The Age of Reason (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Sometimes it felt like ‘Monty Python and the French Philosopher’, with John Cleese saying in a heavy French accent, ‘Oh no, I feeel ze anguish of freedom oppressing my consciousness and feeelling me with despair at ze ‘uman condeetion’. The most schematic part of the book is the character of Brunet, who is an almost comical stereotype of the Strong, Conscientious Communist. Yes, admirably Sartre tries to show, rather than tell -- but he doesn't quite show enough of, or look deeply enough into any of the characters for his fiction to attain much gravity.

Topics Afghanistan Africa America Ancient history ancient Rome art Augustus book Britain British Empire British Museum China Christianity Cicero civil war Cold War colonialism comedy Communism drama Egypt exhibition Feminism fiction First World War France Germany Great War H. The story revolves around Mathieu in this philosophical background and brings to fore his existential struggles along with those of the characters linked directly or remotely to his life. This is the idea of existentialism (and remember that Sartre is considered the father of secular existentialism) in that it is the definition of who we are.I’m tempted to describe it as a melodrama, but this does it a disservice as all of the events which occur feel so real. The thought of manipulating his ‘friend’ amuses the cynical Daniel (‘When Mathieu adopted a Quakerish attitude, Daniel hated him’, p. Each name springs up in mind in a color and the association with that color is complete, character and the color inextricable from each other. Those uninitiated with Sartre might just get too engrossed with the plot, when the very essence of this work lies beneath all the love affairs, affairs without love, suicides or attempts, abortions and pregnancies, communism and Zionism, politics and philosophy and the like. Existentialists may deny that such scenes are introduced for sensationalism's sake, but they have not explained why it is necessary to expound their doctrine solely from a worm's eye view of life.

Most people prefer to sip their Sartre-lite via his half dozen plays (including Huis Close with its famous line ‘Hell is other people’), his début novel Nausea, or the Roads To Freedom trilogy, three novels about France just before World War Two – The Age of Reason, The Reprieve, and Iron In The Soul.

The half-drunk man suggests they head off to wax lyrical in a Parisian café over drinks, but Delarue turns him down (to his immediate regret). With the youth gone from his life again, reality hits home on the 34 year old and his predicament becomes ever-present. As you can see there’s a fair bit of toing and froing among this cast of deadbeats and losers, but the ‘plot’ is mostly beside the point. Daniel walked up to the mirror and inspected his dark and comely countenance, and thought: ‘All the same, it would be worth a packet if he were forced to marry Marcelle. It is also about this guy name Daniel who realises that he is a homosexual, but still wants to marry a woman whom he is in love with because she wants to have children (strange attitude for a homosexual to take – I thought that would be what we would consider bi-sexual, but then again this is 1945 so the intricacies of the modern sexual system sort of did not exist back then).

That ghastly self-contempt, that utterly weak, futile, weak, moribund self-contempt, which seemed at every moment on the point of self-annihilation, but always survived.He sank deeper into his chair, he seemed utterly crushed: ‘Good Lord,’ thought Mathieu, ‘he had begun to get accustomed to it. Behind him, Boris and Ivich would soon be whispering together, reconstituting their unbreathable and precious world. A melodramatic element of the story rears itself here, as Sarah suddenly arrives to inform Delarue her Jewish medical professional is leaving for America and won’t do the operation. Later there’s a description of Daniel going to a covered amusement arcade to watch young toughs hanging around waiting to be picked up by gay cruisers.

I may not agree with all that Sartre says but I still find synchronization with his efforts at deciphering the question of ‘being human’.But you're free now", Mathieu is told when all is said and done -- but he's not satisfied, of course: "Pah ! Once Sarah leaves, the two argue, with the young student finally breaching the kiss Delarue had forced upon her. Love was not something to be felt, not a particular emotion, nor yet a particular shade of feeling, it was much more like a lowering curse on the horizon, a precursor of disaster. It’s at this moment Delarue finally announces his situation to Boris, who suggests Lola will provide him with the four thousand francs he needs.