Sono sempre intenta a scovare un equivalente musicale alle mie letture, ma questa volta Sartre mi ha facilitato il compito. Il suo Roquentin è infatti stregato da questo ragtime anni ’20: ”Some of these days” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_0ldg.... Sono quasi sicura che sia questo. Il pezzo è lui. Roquentin parla di una cantante negra. Sophie Tucker è bianca, la sua voce, sebbene a volte bluesy, non esprime la solita potenza delle più note vocalità blues. “Tra un momento ci sarà il ritornello: è sopratutto questo che mi piace e la maniera improvvisa con cui si getta avanti come una scogliera contro il mare. Per ora suona soltanto il jazz, non v’è melodia, solo note, una miriade di piccole scosse. Non hanno sosta, un ordine inflessibile le fa nascere e le distrugge, senza mai lasciar loro l’agio di riprendersi, di esistere per se stesse. Corrono, s’inseguono, passando mi colpiscono con un urto secco, e s’annullano. Mi piacerebbe trattenerle, ma so che se arrivassi ad afferrarne una, tra le dita non resterebbe che un suono volgare e languido. Devo accettare la loro morte; devo perfino volerla: conosco poche impressioni più aspre e più forti.”Questo brano descrive bene la nausea, sebbene questa non vi sia neppure nominata. Descrive il concetto di fuggevolezza delle cose. Uno scorrimento d’esistenze singole: una nota che nasce ed è già morta, ma anche un alito di vento e le fronde da esso mosse: sono tutte minuscole esistenze che non hanno tempo di realizzarsi, di divenire totali. Il processo di totalizzazione è sempre in corso e non coincide mai con una totalità già data. È ciò che Sartre chiama il pratico-inerte. E, a mio avviso, il tanto sviscerato paragone con Hegel qui nasce e qui si ferma.Per Sartre il pratico-inerte è la realtà oggettiva, l’essenza della materia, il residuo della prassi. E si concretizza -o materializza- come mera oggettività. Da qui il ciottolo dal quale fuoriesce la nausea per la prima volta. Dall’essenza del sasso. Cosa estranea al soggetto. Cosa che si fa sentire esterna e corporea. Cosa che aliena il soggetto, perché è una minaccia per l’uomo, costretto ad agire, ad esteriorizzarsi anche lui per sentirsi oggetto. Da qui il paragone con Hegel: perché l’alienazione coincide con l’oggettivazione.Sartre approfondisce questi concetti in “L’essere e il nulla”.La nausea è un sentimento che si avverte quando ci si accorge dell’assurda contingenza della realtà. Dell’inutilità, quindi, dell’esistenza. Esistere di fatto vs esistere di diritto. Il mondo c’è perché c’è, e non ha alcuna base. Gli esseri che lo percepiscono e lo vivono come qualcosa di ragionevole, come qualcosa che si basi su un fondamento, esistono di diritto. Al privilegiato che riesce a rendersi conto dell’assurda contingenza dell’esistenza non è dato esistere di diritto. Esistono di diritto i piccoli borghesi di provincia che “escono dagli uffici, dopo la giornata di lavoro, guardano le case e le piazze con aria soddisfatta, pensano che è la loro città, una bella città borghese. Non hanno paura, si sentono a casa propria…”. Tutti questi uomini con esistenze di diritto non temono l’erosione del passato. Perché solo il nauseato si rende conto del nulla delle azioni, e allora anche il narrarsi è impresa difficile. Gli attimi nascono e muoiono come le note del pezzo jazz. E, se pur si riesce a narrare qualcosa, non è ciò che si è vissuto davvero.Ma narrarsi è una modalità d’esistenza solida, si esiste di diritto quando la parola ha il dono demiurgico d’inventarci la vita. Ma eccola di nuovo, la distinzione: l’uomo che esiste di diritto racconta la sua esistenza; il suo passato (che il nauseato ben sa, non è mai esistito) diventa ricordo, aneddoto, saggezza, esperienza. Quest’uomo tenta di oggettivarsi, gioca la sua parte, esiste. Roquentin, come tutti i melanconici, ha serie difficoltà a ricordarsi cosa sia