Feb. 1st, 2014

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Feb. 1st, 2014 12:07 pm
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Well after a sunny morning the afternoon became extremely wet with rain. I nipped over  to Faversham  to sell some books but had to wait a good while at Teynham station for a train.There had been a landslide near Sole Street on the main line making all trains to Victoria and back delayed. Infact, I had to catch a High Speed train to Faversham , which never stop at the village on a   normal day.

I received six quid for the books. I still ended up buying some paperbacks from other places in the town, including a novel by Emil Zola.

In the end, apart from a free train ride, i needed to get out today. I get frustrated at times and i will not go into the reasons why either.

This evening shall be some reading done and perhaps watch a DVD.
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John-Paul Sartre "Nausea" (Penguin Modern Classics)






Some argue that existentialism is more of a feeling than a philosophy, and one could easily get that impression after reading Sartre’s novels. Sartre was not afraid to explore his philosophical ideals in different forms, and his Renaissance-man abilities in writing allowed him this freedom, even as a novelist. Nausea, in particular, is a collection of diary entries from one Monsieur Roquentin whose soliloquies personalize existentialism.

Existence without essence is naked, cold, detestable (like a bulbous rock easily reduced to pure, bare existence). To demand meaning, to turn inward, and to see Nothing is to feel nausea. “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.” It is difficult to be a man, the knowing animal, who must tolerate the human condition, suffer with the idea of life’s absurdity. Dostoevsky wrote “Suffering is the sole root of consciousness”. More broadly, this novel is really an anthropocentric exploration into man’s struggle to accept himself and his epistemological limitations.

Perhaps a little slow in the beginning, but rich in experiential and philosophical detail. It's satisfying to read a book that addresses primarily internal rather than external action and change, in which the narrator explores a dense inner life and struggles with themes of meaninglessness, purpose, memory and existence itself. The philosophy of existentialism presented here may not appeal to everyone; however, I think the fictive events presented are an important and insightful record of the kind of melancholy many thinking people experience during some part of their lives. Whether or not they come to affirm, like Sartre's narrator does, the effort of creative self-becoming through work and art, the book offers insight into some key philosophical concepts while retaining the emotional and mental atmosphere in which such ideas might occur

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