Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre is one of the most prominent names in existentialist philosophy. I have been reading Dostoyevsky for some time now, so the philosophy itself is not alien to me. But outside of the Russian, seldom have I ventured to other authors of the pedigree. A book by Camus (The Outsider), Kafka (The Metamorphosis), Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) are the few ventures. I did read Nietzsche but the existentialism in his work was shrouded in layers of hubris. In a dearth of better options and a search for something different, I went for "Nausea".

Sartre described existentialism as : the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism; which is what he has attempted to do in this book. This book follows the thoughts and actions of a young man in a city. He is facing his existentialist crisis; his 'Nausea'. Through the protagonist, Roquentin, Sartre debates on the act of existing and the necessity of it. He calls the world and its population superfluous and absurd. To quote my favourite line from the book :

Every existent is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.

This line is representative of the philosophy expounded in the book. Sartre ridicules all 'bourgeois' sentiments and squashes them into a state of absurd. Art, travel, love, learning; all hold no meaning in a world that is random and beyond one's control. Even death would be nothing more than another random event.

Antoine Roquentin is a young man living in Bouville - a fictitious character in a fictitious setting. He has travelled far and wide and has settled down to write a book on a historical figure of the eighteenth century. As he struggles through his research and his life, he records his thoughts in a diary which is presented to us readers. His life is quite ordinary; he spends time in the library for research, goes to cafes for food, is physically intimate with the pattronne of the cafe, goes for walks. But his thoughts are anything but ordinary. He is constantly struggling with a 'nausea' that attacks him from time to time. In this nauseous state he finds himself questioning the existence of himself and everything around him. He has a friend of sorts, who he has nicknamed the Autodidact, who believes in humanity and then there is Anna, his old love and his only hope of salvation.

Sartre more than impressed; enough for me to want to read his more acclaimed work "Being and Nothingness". He excels in writing about abstracts. The long rants about meaningless and unreal things adorned his book immensely. His settings were not very thorough though. There was something amiss in every scene he created. Nevertheless, "Being and Nothingness" enters my list somewhere in the upper echelons. Would definitely want to read more of this one.

The Landlady - Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky

It was about time that I made progress with my list of Dostoyevsky's works. The list had only few novels left. Just one post-underground, which I will probably save for the last, and four pre-underground. I decided to take up 'The Landlady' next. With a seventeen hour flight coming up, the rather small novel found a very comfortable niche in my itinerary.

This was Dostoyevsky's third novel, after 'Poor Folks' and 'The Double'. Of the recurring themes that Dostoyevsky would use later in his writings, 'The Landlady' had glimpses of the "religious fool" and the delirious protagonist. Dostoyevsky has attempted to describe a complicated relation in this book. One that born of and ends in the fantastic. There is little that is rooted in realism, much that is obscure and in parts, it is downright difficult to follow. Of all the Dostoyevsky's I have read thus far, this is probably the least I appreciated. But it is possibly because I have read his later works. The contemporary audience to whom this novella was presented accused Dostoyevsky of plagiarism. But this book seems much in line with Dostoyevsky's later works. Not as polished and complete; perhaps missing a few chunks here and there; but it certainly has all the elements.

Vasily Ordynov, the protagonist, is an unemployed nobility who has dedicated his life to the obscurely described realm of science. He lives a solitary life and when his landlady moves out of Petersburg he is forced to look for new lodgings. While roams the outskirts of the city, he sees an old man and a young woman in a church. He is drawn to the woman and follows them to their quarters. The next day, he lands at their building and asks for lodgings. The woman accepts and then follows a series of delirious episodes where Ordynov lapses into sickness and is nursed by his landlady Katerina. They develop a relation and he tries to figure out her relation with the old man.

Yes, I continue to be awed by Dostoyevsky. And this has been a terrific journey thus far. Twelve down, four to go. I think I will pick up his unfinished work 'Netochka Nezvanova' next.