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Nausea
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Nausea (1938) (edit title/settings)

by Jean-Paul Sartre (Author) (edit contributors)

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Among readers and critics familiar with the whole of Sartre's work, it is generally recognized that his earliest novel, Le Nausée (first published in 1938), is his finest and most significant. It is unquestionably a key novel of the Twentieth Century and a landmark in Existentialist fiction.... read more

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Written in the form of journal entries, it follows 30-year-old Antoine Roquentin who, returned from years of travel, settles in the fictional French seaport town of Bouville to finish his research on the life of an 18th-century political figure. But during the winter of 1932 a "sweetish... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

Written in the form of journal entries, it follows 30-year-old Antoine Roquentin who, returned from years of travel, settles in the fictional French seaport town of Bouville to finish his research on the life of an 18th-century political figure. But during the winter of 1932 a "sweetish sickness", as he calls nausea, increasingly impinges on almost everything he does or enjoys: his research project, the company of an autodidact who is reading all the books in the local library alphabetically, a physical relationship with a café owner named Françoise, his memories of Anny, an English girl he once loved, even his own hands and the beauty of nature.

Over time, his disgust towards existence forces him into near-insanity, self-hatred; he embodies Sartre's theories of existential angst, and he searches anxiously for meaning in all the things that had filled and fulfilled his life up to that point. But finally he comes to a revelation into the nature of his being. Antoine faces the troublesomely provisional and limited nature of existence itself.

In his resolution at the end of the book he accepts the indifference of the physical world to man's aspirations. He is able to see that realization not only as a regret but also as an opportunity. People are free to make their own meaning: a freedom that is also a responsibility, because without that commitment there will be no meaning.

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “So this is Nausea: this blinding evidence? I have scratched my head over it! I’ve written about it. Now I know: I exist—the world exists—and I know that the world exists. That’s all. It makes no difference to me. It’s strange that everything makes so little difference to me: it frightens me.”
  • “I keep quiet, I smile constrainedly. The waitress puts a plate of chalky Camembert in front of me. I glance around the room and a violent disgust floods me. What am I doing here? Why did I have to get mixed up in a discussion on humanism? Why are these people here? Why are they eating? It’s true they don’t know they exist. I want to leave, go to some place where I will be really in my own niche, where I will fit in. ... But my place is nowhere; I am unwanted, de trof.”
  • “Now I recognize myself, I know where I am: I’m in the park. I drop onto a bench between great black tree-trunks, between the black, knotty hands reaching towards the sky. A tree scrapes at the earth under my feet with a black nail. I would so like to let myself go, forget myself, sleep. But I can’t, I’m suffocating: existence penetrates me everywhere, through the eyes, the nose, the mouth... And suddenly, suddenly, the veil is torn away, I have understood, I have seen.”
  • “I grow warm, I begin to feel happy. There is nothing extraordinary in this, it is a small happiness of Nausea: it spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time—the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain. No sooner than born, it is already old, it seems as though I have known it for twenty years.”
  • “You didn’t bother me at all, I had no particular desire for your lips, the kiss I was going to give you was much more important, it was an engagement, a pact. So you understand that this pain was irrelevant, I wasn’t allowed to think about my thighs at a time like that. It wasn’t enough not to show my suffering: it was necessary not to suffer.”
    Anny, reminiscent of her first kiss with Roquentin
  • “I am not jealous; I know that she is outliving herself. Even if she loved him with all her heart, it would still be the love of a dead woman. I had her last living love.”

First Sentence edit see section history

Monday, 29 January, 1932: Something has happened to me, I can't doubt it any more.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This is book 602 of 1271 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)

Preceded by Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and followed by Rebecca.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Jean-Paul Sartre (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: French
Publisher: Gallimard
Country: France
Publication Date: 1938
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: Add the page count.

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More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • The Wall
  • The Fall
  • Existentialism is a Humanism

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