In this first person monologue, the protagonist tells us about his thoughts, his surroundings, and the other people around him. Each situation reveals his humor suggesting that this is a comedy. We gradually discover that the scenarios, in retrospect, lack credibility, that something unreal or surreal is going on, but almost always whimsically, not Kafkaesque. Until one day there is a climactic event after which we know we have been duped, that perhaps none of it was real, that it may all have been the meanderings of a troubled mind. Still, we cannot be sure. Intriguing is the simple, unembellished prose, perhaps in the manner of our own mental perambulations. Is this why it is appealing?

A very good novel. Short, entertaining. French humour is maybe rare, but here the main character is excellent; deciding to live in his bathroom, trying to prevent time from passing.I keep asking myself if he succeeds?

We have used this book as a Spanish tutorial. It covers the material that one needs to get a good foundation in the language. We found the exercises a bit repetitious in some cases. More variation may be better but they do drill on the material presented. This book has a far better sequence of presentation than many Spanish texts.

Con Mucho Gusto is a logical, well-sequenced, detailed, and user-friendly textbook with superb support materials. I began learning Spanish with this text in university in 1985 and am now teaching with it in my university night classes. This work puts to shame the modern "whole language" muddled mess that has been infiltrating pedagogy in the United States. Con Mucho Gusto provides a fine framework for learning and practice, allows the student to work outside of class with greater facility, and can be supplemented with as much realia and authentic practice as desired. I give this work my very highest recommendation as both student and teacher!

The selections in this book are very good, but unless you're up for a little bit of a challenge this book isn't for you. There were an excessive amount of typos, but that is bearable. The first and last thirds of the book were most down to earth. I would strongly recomend reading some commentary along with this, though not having read any on Sartre myself I can't recommend any. There's a good chance I will re-read this book again in the future, particularly as I now want to take a class in existentialism this fall. Really, the only drawback was how hard and next to incomprehensible the reading was at times, which is typical of philosophy. I don't even agree with most of what I read, but I still value the struggle to understand it.

As far as collections of Sartre's philosophical works go, this one is the best I've come across. The book is broken down into sections such as "Existentialism", "The Other", "Nothingness", "Politics", and so on. 16 chapters in all, each offering key excerpts from Sartre's entire corpus, especially focused on a specific philosophical matter. The editor, Stephen Priest, does a good job of introducing each chapter and his contributions offer excellent insight both to those who haven't gotten too far into Sartrean philosophy as well as those of us who occasionally need a refresher course. This book reminds me of why I first got interested in reading Sartre. It brings out the exciting spirit of Existentialist philosophy by focusing on the most poignant passages of Sartre's works. I do feel the book to be a bit pricey for a paperback, but all in all it is a rather aesthetically pleasing book. The binding and layout are high quality, as is usual for Routledge texts. Also, this book offers the complete "Existentialism and Humanism" lecture, including transcript of a question and answer forum which you will not find in most editions. Priest also does a decent job of providing biographical information in the chapter "Sartre in-the-world."

There are amazing photos in this book -- it reminds you how young Elvis was in 1956. See him in rehearsals with Milton Berle, Debra Paget, and Scotty & Bill. There's not much text in this book, but really how much text can there be about one television show appearance. It's the photos that count.

Believe it or not but Books by Ger Rijff are ALWAYS of high quality: Paper, Photo's, Lay-out....everything is done with knowledge and love and care for Elvis. Yet, when his books hit the shelves they hardley sell more then 2000 copies. Why?. No one knows. These books, and thus this one as well, deserves a larger audiance. YOU are there when the King starts his trip to ever lasting fame, It is Pure Elvis. Besides it also gives a great view of the time in wich it all happend: The Fifties. Go back in time, buy this book. It will be a joy that will make you want more.

What a book..."The Book of life." Why it's a modern cartoon book of paleontology. Though its wonderful life-like illustrations and tree-of-life charts are delivered as scientific facts, they are simply graphic theories that illustrators doll up into hypothetical reality. If you like science and fiction, here is a book for you. The realistic pictures belie the text, which says: "We do not even know how to conceptualize, much less to draw the worldview that would place Homo sapiens into proper relationship with the history of life."

