impossible to control, that each person exists because they exist, and for no other reason that that. The terms of our existence are unspecific, but clear. We do not exist to be pawns to a god, or to move the path of humanity forward. Instead, we exist simply to exist, we are an end unto ourselves, and the inherent absurdity in our lives means that a meaningful existence is impossible and even blasphemous. Through clear-eyed, coherent thinking, we are able to control our lives as we choose, and it is up to every man and woman to independently reject suicide. For those that do not, the meaningless quality of our lives makes no different when compared to those that do, thus there is no dishonour or achievement in either.

During the novel, there are a few side stories involving an ex-lover and a child-molesting friend, but these characters are used mostly as foils for Sartre's philosophy. In presenting arguments to Roquentin, Sartre is able to adequately satisfy the objections to his philosophy. There is a sense, however, that while the elements of existentialism presented in Nausea are powerful and compelling, the picture is not yet complete and no real answers are given. Later on in his career, Sartre was able to provide a large number of these answers, but even this early on, with his first novel, the depth of his thinking and the power of his message is quite simply amazing. Nausea is a stunning book, an intellectual delight, and is recommended to all.

Rating:
Summary: Existence preceeds a miserable life?
Review: According to Sartre there is no external meaning, nothing existing in the way of an absolute standard to base our beliefs about who we are or why we are here. As a solution Sartre believed that we must create our own meaning hence "existence precedes essence".
What I love about Nausea and all of Sartre's novels is that his character's are not self deceivers. They live in the existential universe and allow this reality to posses them and by doing so reveal a flaw in existential reasoning. If life truly is meaningless then the only person who could pretend there was meaning, who faked reality and acted as life is worth living would be a scoundrel and a coward. Sartre's characters are hero's in their world because they face it straight on. So, if if essence does not precede existence then the only alternative is that existence precedes nothingness, and "life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
So, one must ask oneself, is emptiness, dread and nausea our natural state of existence? Are we, if we are to face reality, in a state of impending doom? If the answer is yes then only when we are in a state of depression, fear and disgust are we seeing the world as it is... and when we are happy, healthy, loving and in search for God's presence we are in a state of deception and insanity. The question then: "is Sartre's universe our universe?"