Nausea
Jean-Paul Sartre
Penguin Modern Classics (2000)
***(3/5)
Written in 1938, Nausea (La Nausée in its original French) is the first novel of French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. This review is of the Penguin Modern Classics edition translated by Robert Baldrick. The novel is set in the town of Bouville, France (literally ‘mud town’) and is believed to be a fictional portrayal of Le Havre where Sartre was living at the time of writing. The novel takes the form of the diary entries of 30-year-old Antoine Roquetin as he suffers from strange and unexplained sensations of sickness that he refers to as ‘the Nausea’. I found Roquentin a difficult character to relate to as, on face value, he is man who seems to wallow through a comfortable, bourgeois life in which he has very little to worry about. For the last decade, Roquetin has been been researching the Marquis de Rollebon, a French aristocrat who lived during the French Revolution. Roquetin’s sickness begins to infiltrate his life to such an extent that he begins furiously recording every insignificant detail of both the outside world, and his own feelings and emotions. This is rather tedious for the reader, but nevertheless, is important to understanding Roquetin's state of mind and the book's overall meaning. It becomes clear that Roquetin leads an empty existence; dividing his time between working through papers in the library, and frequenting cafés and restaurants. He goes about his daily life in a state of rapidly suffocating isolation. His only connection with other people is the occasional emotionless love making with the local café owner, and the small talk he shares with a fellow library user known as “the Autodidact”.
As the novel progresses, Roquetin begins to realise that his nausea is in someway linked to the question of existence. He becomes disillusioned with his work on Rollebon and sees it as merely a means to justify his own existence. He also finds that those around him also live a life in which they attempt to justify their purpose, whilst failing to acknowledge their own existence. An example of this is how the Autodidact is reading every book in the library in alphabetical order. In an attempt to find meaning in his own life, Roquetin seeks to rekindle a romance with his ex-lover Anny in Paris. He finds that Anny is with a new man and it's too late to rekindle the past.
Towards the end of the book, Roquetin comes to the conclusion that his feelings of nausea are in fact a side effect of discovering the truth of human existence. That truth is its complete irrelevance; that the universe is completely indifferent to human life. Whilst this sounds a depressing discovery, in fact, it is a liberating one, as human life without god or a higher purpose returns the meaning of life back to the individual.
Whilst I do believe this novel can be read in isolation my interaction with it was very much heightened by approaching it with a prior understanding of Sartre’s work on existentialism. That is not to say I am a scholar of philosophy, nor is the reader required to be one. In many ways I think Sartre is trying to reach out with this novel to those who are not. The novel effectively complements Sartre's work by grounding his philosophy in a creative body, but this may also be the book's biggest flaw as the plot and characterisation is sacrificed for the purity of the message. I do believe the plot is passable without really going anywhere or grasping the attention of the reader. It is quickly understood that the structure and plot of the novel is secondary to the message and experience it's trying to convey.
The prose is packed with too much detail and meanders through the novel leaving the read dry in places, and in combination with the limitations of the plot and characterisation, this book becomes a tedious read at times. Sartre’s writing, whilst full of wit, never really flows too smoothly either. I found myself wondering if this was a problem of translation, and if the prose flows much better in its natural French. The genius of this book is its ability to communicate its message to the reader even if it's not fully comprehended. That sounds paradoxical, but its success in melding the minds of the reader and the protagonist means that, like Roquetin, you find yourself questioning your own existence, purpose and freedom. The resolution of the novel, and what it ultimately wishes to instill in the reader, is powerful and evocative. It calls on the reader to accept that we are free individuals, and ultimately we are responsible for our own sense of meaninglessness. If we want to find meaning we must force meaning in to our lives and seize our happiness.
On balance, I enjoyed this novel, and whilst feeling that a novel is not the best form to explain a complex philosophical theory; what the novel does achieve, is both an interesting entry point, and an example of how the work Sartre set down in Being and Nothingness can manifest itself effectively in a creative body. It can appear to be a tedious meandering inscrutable mess, but for me it is a novel full of intellectual mysteries that will fully engage your critical thinking skills. It really depends on how much you are willing to invest into it. It is a novel I am certain to return to and uncover more of the nuanced philosophical elements I may have missed on first reading.
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