Its authors caveat is that "science can only operate as a work in progress without perfect knowledge, and we much therefore leave a great deal out from ignorance --- especially in a historical field like paleontology, where we must work with the strictly limited evidence of a very imperfect fossil record." It's that fossil record, that the book presumes is accurate in its layer-by-layer record through time, that requires scrutiny. The oldest fossils are found in the bottom layers and the youngest in the top layers of rock, but little or no evidence is presented to provide skeptical readers information they can decipher for themselves as to the accuracy of fossil dating by rock layers. Are we to believe, without exception, that the fossil record is progressive from bottom to top? What about fossilized trees that protrude through millions of years of time? They are conveniently omitted. Michael Benton of England's Bristol University, one of the book's contributors, says "All the periods in the geological time scale receive their names in recognition of obvious changes in the fossil record." Yet, to the contrary, Benton adds, "the history of Earth's crust has been far too violent to preserve much more than a random sample."

Its general editor, Stephen Jay Gould, is magnanimous in his promotion of a single theory of man's origins, from monkeys he and most other fossil hunters say.

There may be missing pieces to the paleontological puzzle, but the bone diggers cliam they have finally filled in the evolutional blanks and can conclusively attest to the idea that life evolved from simpler single-celled organisms into modern man. The book's most ardent opponents are taken head on by Gould: "The lack of fossil intermediates had often been cited by creationists as a supposedly prime example for their contention that intermediate forms not only haven't been found in the fossil record but can even be conceived." But Gould holds a trump card. He says: "a lovely series of intermediary steps have now been found in rocks.... in Pakistan. This elegant series, giving lie to the creationist claims, includes the almost perfectly intermediate Ambulocetus (literally, the walking whale), a form with substantial rear legs to complement the front legs already known from many fossil whales, and clearly well adapted both for swimming and for adequate, if limited, movement on land." Oddly, the book never shows a drawing of Ambulocetus, but does have an illustration of a skeleton of a 400-million year old fish with a small underside fin bone the authors claim "must have evolved" into legs in four-legged animals. Man's imagination is not found wanting here. Out of millions of fossils collected and stored in museums, is Ambulocetus the main piece of evidence for evolutionary theory?

Richard Benton says that Charles Darwin had hoped the fossil record would eventually confirm his theory of evolution, but "this has not happened," says Benton. Darwin hoped newly-discovered fossils would connect the dots into a clear evolutionary pattern. The book attempts to do that with its fictional drawings of apes evolving into pre-humans (hominids) and then modern man. Yet the book is not without contradictions. It says: "It remains uncertain whether chimpanzees are more closely related to modern humans or to the gorilla."

The horse is shown as evolving from a small, four-toed to a large one-toed animal over millions of years. There are different varieties of horses, yet there is no evidence that a horse ever evolved from another lower form of animal, nor that horses evolved into any other form of animal.

Another evolutionary puzzle that goes unexplained in the book is the pollination of flowers. How did bees and flowers arrive simultaneously in nature? What directed the appearance of one separate kingdom of life (insects) with that of another?

The book describes 6 1/2-foot millipedes and dragonflies with the wing span of a seagull, but gives no explanation for them. Life was unusual in the past and not all forms fit evolutionary patterns. Consider the popular supposition that life evolved from the sea onto land. That would make more advanced forms of intelligence land bearing. But the aquatic dolphins defy that model, since they are among the smartest mammals.

The book maintains an "out of Africa" scenario for the geographical origins of man, but recent fossil finds in Australia challenge that theory and even the book's authors admit that "a single new skull in an unexpected time or place could still rewrite the primate story." Consider Java man (Homo erectus), once considered the "missing link" and dated at 1.8 million years old. Modern dating methods now estimate Java man to be no more than 50,000 years of age, a fact that was omitted from this text.

