Nausea

by Jean-Paul Sartre

178 pages

English language

Published Nov. 6, 1964 by New Directions.

ISBN:: 978-0-8112-0188-9
OCLC Number:: 563778

(34 reviews)

A fascinating existentialist novel, written in the form of a journal, about a historian who moves to a small port in northern France to research a biography he is intending to write. Whilst there his senses become dulled and he becomes increasingly disgusted by his own existence, finding no solace with friends or a woman he begins an affair with.

33 editions

Moorlock reviewed Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre (A New Directions Paperbook)

Review of 'Nausea' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

What if the Buddha, instead of leaving his comfortable life to earnestly seek the truths of thusness and no-self, had instead been bitten by those truths as if by a venomous spider while he was still living his princely life. And what if, instead of then feeling the bliss of awakening and a union with the All, he was instead stricken by a horrific nausea and a panic that the All was penetrating, violating, and dismembering him.

Well, then, the Buddha would be Antoine Roquentin and Buddhism would be the anguished nostalgia for samsara.