Nausea

by Jean-Paul Sartre

published in 2013

first published in 1938

translated by Lloyd Alexander

Fiction

✔ Available to borrow

178 pages

published by New Directions Books

published in New York, NY

owned in Printed Book format

Ugh I don't know, this book burrowed into my brain, so interesting and engrossing. But Sartre and I don't seem to agree on whether humans are good or not.

There is a passage toward the middle of the book that is so visceral in its description of anxiety that I still think about it whenever I'm approaching panic in the city, and it strangely calms me. In it the protagonist describes seeing the gnarled roots of a tree in his local park and really being hit with the unknowability of all things, the alienation of everyday life. It's a beautiful and raw excerpt that I'll add here when I have the book handy.

Citation

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Nausea. New York, NY: New Directions Books, 2013. Printed Book.