accaduto. Tenta di giocare la sua parte da scrittore, come gioca la sua parte la negra che canta:“La negra canta. Allora, è possibile giustificare la propria esistenza? Un pochino?”A proposito di tipi melanconici, ecco un curioso aneddoto: “La nausea" era originariamente intitolato “Melancholia". Simone de Beauvoir dice che son stati altri a consigliare a Sartre questo nuovo titolo. Altri descrivono meglio il ragionamento dello scrittore, la ragione del suo cambiamento. Il titolo originario, infatti, si ispirava all’omonima stampa di Dürer.La figura alata, simbolo della pensosità umana, rappresenta i conflitti del cosmo. Il riferimento a questa stampa non ha avuto successo, non ha vinto, perché il dolore che Sartre intendeva descrivere non si conciliava affatto con la modalità di aggiustamento tutta rinascimentale che si trova nella stampa. Nessun raziocinio potrebbe porre fine all’ineluttabilità del conflitto uomo-oggetto.Ritornando al paragone con il finalismo hegeliano. Anch’esso è di breve durata. E la conseguenza sembrerebbe essere in contraddizione con la scelta pessimistica del titolo. Un passo alla volta..Ciò che distanzia Sartre da Hegel è la conclusione della storia, la ragione per la quali molti poi considereranno la filosofia di Sartre una filosofia “delle responsabilità”, e non “della disperazione”: Sartre non accetta la concezione marxista ed hegeliana dell’uomo schiavo di meccanismi storici; rifiuta la passività dell’uomo perché non crede in quella legge d’immanenza hegeliana che prevede l’annullamento dell’uomo. Vi è la nausea, ma vi è anche il suo superamento. Vale a dire la presa di coscienza e l’assunzione di responsabilità.Ma a me, che tanto è piaciuta la descrizione che Sartre fa di questa epifania francese ed esistenzialista, il superamento un po’ annoia. [Ecco un link dove se ne parla un po’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOnRTX...] E, siccome per narrarlo bisognerebbe stare a parlare ancora un po’ di coscienza e di essere in sé (distinzione necessaria per giungere ad una positiva risoluzione del conflitto uomo-mondo), mi fermo qua. Ma prima una confessione..Sempre intenta a scovare un equivalente musicale alle mie letture, non mi son voluta accontentare del suggerimento di Sartre e concludo questo mio commento con Il comportamento di Gaber. Canzone che traduce in un linguaggio semplice e diretto quello che io ho cercato di descrivere sopra. Buon ascolto.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaSyow...Il comportamentoMio nonno è sempre mio nonnoè sempre Ambrogio in ogni momentovoglio dire che non ha problemidi comportamento.Io non assomiglio ad Ambrogiol'interezza non è il mio forteper essere a mio agioho bisogno di una parte.Per esempio, quando sto in campagnaed accendo il fuoco nel caminolentamente raccolgo la legnae mi muovo come un contadino.Quando in treno incontro una donnaio m'invento serio e riservatofaccio quello che parla pocoma c'ha dietro tutto un passato.E se mi viene bene, se la parte mi funzionaallora mi sembra di essere una persona.Qualche volta metto il mio giacconegrigioverde tipo guerriglieroe ci metto dentro il mio corpoe già che ci sono anche il mio pensiero.Quando invece sto leggendo Hegelmi concentro, sono tutto presonon da Hegel, naturalmentema dal mio fascino di studioso.E se mi viene bene, se la parte mi funzionaallora mi sembra di essere una persona.Mio nonno si è scelto una parteche non cambia in ogni momentovoglio dire che c'ha un solo comportamento.Io invece ho sempre bisognodi una nuova definizionee gli altri fanno lo stessoè una tacita convenzione.Non ne posso più di recitaredi fingere per darmi un tonoio mi mostro senza pudorepur di essere quel che sono.E se mi viene bene, se la parte mi funzionaallora mi sembra di essere una persona.Se un giorno noi cercassimo chi siamo veramenteho il sospetto che non troveremmo niente.
