by Jean-Paul Sartre edited by Ronald Aronson and Adrian van den Hoven ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 26, 2013
The authors have included exceptional pieces from every period in Sartre’s life, giving readers a precise understanding of a...
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) need no longer be feared as the intensely deep analytic writer of all things existential. His essays show his brilliant ability to explain the unexplainable.
Aronson (History of Ideas/Wayne State Univ.; Camus and Sartre, 2005, etc.) and van den Hoven (Sartre Today, 2006, etc.) exhibit their incredible knowledge of Sartre, right down to tweaking the translations of almost all of the essays included in this collection. The essays have been collected from Situations, Selected Prose and newspaper articles written in 1945 and presented chronologically. His “passing thoughts” cover a wide spectrum, from literary criticism to jazz to Calder and Giacometti. Especially fascinating are his views of America in 1945, particularly New York, “the harshest city in the world.” Sartre’s observation of American workers and their unions are still relevant. The editors clearly explain Sartre’s falling out with Camus, and his “Reply to Camus” is a true joy to read—it makes one wonder what an interesting attorney he might have been, along with all his other talents. Sartre minced no words, and his easy, natural way of writing enabled him to expound on diverse subjects with hardly a moment’s hesitation. Suddenly, existentialism is clear and logical, and the philosopher’s development clearly illustrated. Sartre wrote essays probing every political and social theme of his time, providing not only his own thoughts, but a remarkable view of history. His literary criticism should be the established standard for book reviewing.
The authors have included exceptional pieces from every period in Sartre’s life, giving readers a precise understanding of a talented writer and philosopher.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59017-493-7
Page Count: 600
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
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translated by Carol Cosman & by Jean-Paul Sartre
by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Justin O'Brien & Sandra Smith
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by Albert Camus ; translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy & Justin O'Brien
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by Albert Camus translated by Arthur Goldhammer edited by Alice Kaplan
by Stephen Batchelor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 18, 2020
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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