Jean-Paul Sartre: v. 1: Hated Conscience of His Century [Hardcover]

While not as massive a compendium as the Annnie Cohen-Solal bio, this has much to reccommend it. In fact, preciseley that it is not the massive compendium reccommends it in my eyes. Who has time for that but the intellectual janitors in their ivory towers? Gerassi knows Sarte's works quite well, but primarily- he knew the man himself and he gives interesting insights into many anecdotes and ideas.

My feelings towards Sartre tend to be passionately ambivalent. I don't care for his philosophy, which will always be 'cool' to the pseudo-sophisticates who don't even possess a thorough grasp of it... I was enchanted with him in my teens mainly because of his persuasive skill with words (the man was an extraordinary wordsmith), and I will always be deeply enamored of his novels. 'nausea,' alone I feel should secure his place in the history of literature.

There are tons of works on Sartre purporting to unveil his thought and life. Most of the ones I've read are inadequate- they come off as hack-kneyed and reactionary, and try to compensate for their faults with an over-abundance of fruitless linguistic play that goes nowhere- does nothing, or they take him to task overly for a variety of his personal failings (and there are plenty from which to choose). Few thinkers and biographers attempt to tackle the man as a writer and an activist... Few try to work with Sartre's all-too-human imperfections and put them into context.

...And few see any kind of logic in Sarte's later years but Gerassi, because of his close involvement with both Sartre and De Beauvior, is able to show the heart and soul of the man at work, especially in his darker years (involvement with revolutionary Maoists and loss of his sight and mental faculties, most likely due to his extensive use of drugs, ampetamines, alchohol etc in his 30s and 40s)...

Stil, Sartre is a writeer and thinker worth exploring, and he was one of the more interesting men of his time. If you are at all interested in learning more about this maddening intellectual of the 20th C- this is a fine place to start. Gerassi was chosen by sartre mainly because he was not an acolyte- he had his own opinions and had frequent arguments (some quite vitriolic) with J.P. A couple of which gerassi recounts.

The book has a lot of meat. Most don't. Let me reiterate that is written cearly and concisely- a quality MUCH LACKING in most books of this kind, and a quality that I value highly, outside of experimental fiction... I have read this a couple times, always enjoy it, find it interesting and illuminating.

just one man's five cents, as always.

Choose your evils. Sartre had more gumption than most when it came to calling out his age on its evils. Are we to blame him because, post-WWII he turned away from a non-poitical stance and embraced a left-wing ideology?

This is a short, consise bio, and I think the best on the market of its kind. If you are looking to round out your perception of this enigmatic thinker- pick up a copy!

-Ed Niles