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Dec 06, 2014lukasevansherman rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
"I have it, the filth, the Nausea."-J.P.S. "It'll make your soul throw up!"-L.S. Like a lot of moody, pretentious male undergrads, I read some of the existentialists (Camus was my homme) both because I was depressed and because I hoped it would make me seem intellectual and interesting (failure on both counts!). Despite its apparent bleakness, existentialist lit. also conjures up a romantic image of sitting on the Left Bank smoking Gauloises, sipping espresso, wearing all black, and waiting for a beautiful French woman (who also dresses in black). Anyway, "Nausea" (La Nausee) is among Sartre's best known works and, according to A.J. Liebling, "the most enjoyable book Sartre has ever written," which is kind of like saying the funniest film Ingmar Bergman ever made. As you might guess from the title, this is not a lot of fun, dealing with existence, the sickness of life, and the meaningless of a post-God world. Camus may not be the more influential philosopher, but he's the better novelist. You might also like Gide, Celine, Genet, Dostoevsky, and the horror of the void. "If anyone had asked me what existence was, I would have answered, in good faith, that it was nothing, simply an empty form which was added to external things without changing anything in their nature."