There aren’t many belly-laughs in Jean-Paul Sartre’s work…
I should explain. I had just spent three years studying English Literature at University; three years where I was immersed in ‘the greats’, all the way from Chaucer, through Shakespeare and Milton, up to James Joyce. It was wonderful! But it was regimented — we were told what to read and when to read it — as well as being intense: read Bleak House in a week (along with everything else) and all for a small slot in a 50-minute lecture!
After my exams that constraint was suddenly removed and I was faced with being able to choose what to read. And that floored me. What I settled on was Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Age of Reason. Why? Because I was now a ‘serious’ reader; I was ‘educated’ and ‘qualified’. And not having read any Sartre before, I thought “why not?” — seemed a reasonable way to add another notch to my reading tally-stick.
Not only was my decision misguided (as well as an over-inflation of my self-rewarded sense of literary understanding!) it backfired. Without the structure and support of my course, I simply didn’t know what was going on in the book — the impact of which was that I gave up reading novels for a long time. And I mean a long time. Maybe it wasn’t Sartre’s fault. Maybe I was ‘read out’ and all J-P did was to push me over the edge…
Why do I raise this now? Because I have just finished reading Nausea, and — second Sartre around — have a reasonable idea as to the messages and themes. Indeed, there are passages which actually reflect — in a profound way — how I feel about life from time-to-time. But what is more immediately illuminating is recognising that my appreciation doesn’t come from the reading per se but largely arises from the experience of living.
On reflection, I never stood a chance with The Age of Reason all those years ago. And why? Because I hadn’t lived enough to understand it. My academic reading experience had far less to do with illumination than I’d imagined.
Ian Gouge - Writer 