Creativity, invention and language are brought out as unique human characteristics. Yet the true uniqueness of man is not emphasized. Humans biologically stand apart from animals in so many ways. Humans can be tickled whereas animals cannot. Humans shed emotional tears, animals do not. The book does not dare venture beyond structure and function, beyond cells and DNA, to ask the question posed by philosophers --- does man have a soul? The Bible speaks of a soul 533 times, this "book of life," not once.

Gould's temple is science. He calls the scientific method "that infallible guide to empirical truth." Science works by elimination. It can only work from experiment to experiment, eliminating what is not true. It can say what is probable, it can never say what is true. Gould appears to begrudge the shackles of science by stepping outside its boundaries in overstating what it can accomplish. Whereas creationists await the day they will stand in judgment before God, for the evolutionists Gould says "Someday, perhaps, we shall me our ancestors face to face." Imagine, standing there looking at a man-like monkey skeleton.

One cannot fault the flaws in this book. After all, it was written by highly evolved apes.

You would have expected more time and detail to the ermergence of the nervous system and the Cambrian Explosion. A more up-to-date section on human evolution (no mention of Ardipithecus Ramidus) but on the whole the book is a good synthesis of the state of the knowledge in this field.

This singular book gives a very nice popular overview of the state-of-the-art in paleontology, chronologically covering everything from the Archean to the evolution of man. It is a beautifully illustrated and well-written book, although the text is perhaps sometimes a bit too technical and dense for the paleontological novice.
And please don't buy some creationists' claims that this is science fiction. The contents of this book is based on material from thousands of scientific articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals such as "Nature" and "Science", representing the fruits of the hard labour of paleontologists from all over the world. And the fossil record, even if it is convincing in itself, is far from the only support for evolution. Independent evidence for evolution can also be found in biogeography, development, molecular analyses (gene DNA, junk DNA, mtDNA etc), anatomical analyses, and even field observations of new species evolving. This large amount of evidence is why evolution is considered an established and undisputable fact. Of course, if one rather than facts wants comic book fantasies such as humans coexisting with dinosaurs and evil scientists conspiring to hide the truth, then one should look for creationist books instead. Or comic books.

I must say that i found this book to be rather dissappointing. I had previously read only a single quote from this book in the introduction to Sartre's "Being and Nothingness" about the main character describing, quite eloquently, the saliva in his mouth. However, after reading "Nausea", this remains my favorite scene, as breif as it may be.

This story is written as the diary/ journal of a particular man. Although there are interesting themes and ideas in this book, keep in mind that this is supposed to be passed off as a work of literature and not a work of philosophy. Unfortunately, unlike some of Sartre's other literary works that have some spice of livelihood in the writing, such as "The Wall" or "The Words", i found the writing style of this book drab. Although it is relatively short, i had trouble getting through "Nausea".

I think that my pain problem with the text is that i had the impression that "Nausea" was written for the sole purpose of Jean-Paul's desire to express his philosophical ideals. Now, this is not to say that many, if not all, books are written with some general theme that the author wishes to get across to her readers. Yet, in most cases, this "philosophical" significance is implicit to the work itself. For example, Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" obviously advocates a passionate existence (he goes so far as to say that God is so bored with us that he is getting ready to replace us with a new, more exciting species), yet this theme is carried within the words and the sentences, it is not the explicit meaning of the sentences themselves--the artistic quality comes first, and literature is art. Although this might be the case for somebody who is not familiar with Sartre's philosophy and philosophy in general, for somebody who has read Sartre's philosophy and knows his philosophical roots (such as myself), each scene really becomes just an expression of this with little or no consideration to artistic quality. Sartre is not content to let the main character implicitly reveal philosophical themes; rather, there is a certain mold that Sartre has concieved and which he tries desperately to fit this character into (for example, there are scenes that apparently serve no purpose but to express Sartre's less than favorable attitude towards the bourgeoisie). Overall, i went into this book with high hopes and soon realized that it was an attempt by Sartre to pass off his philosophy through a literary medium.

I read "Nausea" wanting to see Sarte's other work besides his plays and philosophy. This Novel is both challenging but doesn't quit hit the bulls eye and has a poor ending for the point Sarte's trying to get across.

