Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

The summer reading season will be in full swing for our June meeting, where we will discuss Jean-Paul Sartre's first novel, Nausea (French: La Nausée). Originally published in 1938, the work presents Sartre's early, "existential" philosophy through the thoughts and experiences of the novel's protagonist.

We will be sitting inside (in a small room near the front entrance of the venue).

Below is a link to a PDF version of the reading, followed by a brief description of the work:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE READING

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

Winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature (though he declined to accept it), Jean-Paul Sartre ― philosopher, critic, novelist, and dramatist ― holds a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. La Nausée, his first and best novel, is a landmark in Existential fiction and a key work of the twentieth century."