La nausée

Read and reviewed: May 6, 2022

I read 18% of the book so far, just started the chapter Thursday, 11:30 AM. I really like it so far.
I like his reflection on how people feel that they exist when they are together, and when they recognize each other with delight when they agree with each other.

I feel very close to the way he feels about objects, how he feels a connection to them, beyond unanimated items. I am not sure how it translates to English (I read it in French, my native language), but it feels very synergetic. He uses very unusual verbs and adjectives to describe actions and feelings and space. It's very poetic.

“When you live alone, you no longer know what it's like to tell a story: what is plausible disappears at the same time as friends” (my own translation). I like that he explores this idea that we make sense of the world by describing in our head or to others what our lives are made of. That without conversing, time starts to stretch and melt and the distinction between fantasy of thoughts and what ‘really' happens starts to be hard to distinguish.

The same way when he talks about recognizing one's own face by being used to seeing people looking at you, and growing the habit of looking at yourself in the mirror, somehow, possibly, as a consequence.

And I agree with him, 3pm is a weird time, too late to start something new, and too far from the delight of the evening

Also, to me, Nausea = Anxiety, and probably Social Anxiety. This Nausea that starts to accumulate in him and makes him behave in impulse, when he drastically changes his life and leave everything behind, until he is completely exhausted and bewildered by what life has made out of him. There is this feeling that life happens outside of him, that he is transported, directed, guided by the things of life, but that he doesn't have a very strong way to direct and define it.

20% Friday, 3pm Omg the idea of reading every single book in the library, alphabetically!! At first, I thought he was reading a book per author, but no, it seems that he is reading them all! This Self-Taught Man intrigues me. I remember I had the same desire when I was little, but my library was little as well. A few years ago, I read 300+ children's books exclusively for a few months, and I would pick one book per letter of the alphabet, read them, review them, and then go back to the library and start over. I had such a good time

It's interesting, how the Self-Taught Man feels like he needs to have read every single book to have an opinion. How much is enough to have an educated opinion?

Also, I am not sure how I feel about the Self-Taught Man's eyes full of enthusiasm when he recognizes a city that he read in a book. That he feels that he can only start to travel, only to make his knowledge more accurate, in his own words, after 6 more years of reading. I understand that it's not right or wrong, but somehow i feel a sadness... Maybe I'm surprised by the way he fulfills his curiosity.

33%, just before Sunday I really like the idea that for an adventure to exist, it needs to have an ending. And this ending is like a magnet that attracts each sentence and each fact to the end of the story, and gives it meaning. I really love to think about this pull to the conclusion of the adventure, and how it influences the interpretation of each detail of the story. A walk in a dark alley is not just a walk in a dark alley. Because it was chosen to become part of the story, it carries the significance of the story.

Also, Sartre is very good at describing what France is like on Sunday, when all the shops are closed, and people eat lunch with their in-laws, wear their best clothes, digest all afternoon, and walk all afternoon, just to walk, to be seen and to see, until the lights start to decline. This French habit to spend the day watching people pass by

44% this part where he goes from one café to another and listens to people being bored and tired was quite dull...

53% It's getting hard to keep reading

This book is really about the anguish/anxiety of living. The way he described a panic attack on the day the fog was so thick was quite accurate!

58% Monday Did I just read that (disturbing)he decided to stop writing the biography and then had a fantasy of being raped to feel that he exists, inspired by an actual story from the newspaper?! I'm shocked. And yes, on Tuesday, nothing. Existed.

73% “Things are never just themselves.” He sees everything in the world as this mass of goo that overflows from everything, and a root is never just a root, the color red never just the color red.

I'm not sure how they translated it in English, “the existence is contingency. It is not a goal, it is just there”

“The existence is everywhere, infinite, in surplus, always and everywhere. The existence doesn't have memory, it exists and then it no longer does””.

That's some pessimism: “All that exists is born without reason, prolongs itself by weakness, and dies from an encounter.”

So I finished the book yesterday and I would give it 3 stars. I enjoyed the first 20% but then most of the book was so slow and annoying I had to force myself to keep reading. The last quarter was more ‘active' after he had his revelation and he meets again with Anny. I had no idea what existentialism was, and now I understand it as the angst of existing. All that anxiety, dread, spinning thoughts, desire to not exist was well captured in the book. It's really hard to write a review on this one: on one hand, the book captures the idea of existentialism, and is a success; on the other end, it was a pain to read and could have been shortened by half without loosing the core ideas of feelings associated with the main character.

Also, omg this book was clearly written by an old white dude in the 40's. There are so many mentions of penises and balls! And this hallucination that nature will overgrow the city and giant penises will sprout from the Earth and birds will attack them and make them bleed. I mean. Why, Sartre? Whyyyyy?

A thought I had yesterday. When he has his revelation in the park, he doesn't understand why so many copies of trees would need to exist, but at the same time he finds comfort in the idea that Anny and him think the same thoughts... even if they are actually quite different.

Also, let's talk about Anny she is so rude and mean to him, but he seems to like that

In the end, Antoine, The Self-Taught Man and Anny are all isolated in their own loneliness, surviving the day, one after another.

Also, I forgot to say but Antoine was soooo full of himself! He is so condescending and paternalist with pretty much every body around him, thinking that people are merely living their lives, when HE truly understands the absolute unimportance of existing. At one point, he even wants to jump and reveal to them “the truth”, like to free them from their ignorance. This kind of self-righteous people annoy me so much

So, existentialism.

Where to start with? Everywhere on this planet now reeks of nihilism, and as obvious as it is, we are all unconsciously sharing a nihilistic attitude, under a common notion that faith is never enough to support the modernist view on life philosophy.

At first I was thinking about giving a 3, since it is indeed so common now that this negativity transverse itself across space and time. But then, it went on much smoother with a gradually intensifying height in the take of this nausea, which finally resolves on to simply enjoy the trivialities of everyday life.

All in all, it is still worth a read, just don't put on the superfluous weight of existence onto yourself.

EM

Jammer van het happy end.