"Nausea" is about a writer Antoine Roquentin who keeps a diary of his day to day life and catalouges his emotions and explores them deeply. In the beginning of the novel, Roquentin throws a rock into a river and feels something extreme but doesn't know what it is. From there he explores his own existence and soul. Later on he finds powerful truths about life and existence.

One problem I had with this book is that the main charector is so empty and lonely to begin with, I knew he would be horrifed with his own existence and gives us no hope. However I loved this novel for Sarte's ideas on existence, life, people, art, innocence, loneliness etc... and its worth reading for this factor even if there are some flaws and the ending isn't really awarding.

I read one reviewer's comment on this book on Amazon( Sorry I don't have the reviewer's name) which I really felt true, which meant something like 'If Existence is meaningless why didn't Sarte kill himself?'. Existentialism is some of the most true writing in the world but you can't believe it to an extreme. If existence is meaningless then you've just wasted life in vain of others. However I'll spare you my philosophy and conclude this review by saying this novel is very much worth reading but is not an existentialist classic. Check out Camu's "The Stranger" and Sarte's "No Exit" for classic existentialist works.

Nausea is not an easy book to read, not because of length or complexity of writing but because it forces the reader to confront some of the most frightening questions about life. The plot is largely uneventful, and yet this is where the majority of the book's philosophical questions arise. It's amidst the mundane, the every-day, the common interactions in life wherein the main character Roquentin questions the foundations of reality: what is this world I live in? why am I here? what does my life mean?

The thing Roquentin encounters most dramatically is existence: dull, ever-present, unable to be explained, a hidden and dumb force that waits silently behind the meanings we ascribe to it. And it is this force, the force of existence, which is the ultimate source of humility, for in it all of our actions are rendered meaningless.

Why do we do what we do? What are our motivations, our ambitions, and why do we have them? Sartre explores questions like these in a variety of daily situations and presents a concept of reality that has no mercy for the squeamish mind. He approaches his reader with such intensity that one cannot look away, one is forced to follow his reasoning to its unconventional and disturbing conclusions. Still, as the introduction points out, "Coming for the first time to the works of Sartre, Japsers, or Camus is often like reading, on page after page, one's own intimate thoughts and feelings, expressed with new precision and concreteness."

This is an excellent novel, very thought-provoking, best approached with an open mind and the courage to listen patiently to that which may frighten one the most. Regardless of your reaction to it, Nausea will have you thinking for quite some time afterward.

Like many of his more philosophical works, Jean-Paul Sartre dealt with almost taboo (at least in the 40s) social issues on the Age of Reason, usch as abortion, concubinary, the quest for personal freedom, and the government. The Age of Reason does drag somewhat, since it's a good 300 pages long, but it's worth reading, since some of the parts in this book are very well-written and keeps you in suspense throughout the length of the book.

The title of Jean-Paul Sartre's vividly realistic novel of Paris on the dawn of World War II refers to adults who have achieved sufficient maturity to accept responsibility for their actions. _The Age of Reason_ expertly weaves Sartre's philosophy of existentialism into a compelling story of people who desire freedom and responsibility but are extraordinarily incompetent.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines existentialism as "a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe...and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts." Mathieu, the novel's lead character, is in his mid-thirties and proclaims that he would like nothing better than freedom but is curiously lacking in the necessary maturity. A penniless professor, he impregnates his girlfriend, Marcelle, then schemes to beg, borrow and steal to pay for her abortion. Mathieu even toys with the idea of marrying Marcelle. Mathieu is also in love with Ivich, a young woman whose self-inflicted wound Mathieu childishly emulates on a dare. Sartre's novel also contains a self-hating gay man, Daniel, who plans to save Marcelle, but only by further degrading himself and Mathieu in the process.

Sartre's writing style is true to life, naturalistic, and is never less than totally engaging. With the author we visit various Paris nightclubs and bars which have just the right touch of darkness and sleaziness. Sartre's characters are hopeless but recognizably human. Lola, a sad, aging nightclub singer, deeply in love with the completely useless Boris (Ivich's younger brother) evokes strong sympathy nonetheless. Even Mathieu, as despicable as his conduct often is, believes by the end that he has finally "...attained the age of reason."