Back in my school, when I took “Sanskrit” for the first time as a language, I was fascinated by it. Like Mathematics, I felt that anything and everything could be explained by Sanskrit. The language of the wise and experienced, it had its roots dating back to millions of centuries and was contributed to swell to its current form by thousands of brilliant minds and astute practitioners of life and non-life forms. The stream was so vivacious and bountiful that by just touching its surface, i.e., by just getting to learn the language’s basics, my senses were acutely turned on. I was into my first few classes, when I came across the word, “Aham”, which meant “I”. While the basics of I, You, We, Them, etc. were diligently thought to us, like any other language learning mandates, there was always something palpably unique about “I”. The moment I uttered the syllable, it empowered me; it centralized control into my being and elevated me right to a pedestal from where I could do as I wanted do. Or so, I felt. But is being one’s self and living in that “I” cosmos so easy? And at what cost? With what options? And is it even possible?Nausea is my first brush with the philosophy of “Existentialism”. For the uninitiated like me, this is the concept of putting the I in the middle of the universe and seeing and reasoning everything through his perspective. If he doesn’t see something, it doesn’t exist. If his dreams are walking, the dreams exist. If his memory fails, the memories don’t exist. If he can touch his pain, the pain exists. This branch of philosophy grants supreme status to the individual; in fact, the individual is the only legitimate student of this school of thought.My first book (and first reading) on the philosophy of “Existentialism” was, err, erratic! There was so much happening and yet, so little was happening. It was like a whole chapter of fifty pages have been written and the pen had not moved from the first word, in essence that is. I read this book twice, just to get a little grasp over it. I might have failed miserably though. “A crowd is untruth.” This simple statement of Soren Kierkegaard is like that bottomless bit into which one can contract a free fall forever and never reach the destination. And Sartre, made this pit a bit more hostile when he said, “life begins on the other side of despair.”Nausea is a collection of diary entries of Antoine Roquentin, a writer, who is trying to piece together an article during his stay at Bouville. For the outsider, he is a fairly well-placed guy, staying in a hotel, visiting cafes for drinks, spending time at libraries, moving between smaller junctions on foot and train and picking up random conversations without a hiccup. But for Roquentin, its nothing but a pungent façade. He is lonely and devoid of friends. He has had a failed love affair which he is unable to forget. He is here for a specific assignment whose foundation even, is eluding him. For him, all the “society-approved” activities, that the outsider finds meritorious and gay, are no more that solid, cotton balls, drifting in air aplenty, obliterating his views by colluding his concentration and squashing his sanity.He is searching in vain for a meaning of his being, to attach a gravitas to his floating body and imbecile mind but he mostly bites the dust. His continuous failed trysts with truth and purpose turns him into a walking wall of disgust and scorn, whose venomous bricks start infecting each other and rendering its whole structure, slowly, invalid. His nausea follows him everywhere and unleashes its vomit at all paces, without mercy. So, he sees a well-synchronized, melodious jazz piece as nothing more than a bunch of forced notes, destined to born and die in quick play. Their existence, terminated. He views a face on a poster as aligned to the words on the poster only till the time someone tears the poster apart. The duo’s existence, terminated. In his eyes, the pleasant mast of a Sunday morning is alive only till it is forcefully gulped down by the Sunday Evening (which is more faithful to a busy Monday Morning). The Morning’s existence, terminated. He is overcome by rage at the sight of something as trivial as cold meat but doesn’t feel a drop of water between his eyelids at the sight of an utterly detached beloved. He surprises himself with his scribbling, which on touching the diary, at once, turns alien. He rambles with his dreams, his musings and his world for long. And at long last, he sees the blinding truth at the feet of a chestnut tree. Its root, kneaded into existence. The existence of the leaves, the branches, the bark, the root were abstract and not relative. Each of them, in their own way, would chart out a course: the leaves sprouting out, ripening, falling and kissing the earth; the branches extending, withering and regrouping into ashes; the bark, growing, plateauing and stunting into sterility and the roots, encroaching, entangling, sucking and falling into quietude in some other field. They would not enclose each other, although, they would coherently look a part of the bigger