Existentialism and Excess: The Life and Times of Jean-Paul Sartre
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.59 (571 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B01FUZ4GTA |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 398 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-11-13 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Five Stars Pedr Enjoyed this. Too busy to write a review.. Sartre For Smart People M. Bagge other bios too long, often too technical and dense the reviewer who identified this as a book which will introduce a new generation to a great thinker and constant doer is on the money. the reviews which pan this miss the salient point: a short, accurate book is most likely to be read, even on Kindle.. "A well-written, insightful biography that contains more well-turned phrase and, indeed, passages I found brilliant." according to Charles Chapman. A well-written, insightful biography that contains more than one well-turned phrase and, indeed, passages I found brilliant. (What can I say, I saw fit to Facebook post and tweet them.) The book does not shy away from controversy and Sartre's sometimes less than stellar behavior while remaining largely balanced and non-judgmental. I particularly enjoyed the author's Sartrean psychological speculation (and, yes, it
Along the way there are countless intriguing anecdotes, some amusing, some tragic, some controversial: his loathing of crustaceans and belief that he was being pursued by a giant lobster; his escape from a POW camp; his many affairs; his meetings with Roosevelt, Hemingway, John Huston, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Khrushchev, and Tito; his feuds with Aron, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty; the bombing of his apartment; his influence on the May 1968 uprising; his long and complex relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism and Excess covers all the main events of Sartre's remarkable 75-year life, from his early years as a precocious brat devouring his grandfather's library through his time as a brilliant student in Paris, his wilderness years as a provincial teacher-writer experimenting with mescaline, his World War II adventures as a POW and member of the resistance, his postwar politicization, his immense amphetamine-fuelled feats of writing productivity, his harem of women, his many travels and his final decline into blindness and old age. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism, combined with his creative and artistic flair, have made him a legend of French thought. An entertaining, thought-provoking and compulsive book, much like the man himself.. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high-p