The Age of Reason is one of those rare classics in literture that combine an interesting and readable account with a deep quest for understanding.Sartre has taken the disruptive world of Paris, on the brink of invasion by Germany in 1939, and used this backdrop to debate the meaning of freedom. Obviously the idea of freedom is subjective and Sartre certainly does not presume to have found the answer in absolute terms. He uses the protagonist, Mathieu, as well as the peripheral characters, to examine different view points; albeit, with mixed results. The Age of Reason can certainly be read as an independent novel, but if one is to truly understand Sartre's vision, it will be necessary to read the other works in the trilogy, The Reprieve and The Troubled Sleep. Both are excellent and follow up on the secondary characters that are first introduced in the Age of Reason. The three novels, known collectively as The Roads to Freedom, represent, to me, the most significant analysis of what freedom means to a given individual. It will force the reader to reexamine long cherished views and address their own concept of freedom. If you haven't been introduced to the writings of Sartre, The Age of Reason is an excellent starting point.

In 15 Tips, not only has Jamie Glazov achieved an important success in the art of satire, but he has also successfully penetrated into the psychology of our political and social times and revealed what appears as a sickness within the contemporary political mentality. His use of humour in this pursuit makes the book delightful in its accessibility, but it is also profoundly disturbing in the reader's ability to recognize the characteristics which Glazov sarcastically encourages not only among radical leftists but among all kinds of people. Glazov's booklet is a successful artistic enterprise as well as an important socio-political commentary.

As a person who prided herself on her progressive and liberal beliefs for most of her life, I must say that it hurt me to read this book. It is funny and completely true what the author is satirizing. Funny, I guess, at the expense of people like me who actually entertained beliefs for a long period of my life that I never really examined or thought through. The book hurt in that the author shows that, when you really think about it, the socialist idea is absolutely ludicrous and, worse still, part of a profound sickness. It is a sickness of the soul. Now that I really think about it, I can't think of one of my former Leftist friends that was actually well-adjusted in society. Every single one of them had some kind of a really serious problem. But we never talked about our problems. It was always about something larger. Something larger had to be fixed and then we would be okay. 15 Tips cuts to this main point in a very painful manner -- for me and for my memories. And apart from all the humour in the book, I was left not laughing but squirming, at the realization that the people he was ridiculing was actually people like me, who literally spent years of their life believing and saying all of the things that he ridicules. Sitting here now, I think of all my friends, all of the people that I associated with in this calling. I remember, with tremendous discomfort, all of our conversations, all of our certainty about how wrong things were, and about how right they could be if only this and only that. 15 Tips slices with no mercy. How much mercy, I guess, can there be? I abandoned "the cause" years back, as I gradually began to see some of the irrationality in the whole enterprise. To be truthful, I ended up with almost no friends in the real world. The joke about me was that I was the "lecturer", the one that was always teaching other people. One day I realized I didn't want to be that anymore. When I really thought about it, that's a pretty sad way to go out in life, always teaching other people, and in an unsolicated situation. But I became more apathetic and indifferent, rather than anti-Left. To become anti-Left would have forced me to re-question things that are better left unquestioned. Great. So here's 15 Tips. How great to be the target of ridicule that makes total sense, and to know that you were that. I hope something good will come from my experience. But it takes awhile to reinvent yourself, after having committed years of conversations to useless ventures and ideas. More seriously, these were ideas that actually hurt people. Perhaps that is why the Marxist idea works to erase the idea of conscience and ethics, which I at one time thought was a great thing. How many nights of my life I remember sitting somewhere, drinking some kind of politically correct wine, and saying, arrogantly, that there was no such thing as right or wrong. How proud I was at that time of that view. And yet, almost everything I talked about was based on the asumption that so much was right, and so much was wrong. But yes, erasing ethics was my goal. Perhaps that makes it easier when it comes time to do what the idea demands. Perhaps it made it easier for me to live with myself. Because now I know that I was ashamed. I was ashamed about a lot in my own life. I didn't know it at the time. I just knew that without conscience, there would be no shame, and Marxism offered to erase conscience. Now I know why I was against conscience. Now I know why I was attracted to the Marxist idea. If you don't like seeing the darkness in yourself, then emerge yourself into complete and utter darkness. At least then you do not need to contrast darkness with light, because there will be no light. Make your crime your culture, and then erase the meaning of crime. I don't really know what more to say. 15 Tips is important. For me, it's just a really sad and painful experience to have read this thing. I wish I could rationalize it, but at this stage it's hard. Five years ago I would have just called this guy every name in the book, convincing myself that that would somehow delegitimize what he was saying. But things don't work like that. Sometimes I think not too much works. I never thought I would actually say this, but the only thing that really works is maybe to humble yourself. How unfamiliar to me. And yet, it brings so much peace, and more wisdom than I ever received from all of those courses I took in Women's studies, anthropology, gender studies, etc etc. Those memories make me want to cleanse myself. I feel something dirty. I touched something profoundly dark and foul. I have left it behind me. Silence, I think, will be refuge, atleast for awhile......

