Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780141185491
ISBN: 014118549X
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: November 30, 2000
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Sales Rank: 1614811
Studio: Penguin Classics

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher, critic, novelist and dramatist, hold a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. Among readers and critics familiar with the whole of Sartre's work, it is generally recognized that his earliest novel, Le Nausée (first published in 1938), is his finest and most significant. It is unquestionably a key novel of the Twentieth Century and a landmark in Existentialist fiction.

Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which "spread 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." Roquentin's efforts to come to terms with his life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize trhe tents of his Existentialist creed.

he introduction for this edition of Nausea by Hayden Carruth gives background on Sartre's life and major works, a summary of the principal themes of Existentialist philosophy, and a critical analysis of the novel itself.




Rating: - Bare and pure.
I read this book last 20 years ago during my lunch hours in a busy Greek cafe in downtown LA, and the experience of finding complete solitude in that environment was so extraordinary, and therefore, has never been forgotten. I am glad that I re-read this gem 20 years later in a completely different setting--this time, alone in a room with minimum lighting. It is like seeing things in slow motions with brilliant commentary on life and existence, often sad, but not depressing... rather peaceful actually ... Read More

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Rating: - "Can you justify your existence then?"
It's much more droll, often witty, and even poetic in this 1964 translation by Lloyd Alexander (author of the wonderful Prydain Chronicles) than the author's reputation might lead you to expect. Some Gallicentric references escaped me, and a few footnotes would have helped, but this short novel, or perhaps a philosophical meditation elided into hallucinatory, realistic, and jumbled fictions, deserves wide attention. Perhaps existentialism seems dated by other, often French-dominated, schools of thought in ... Read More

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Rating: - The poetry of obsessive uselessness
Sartre's "Nausea" is a gripping, twitchy little novella confirming the ways one person of unpleasant station can make them self sick , nervous, an odious presence by lingering long on the ambivalent shrug .No one else could write a better tale of an intensely self-aware intellectual whose physical discomforts translate into a changed worldview. Not a lot of laughs, but Sartre does insert his descriptions of bad faith of an intellect aware of his stagnation but whose dread saps strength, and will from him, ... Read More

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Rating: - Amazing
Nausea is absolutely amazing. This is the book that started everything for me. Education and the pursuit of knowledge became priorities in my life after reading this book, thanks to Sartre. Existentialism may be "dead" to some people, but to the high school or early college student who is disenchanted with the world around them, this is the perfect book to get those intellectual juices flowing. The "self-learned man" who sits at the library reading in alphabetical order everything that he can inspired me greatly. ... Read More

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Rating: - * ".....I think I don't want to think...it would be much better if I could only stop thinking....".
Even though I'm intrigued by existentialism, I am still struggling to understand what Sartre is trying to tell us in Nausea. The main character, because he finds other humans boring, petty, phony...., he makes a choice to stand away from the rest of humanity. He is a critical observer, the constant cynic. So much easier to stand at a distance and criticize to feel the Nausea that is humanity. The nausea is only one side of the coin, because not all in life is despicable, crass and disgusting, He has chosen to ... Read More

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