Nausea (New Directions Paperbook)

Great book that was hard to find.

“When the weekend becomes a bitter taste in the mouth.” I always experienced this in my working life on Sundays. Sartre had a way of collecting the thoughts we’ve all had and packaging them back to us in a way that feels relatable and deeply human.

I picked up Nausea expecting a deep dive into existential despair. What I didn’t expect was the book to come with its own existential scent – a whiff of lilies, lavender, peonies, and a citrus note.I contacted Amazon about this 'unusual' experience, and they had no idea what happened. Apparently, a scented version of Nausea wasn't part of the plan. Is this a new trend in avant-garde publishing? Sartre with a side of floral aroma?So now, as I contemplate the meaning of life, I’m also wondering if Sartre’s philosophy is secretly trying to tell me to stop and smell the roses (literally).I’m still contemplating Sartre's philosophy, but now I’m also wondering if the universe is telling me that even the most despairing thoughts can smell... kind of nice?

Loved the thought provocation! Check out Beck’s Book Club podcast on apple after you read for an extra accompaniment!

Sartre was a great novelist and NAUSEA is his masterpiece. As a philosopher, he was a major influence, but his vision was dubious, a "romantic rationalism", as Iris Murdoch characterized it.He does better fleshing out his ideas into fiction, especially in this modern classic (Penguin applies the term properly this time). I can't imagine any reader beginning this novel and not reading to the end. (Incidentally, the black woman singing the recording of "Some of These Days" is a figment of Sartre's imagination, unless he thought Sophie Tucker was black.)The translation by Robert Baldick is a vast improvement over the earlier version by Lloyd Alexander (which contains the famous mistranslation of the phrase "foret des vergers" as well a few other howlers).Too bad Sartre gave up the novel after his ROADS TO FREEDOM series, the first two volumes of which are quite good, if not the equal of NAUSEA. Of his later works only WORDS really rises to greatness, though his study of Baudelaire is worth looking up.

I got to Sartre through Bukowski.More precisely a list of Bukowski’s favored authors.Nausea aims to be a philosophical novel, But it isn’t.It’s a collection of essays presented as someone’s diary.It’s Sartre’s earliest work, his arguments and thoughts are not systematized yet, they are all over the place.Every few pages you find a raw gem of insight.The book describes what is referred to as bouts of “Nausea”, Nausea being “Existential Crisis”, each bout of Nausea is a philosophical essay.It’s not an easy read,the essays are surrounded by fillers to link them together, and it’s hard to distill insights from what’s written.I suggest reading the introduction and forward first.It gives you an essential framework to stick to, and better understand what’s written.If you are after Sartre’s insights and not his writing ( i personally didn’t find him a good novelist) i think it’s better to read a book about his work , written by someone else, which would be more to the point.I’m going to give a few of his essays a try, before decided if i should give up on it or give Being and nothingness a try.

I love how the author describe the philosophical concept of Nausea through the medium of a journal. Like the main character, I do suffer from the Nausea when dealing with the mundane personally-uninteresting aspects of everyday life.

Sartre, like his fellow French Existentialist proponent, Albert Camus, is always an enjoyable writer because his characters and the lives they live are primary examples of real human beings caught in a universe encased by an endless void of nothingness out of which every individual must create his or her own meaning while taking responsibility for their own choices and conduct. There is not another school of philosophy that describes twentieth and twenty-first century life so well with its propensity for war and evil human conduct that goes seemingly unpunished. Man may be alone, but he has been given the ability, along with others, to love and maintain his own self-created ethical standards as he remains stranded on his lonely island surrounded by an inescapable, endless sea.