I wasn't really going to comment on 15 Tips until I checked out the reviews. Sarah Fredrickson from Detroit wrote a negative review on April 15, 1999. As a person who was once on the Left and now considers himself on the center, I would say that it is the mentality of people like Fredrickson that made me abandon the Leftist cause. I was very embarassed reading Fredrickson's review. This is obviously a very troubled individual. She says Glazov should be "silenced" because he is an "enemy" and a "danger". Her main argument is that she was very "offended". I mean, for God's sakes, if this is the only argument the Left can come up with against Glazov's piece than it is really a sad statement for the position socialism is in. I personally do not agree with everything in the 15 Tips, and I sense the author is some kind of a Reaganite. At the same time, I am not sure I have an answer to Glazov and I will wait till I do. Meanwhile, I strongly suggest to Ms. Fredrickson that she abandon her cause for awhile and take a look in the mirror. She's got "loser" written all over her forehead. Her "review" is an embarassment to the Left. I am begging anyone on the Left, if you have any hope left, answer a book like 15 Tips with something profound, not with ignorant statements, insults, and complaints about your emotional pain after reading the book. If you want me to come back to the Left, state your case, not the biography of your emotional instability, intellectual bankruptcy, and political intolerance.

This may well seem to be a confusing review. I did not particularly enjoy the book, but that was because of the person that I am, and not because the book wasn't good. In fact, I consider it to be well written. The Black Room at Longwood is a lyrical work written by an author with a strong sense of environment and the "presence" of historical events. However it is also more of an introspective, personal experience, a mental voyage back into time than a work of history. Since I tend to prefer the cold, dry facts without emotional garnish, I found it a less captivating work than a person who finds ungarnished fact a little dull might well find it. The prose is almost poetry, although how much of this is due to it's translator's talent and how much to the author's I would be unable to say. The psychological character of the environment of St. Helena and of the house of Longwood, that housed Napoleon and his fellow exiles during the last years of his life, is vividly recreated for the reader. One doesn't just learn of the personality and facts of the exile, one lives the experience through the author's words. Basing his description on extensive research into the subject, Kauffmann visits the site and describes it and the events that took place there in such a way that the reader actually travels with him back into the early 19th Century to watch and experience. A vividly written work.

This book is, on the surface, a history of Napleon's last years in exile on Saint Helena. What it really is, however, is an evocative reliving of those final 6 years by a French writer who truly feels the presence of this chapter from history in the setting of modern Saint Helena. Napoleon, in this view, died as much from melancholy as from disease, and Jean-Paul Kauffman brilliantly invokes that feeling, allowing the reader to relive Napoleon's experience in a unique - and very French - way.