picture.Roquentin, suddenly, realized that although shaping the walls of existence was primarily an individual exercise, a mission of a perennial kind, it can be erected by the help of friends, and memories. None of the friends or memories form the existence but they can act as a preface to an effective existence. Nothing is meaningless; yes, even the nausea, as long as it leaves between its spell, a meaningful existence, a vehicle on which an individual can mount and successfully cross another bout of nausea.For a novice like me, it was an immensely intense read, and an engaging one too. I read in a few articles that Sartre, although credited for his huge contribution to Existentialism, was not credited much for his narrative skills. I don’t know how much of it is true but I thoroughly enjoyed his simple yet vivid language. His attention to detail was captivating. Sample this:When Roquentin is witnessing a game of cards: “The cards fall on the woollen cloth, spinning. The hands with ringed fingers come and pick them up, scratching the cloth with their nails.”And when Roquentin is lying in bed at night and a window by his bedside is open: "Calm. Calm. I can no longer feel the slipping, the rustling of time. I see pictures on the ceilings. First rings of light, then crosses. They flutter. And now another picture is forming, at the bottom of my eyes this time.”My mind needs to dwell a little more on this neo-concept of Existentialism. I have just seen a sparkle on the reticent surface of earth and it is enough for me to get a spade and dig further to get to its developed roots.
What do You think about Nausea (1969)?
Roquentin, Meursault; Meursault, Roquentin. Now, go outside, grab a cup of coffee and have fun. I'll be here, sitting on the floor surrounded by cupcakes, ice cream and some twisted books, like an existentialist Bridget Jones, just contemplating my own ridiculous existence, thanks to you guys and your crude and insightful comments about life and its inevitable absurdity. It is a tough read. Especially if you feel like a giant failure that never lived, but existed (to live, one of the rarest thing in the world, according to another great writer). I don't know about the life situation (and mental health condition) of you people out there, so I will certainly avoid the pressure of recommending this book. At the same time, I wish everyone could enjoy Sartre's beautiful writing. Yes, that is beautiful. And not too difficult to understand.A couple of samples:"Something has happened to me, I can't doubt it any more. It came as an illness does, not like an ordinary certainty, not like anything evident. It came cunningly, little by little; I felt a little strange, a little put out, that's all. Once established it never moved, it stayed quiet, and I was able to persuade myself that nothing was the matter with me, that it was a false alarm. And now, it's blossoming.""When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell a story: the plausible disappears at the same time as the friends." (So simple and true.) "If I could keep myself from thinking! I try, and succeed: my head seems to fill with smoke... and then it starts again: "Smoke . . . not to think . . . don't want to think . . . I think I don't want to think. I mustn't think that I don't want to think. Because that's still a thought." Will there never be an end to it? My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think . . . and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment - it's frightful - if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing." "They did not want to exist, only they could not help themselves... Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance." "You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again." (NEVER)His words are lethal. And real. And that's a dangerous mix. He shares some thoughts that a lot of people can relate to, and, in most cases, those people won't know what to do with all that. I know I don't. Besides feeling sick, what can you do? Write a book? Eat more ice cream? Go skydiving? Plan a round-the-world trip? Quit your job and live in the country, eating raspberries? Oh, to face the absurdity of the world and to feel free because of that. To stop this never-ending search for meaning. To live. To live? A rare thing, indeed. (Oh dear, I sound like a self-help author.)This was the first time I read Sartre. I've read the brilliant, the one and only, the master at describing the human condition, Dostoevsky; Camus, whose works I really like too; Kierkegaard, the pioneer. So, Sartre was a must-read. Those authors speak right to my soul (wherever that is), they get me (well, not Kierkegaard; at least, not that much. It's complicated. We're cool, though). It's a comforting feeling... being understood by some dead writers that you'll never meet, obviously.Yeah.Okay. So, I loved this book. It's a new favorite of mine. And I need some Seinfeld reruns now.Note to self: if you're ever going to re-read this, don't do it while listening to Enya, Craig Armstrong or Joy Division. It wasn't a nice feeling.Feb 03, 14* Also in my blog.
