Nausea by Paul Jean Sartre

Nausea

By Paul Jean Sartre 

Rating 4/5 

Genres : Classics, Existential Reality, Satire, Freakish.

This is not the kind of a novel that we come across everyday. It has some very weird thoughts expressed in real honest ways and they are rather abstract and hard to grasp. The protagonist seems to be fast spinning down a spiral of insanity and is also fully aware of this fact. He rambles at length without making much sense and then becomes extremely lucid and clear like glass. To really understand what he is saying, to really feel what is he going through, I think one has to stand in his very shoes and walk the length and bredth of his existential reality. Otherwise is is just plain insanity and nonsensical. :(  For my part, I understand him completely. I could figure exactly what he is trying to convey and although he is only perhaps a figure fiction, I sympathize with him. 

The protagonist is a thirty year old man who finds no meaning and purpose to his life. He is resolute in not doing anything worthy that will give his existence value. He has had his share of all kinds of adventures which no longer lure him. He has known what true and passionate love was which no longer calls him. He has lost all desire to pursue anything of interest in short. He hardly interacts with anyone and keeps mostly to his rooms, visits the library meticulously and hangs around cafes for a favorite past time. He makes rigorous observations of the people around him as if nothing misses his notice. Behind all this, he is always finding hard to attach any value/meaning to their actions..always questioning if their existence if justified through those actions etc etc. He yearns to end his life which has no meaning to him but cannot bring himself to do it. I guess if one starts looking at things this way then life becomes a black hole sucking the very life out of that life which created it. And sure enough that's what happens. At the end though he realizes that he could come to terms with his existence and not obliterate it(after the example of his only friend) through creating some notable work like a novel and on that bright note, embarks on his journey to Paris. What eventually happens to this man? 

He comes off as a misanthrope at heart and occasionally meets a figure called Self-Taught man who perhaps is his imaginary creation that is extremely humanistic. He knows no one, cares for no one but does so for all without discretion - only to get humiliated and discarded at the end. Despite which,this humanitarian has to keep going on..so as not to get sucked out of existence that he so desperately clings onto. :) 

Either when he is in his room or in cafe or library, he is hit by jolts of nausea where after his body becomes rigid,limp and his mind seems to waver between two worlds..one that is physical reality and the other that sees beyond/behind it. As the story progressed and he started coming to terms with finding something worthwhile, these attacks become less frequent. So can we say that Nausea means a sense of knowing Ness that descends upon his consciousness at crucial times? I think so.