I am not disparaging the earlier reviews of this book. But, I found the theme to be one of reconciliation. Kauffmann used his trip to reconcile the mythical glory of Napoleon's reign with the factual emptiness surrounding his imprisonment. Along the way, he found other aspects that needed reconciliation. The "Saints" enjoy the benefits of their status with the United Kingdom, yet don't appreciate them. The French consul's father had a productive life in France, yet chose to live as a recluse in St. Helena. The consul paints flowers that grow on a desert island. And Napoleon's former tomb is a lush contrast to his living quarters at Longwood. There are also failed attempts at reconciliation, such as Napoleon's frequent attempts to understand how he lost at Waterloo. Behind all these attempts is the almost silent struggle by Kauffmann to reconcile his own experiences as a captive with those that Napoleon endured.

It's a very ambitious project that Kauffmann undertook. Fortunately, he pulled it off with incredible elegance. His descriptions of St. Helena and Longwood give a vivid image of the bleakness of both settings. Addtionally, his reflections on Napoleon's deteriorating condition are very poignant. Non-fiction does not ususally make one reflect on such things as the effect of isolation on a soul and the need for reconciliation in one's life. The fact that Kauffman has made a book that tackles such issues in an intelligent manner makes it one which everyone should read.

This is a book which takes constant re-reading and reading within context: that is, pick one theme, and read the entire book in search of all Sartre has to say about that theme. This book is completely indispensible to anyone wishing to deal in post-modern philosophy and existentialism: it is a secular philosopher's bible. Dealing in systematic brilliance throughout the experience of life, Sartre delves into psychology and theological ideas while remaining true to his own purely atheistic and philosophical roots.

Dense? Sure... but illuminating examples help to describe the deep thought, almost as parables in the Synoptic Gospels. The crag in the rock, the meeting at the cafe, all these verbal illustrations work into the text very well. Personally, I love the sections on the anguish of man when faced with the facticity of his own freedom. The dualism expressed by Sartre is a theme in philosophy which I usually don't enjoy (like any good post-Hegelian, I enjoy synthesizing opposites), he is able to pull it off with ease and magnificence. Though it is not as eloquent as the existentialism expressed by Albert Camus, it is every bit as enlightening and valuable.

Most people object to its density because they are used to the existential wanderings of the modern novel - Camus' The Stranger, or Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment - but this is the philosophical reflection of the situation of man expressed by such work. Sartre states early on that he is not performing an objective analysis of humankind, but rather a biased and understandably nuanced descriptionof ontology from the perspective of the modern man.

Brilliant and exciting, Being and Nothingness is an essential part of anyone philosopher's bookshelf!

It is often said that Sartre's premier text is a misreading of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit. Misreading because Heidegger searched for a way of doing philosophy that freed the tradition from the Cartesion subject/object duality, while Sartre embraces that tradition.

Does this mean that Sartre is too retro to be interesting, or that he is really only a "romantic rationalist" as one commentator claims? Perhaps.

And yet...and yet the work continues to exert a strong fascination. Let's suppose that you are a person who struggles to do away with belief (and recognizing that this is different from, for example, not believing in a god. It is more a negation of the will to believe.) Let's suppose that you have no longer any presence with which to ground your life, but find instead that your interpretations are interpretations as far as you can take them. Let's suppose that you find in ethics a compilation of various peoples' prejudices.

Given these originary hypotheses, what sort of ontic or ontological claims might you make? Being and Nothingness explores this question, and more. It is still a philosophy book worth reading in a scientific age.

I agree with those who complain about the book's verbosity, but the ideas in it more than compensate. There are some decent summaries of Sartre's philosophy but nothing that compares with the original. I disagree with those who say that it is necessary to first read the works of other existenialists. One of the great things about this book is that, unlike many other philosophers, Sarte is unashamed of acknowledging those who influenced his thinking, particularly Husserl and Heidegger.

My greatest criticism of the book is that it is unnecessarily pessimistic, with such statements as "life is a useless passion". This is not warranted by the general philosophy. I find the notion that we are creaters of meaning to be liberating. Sartre gives a brilliant philosophic interpretation of sado-masochism, but makes the mistake of assuming that sado-masochism forms the entire basis for human relationships. The greatest joys in life come from our ability to commuicate with and share experiences with others. Being the gregarious person that he was I am sure that in his personal life this was true of Sartre as well.