—Florencia Brino
Let me give this difficult book a try.Antoine Roquentin, the existential hero here, writes a diary where he records his attempts to explain what has brought him to his present despair. Or Nausea, with a capital M. To convince himself and his readers that this is real, he mentions anecdotes, stories and other characters he had experienced and encountered. I was myself beginning to despair, as some of his passages are really difficult and had dragged my mind into the void where it couldn't find meaning in his explanation of meaninglessness when I found, just before the end, a sentence which, to me, had summarized the entirety of Roquentin's ruminations. It reads:"Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance."There. That's all there is here by way of philosophy. But let me break it down for you lest I am accused of trying to write like Sartre.EVERY EXISTING THING IS BORN WITHOUT REASON. "To exist is simply TO BE THERE", says Roquentin. No one can deduce anything out of existence. Some people invent "a necessary being" (Roquentin does not use the word "God") but this being cannot also explain existence (why what is has to be and why not just nothing). Those who ascribe meaning to existence lie. They cannot succeed in not feeling "superfluous...amorphous, vague, and sad." You eat and drink to preserve your "precious" existence but there is absolutely no reason for existing(let me digress, Catholic teaching says man was created so that he can love and serve God, etc. Sounds crappy. If God is self-sufficient--and he must be otherwise he won't be God--then why would there be a need for someone to love him?). Roquentin recalls having made love to women and fought with men but he says these led him nowhere. He studied history but says searching the past is in vain, he finds there only scraps of images of which he's not sure what they represent. He goes on and on, tackling humanism, romantic love, etc. and still--no meaning.EVERY EXISTING THING PROLONGS ITSELF OUT OF WEAKNESS. Why weakness? Because existence is thrust upon you. Before you existed (if there was such a time) you could not have refused not to exist. And once you're here, you cannot will yourself out of existence. Roquentin finds horror in this unfortunate situation:"My thought is ME: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think...and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment--it's frightful--if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I AM THE ONE who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire: the hatred, the disgust of existing..."EVERY EXISTING THING DIES BY CHANCE. Compounding the above weakness is the fact that a living/non-living thing also has no control over its death/end. Even chance conspires to create a suicide.Despite this bleak outlook, however, the novel ends in a guarded, hopeful note. Requentin is listening to his favorite song by a black lady singer. He thinks about her, and whoever composed the song, and he notices that he thinks of them with such "gentleness." Maybe this singer and the composer are already dead, maybe they had thought "they were lost irrevocably, drowned in existence." To Roquentin, however, they--"are a little like dead people...a little like the heroes of a novel; they have washed themselves of the sin of existing. Not completely, of course, but as much as any man can."This idea, continues Roquentin, suddenly knocks him over--"because I was not even hoping for that any more. I feel something brush against me lightly and I dare not move because I am afraid it will go away. sommething I didn't know any more: a sort of joy. The (singer) sings. Can you justify your existence then? Just a little? I feel extraordinarily intimidated. It isn't because I have much hope. But I am like a man completely frozen after a trek through the snow and who suddenly comes into a warm room. I think he would stay motionless near the door, still cold, and that slow shudders would go right through him."He then thinks aloud that maybe too, by writing a book or a novel, he can do the same "washing of himself of the sin of existing", i.e., doing something that would at least make him remember his life without repugnance.
—Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly
Im sorry to see you had a real bad experience! I still like Sartre and I'm willing to give a try perhaps later.... I still loved this: "Dear SartreIts no novel.It end up pathetically as a mental masturbation.There is only ideas,passages,philosophies the real thing is missing.There is no experience!"
—Dhandayutha
