Pan

Psygast

Part 3.

Further analyses I've spent the morning listening to episode 17 on Jean-Paul Sartre. It is episode 17, isn't it? Those of us who don't know who Jean-Pol Sartre is, we've got a brilliant two-part series in episode 17. So if you want to pause this and go and listen to that and then come back, that will probably help you in understanding some of the stuff we're going to talk about in analyzing Nagel and a bit of Sartre as well for this further analysis. You know what? If you're listening, just pause this episode now and go and listen to the Sartra and pick up right where you left off. Oh, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that. It's really good, isn't it? Really funny towards the end. Ollie, you're going to talk about nausea. We're going to look at some of the absurd in different literature before we get into some more criticisms and eventually our concluding remarks on the absurd. So let's bust our prisons open and get into the world of the absurd outside of the Myth of Cisphus and Thomas Nagel's the absurd. Yeah, I think this is going to be a brilliant way into looking at some of Nagle's ideas in his article on The Observe, because I think that the novel Nausea by Jean-Pulsar has a lot of very similar themes and ideas in it, and I'm going to really enjoy picking it apart with you guys. I read this book the first time a couple of years ago, and I actually really, really enjoyed reading through it again for this. I think it's going to be brilliant. So just a quick reminder, just in case you didn't go back and listen to his episode. So Jean-Paul Sartre, born in 1905, died in 1980s, the founder of French existentialism. And he's quite

famous for not just being a philosopher, but also taking his philosophy and putting it into

literature and drama. Norseur is his first novel, or La Nuzzi in French, and expect way

more awful French as we go. And his first novel, who he wrote when he was 33 in 1938. So, let's just jump into it. So what is Norseya? The book, Nausea, the novel, is about historian called Antoine Rekwentin. He is the novel's main character, and we see the story through his narration. Many people kind of say that he is a standing character for Sartre. So for whatever reason, if you can't remember Antoine Requentin, just thinks Archer himself. In this novel, Requentin currently lives in a place

called Bouville. character for Sartre. So for whatever reason, if you can't remember Antoine Requentin, just think Sartre himself. In this novel, Requentin currently lives in a place called Bouville, which is just south of Paris, and he is writing a biography of a guy called Marquay de Rolbon, who was an 18th century traveller, an envoy. Don't worry if you've never heard of him. It's not a major part of the story, but it does pop up a little bit later. So we follow Requentin through lots of day-to-day activities, lots of great stuff walking through the streets of Bouville, reading in his study during the day or sitting in cafes and bars at night, like a young Jack Symes. Just imagine a young Jack Symes in France and it's pretty much... Moving swiftly on. Yeah, just imagine that. And then that's kind of the main kind of thrust of the novel. Because it's kind of like an existentialist novel, it doesn't really have a very dynamic plot or a three-act structure. But these are the kind of things that Requentin's doing. As we go through the novel, it becomes clear that Requentin is afflicted slowly at first, and then nearly every day by a crippling nausea,

which is a sick or dizzy or uneasy feeling that often overwhelms him. In the novel, it's

described very, very similar to like a panic attack. He gets these really horrible panic attacks.

And these fits of nausea normally occur when Requentin has a sudden and abrupt awareness of the absurdity of his life and its meaninglessness. So what we would say is the absurd that we've been discussing for the last two episodes. If it's okay with you, gentlemen, I'm going to read a quote, which is taken from page 33 of the book, and this is his first spell of nausea. 5.30 p.m. Things are bad. Things are very bad. I got the filthy thing,

the nausea, and this time it's new. It caught me in a cafe. Until now, cafes were my only

refuge because they are full of people and well lit. From now on I shan't even have that. When I

am running into the earth in my room, I shall no longer know where to go. I had come along for sex,

but I had scarcely opened the door when Madeline, the waitress, called out to me. The patron isn't here. She has gone shopping in town. I felt a sharp disappointment in my loins, a long, disagreeable tickling. At the same time, I felt my shirt rubbing against my chest, and I was surrounded and seized by a slow-coloured whirlpool, a whirlpool of fog, of lights in the smoke, in the mirrors, with the benches shining at the back, and I couldn't see why it was, or why it wasn't, or why at all. I floated along, dazed by the luminous mists. Where will you sit,

Monsieur Antoine? Then the nausea seized me fully. I dropped on the bench. I no longer even knew where I was.

I saw the colours slowly spinning around me. I wanted to vomit. And there it is. Since then,

the nausea hasn't left me. It holds me in its grip. Now, obviously, this is his first kind of like experience of the nausea and is very vividly described. He goes into this cafe expecting to meet a prostitute, just in case that wasn't quite clear. The prostitute's not there. And all of a sudden he gets hits with this kind of absurd feeling. And I guess kind of, you know, just upon reflection, thinking about it, kind of connects a little bit to, you know, the start of Nagel's article a little bit where he says, you know, people experience the absurd vividly and some people often. And Requentin as a character certainly feels it very vividly and continually throughout most of the novel. Most of it is very kind of written, this kind of very dreamlike way. He kind of goes on to describe the absurdness of the people and objects around him. So he gets really freaked out by one of the people in the cafe wearing purple braces. Or just he stares at the beer glass in front of him and just looks at how kind of ridiculous it is. Through that and through this nauseous experience, he starts becoming disgusted with his own existence and starts doing some really strange and kind of peculiar things. So he starts eating when he's not hungry to kind of make time pass faster. He stops writing his book about his, about his, you know, he's a historian. He stops doing his job. He kind of sees history as a complete waste of time. He says it's like an inferior reflection of the truth. He actually tries not thinking at all to get rid of this nausea. He can't get rid of it. He tries just trying not to think of anything. And doubting his own existence, very similar to kind of Descartes in his kind of sense of radical doubt, which Nagel again mentions in the paper. Quote here from the book, my thought is me. That's why I can't stop it. I exist because I think. And I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment, it's frightful. If I exist, it is because I'm horrified at existing. I am the one who

pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire. We've clearly got someone who's becoming

very, very sick. Now, in Nagel's article at the end, he kind of mentioned this, you've almost

got two responses to this idea of the absurd. Okay, you've got the idea at the end, he kind of mentioned this, you've almost got two responses

to this idea of the absurd.

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