Anyone like this crazy philosopher/novelist/essayist dude? Reading through Age of Reason right now. Plus I think he might have been a bit of a stoner.
I have to admit his writing has aged a bit. It would have been immensely cool to read back in the 40s but it's a bit stale now. Still a great writer though.
I like his friend turned rival Camus much better. Far better writer and thinker in my opinion History really did prove that with Sartre championing Stalin and CCCP for years post WW2 with his political essays whereas Camus refused. When more information came out from dissidents in the USSR and people realised what was going on Sartre realised he had been a fool But some of his novels are amazing imo. I don't know if his writing has aged so badly, I read his work in English not French so I don't know so well, but the ones I read had some amazing techniques in. One of the trilogy he did about the appeasement leading up to WW2 had this amazing technique where he had 3 stories happening at once and used adjectives to change between the stories, quite hard to describe but I was blown away by how well he'd done it
I'm pretty sure that since he was a rich French guy who grew up in early 20th century Paris he had access to some awesome drugs
Sartre wrote twenty pages a day over his entire writing career. He achieved this by drinking lots of coffee, and taking lots of amphetamines. I agree with Cloaking Device - Camus is a better novelist than Sartre, and I also think Camus was a much, much better person than Sartre. Sartre was the better thinker, but Camus wasn't a professional philosopher, Sartre was. If you like Age of Reason, try reading Nausea, one of his other novels. And believe it or not (especially after seeing his picture), Sartre was a master seducer.
I didn't like it. In fact I found it completely forgettable and the point it tried to make at the end was ridiculous. Don't think I'll be reading any more of his stuff.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean. If you're asking after why I evaluate Camus a better person than Sartre, I can elaborate. A central theme of existentialism is its focus on how we actually live our lives. Both Sartre and Camus stressed themes of authenticity (Sartre's famous distinction between good faith and bad faith, and Camus' 'absurd reasoning', for example). They both lived during WWII, and fought as part of the Resistance movement. Both were left-wing in their political leanings. In post-war France there was a certain political polarisation, which developed in such a way that to be left-wing was to support the USSR ('you're either with us or you're against us'). In this climate, there developed a tension between Camus' and Sartre's philosophical thought and their political leanings. There were refugees coming from the USSR and describing how awful the situation was. Camus recognised that the USSR was not the ideal that anyone hoped for, and refused to support it, while remaining left-leaning, thus being attacked from all fronts for his politics. Sartre ignored the stories coming from the USSR and tried, over his entire life, to reconcile his philosophical thought with his political associations, a project which is widely recognised as ultimately a failure. The point is: while both Camus and Sartre stressed the importance of living authentically, only Camus actually lived his philosophy. Sartre tried to reconcile his philosophical thought with his political support of the USSR, but there was a fundamental tension; in order to support the USSR, he had to ignore aspects of his thought, and thus he failed to live up to his own demands of authentic living. This is only one reason, though. If you want to look further into it, I suggest reading about their friendship, their estrangement, Camus' silence in the face of the political situation in Algiers, and Sartre's tribute to Camus.
So you believe Camus to be a much better person because he was more consistent in thought and action, consistent of form and content, and more successful in achieving his stated aim? I would say Camus gave a more effective lesson.
