Krishna, Whitman, Nietzsche, Sartre (KWNS) |
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Sartre - Part One |
mike
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Krishna, Whitman, Nietzsche, Sartre
Introduction:
Pure Consciousness Mysticism
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4.1 Introduction Of the
four men principally discussed in this book, Sartre is the most modern,
in fact he could be taken to represent the 20th century Western intellectual,
a prototype, an archetype. What makes him important is that he represents
20th century alienation, a condition perhaps presaged by Nietzsche and
other 19th century writers, but unique to this century. When we consider
what Krishna and Whitman represent to us as possibilities for relating
to our universe, there stands in the way (for the modern intellectual
Westerner at least) this sense of alienation, our 'iron in the soul'.
Many writers, philosophers, artists and psychologists of this century
have dealt with it in various ways, and given it various names 'angst'
for one; in Sartre's famous first novel it becomes 'nausea'. Where Zarathustra
can be considered the diary of a man descending into madness, Nausea
is the diary of a man deeply in it, and coming to a working arrangement
with it. Nietzsche's 'youngest virtue', honesty, is practised by Sartre
without any of the 19th century requirement to add to it the forced
exuberance of a Zarathustra, or any cheerfulness whatsoever. He had not exactly had hallucinations, but the objects he looked at changed their appearances in the most horrifying manner: umbrellas became vultures, shoes turned into skeletons, and faces acquired monstrous characteristics, while behind him, just past the corner of his eye, swarmed crabs and polyps and grimacing Things. [3] The trip was during a period for of depression for him; at the age of thirty he was becoming fat and balding, and had an unhappy love affair with a student of Simone de Beauvoir's. Nausea can be seen as a record of Sartre's depression and after-effects of the drug-taking. In taking the hero of Nausea to be Sartre's alter ego, we are following the same path as with Zarathustra and Nietzsche, and opening up the criticism that one is mixing fiction with biography. I think that fiction can not be more than its author, though it can be less: what makes Nausea and Zarathustra interesting is precisely because both works carry an intensity that comes from a baring of the soul. Other commentators have also assumed that Sartre is the hero of Nausea: see Barnes [4], Thody [5] and Malhotra [6]; Sartre himself says so in Words [7]. 4.2 Nausea Nausea is the diary of Antoine Roquentin, a lonely writer who is working on the history of Rollebon, writing alone in his hotel room or working in the local public library. His diary records a strange shift of perception for him, as objects begin to appear to him with a sense of unreality, or heightened reality. His loneliness can be compared to Nietzsche's at the time of writing Zarathustra: it is a crushing loneliness (all the following extracts are from the translation of Nausea by Robert Baldick [8]): I for my part live alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anybody, I receive nothing, I give nothing. (p.13) We may remember that this is a good indicator of madness, though Roquentin is not catatonic by any means. He does speak to a few people, mainly the patronne of the cafe, other waiters and waitresses, briefly to an ex-girlfriend, and to the only other main character in the book, the Autodidact, a clerk. His solitariness has caused a gulf to open between himself and others: These young people amaze me; drinking their coffee, they tell clear, plausible stories. If you ask them what they did yesterday, they don't get flustered; they tell you all about it in a few words. If I were in their place, I'd start stammering. (p.17) Throughout the book, we find references to crabs, evidence I think that Sartre's drug-experience did lead to some of what Nausea is dealing with. In this passage Roquentin reflects that as children they were aware of an old fellow, who was queer in his loneliness: It isn't the fellow's poverty-stricken appearance which frightened us, nor the tumour he had on his neck which rubbed against the edge of his collar: but we felt that he was shaping crab-like or lobster-like thoughts in his head. (p.20) Nausea, like its author, is archetypal, a new archetype that Nietzsche perhaps foresaw when he talked about the new honesty, the youngest of virtues, but Sartre apologises early in the book for his opening: it is not honest enough, he wants to make no claims for any 'inner' experiences of any meaning: Why didn't I mention it? [the onset of the Nausea] It must have been out of pride, and then, too, a little awkwardness. I am not accustomed to telling myself what happens to me, so I find it hard to remember the exact succession of events, and I can't make out what is important. But now that's over and done with: I have re-read what I wrote in the Cafe Mably and it made me feel ashamed; I want no secrets, no spiritual condition, nothing ineffable; I am neither a virgin nor a priest, to play at having an inner life. (p.20/21) Sartre
has almost set the tone for a whole century of literature and philosophy
in his dual rejection of the romantic and the sublime. This is a hint
of what is to come in Nausea, what he is to reject in his extraordinary
climax of Western thought. One can take the whole thing as tongue-in-cheek;
alternatively one can take the view of Thomas King who considers that
'Sartre's writings have a theological character at odds with his professed
atheism' [9], going on to
quote this passage from Being and Nothingness as an illustration:
'To be man means to reach toward being God. Or if you prefer, man fundamentally
is the desire to be God.' [10] We won't assume either the extreme of atheism or of theological
intent, but take Nausea at face value however and see what comes
out of it. Here is the rue Basse-de-Vielle and the huge mass of Sainte-Cecile crouching in the shadows, its stained-glass windows glowing. The metal hat creaks. I don't know whether the world has suddenly shrunk or whether it is I who am establishing such a powerful unity between sounds and shapes: I cannot even imagine anything around me being other than it is. (p.82) Suchness! All the mystics will recognise this sense of unity, or things being exactly as they are. Roquentin experiences a reverse of the Nausea, briefly, as an adventure, only to be brought suddenly to a halt. In his diary of the following day he regrets the long description of his happiness: I have no need to speak in flowery language. I am writing to understand certain circumstances. I must beware of literature. I must let my pen run on, without searching for words. What really disgusts me is having been sublime yesterday evening. When I was twenty I used to get drunk and then explain that I was a fellow in the style of Descartes. I knew very well that I was puffing myself up with heroism, but I let myself go, I enjoyed it. After that, the next day I felt as disgusted as if I had awoken in a bed full of vomit. I don't vomit when I'm drunk, but it would be better if I did. Yesterday I didn't even have the excuse of drunkenness. I got worked up like a fool. I need to clean myself up with abstract thoughts, as transparent as water. (p.85) Sartre
is wiser than Nietzsche: he knows instinctively that he must not succumb
to the poetry and artistry of words that a happy moment might inspire:
he must remain sober (Nietzsche's intoxication is a 19th century phenomenon,
Sartre's sombre realism a 20th century one). Poor Sartre! He is being
offered the real thing (we will soon see how real) and rejects it, because
it comes and goes of its own volition. Nothing is greater anathema to
the Western intelligentsia than waiting for something beyond one's control.
Another crab reference follows in a bad dream or half-waking dream as
he lies in bed with the patronne; his dreams are often like this.
He receives a letter from a previous girl-friend, and one realises that
the breakdown of the relationship is one reason why he has such a huge
hole in his life. He has no family or friends, or house, or possessions.
He complains that having a past is a property-owners luxury, for you
can surround yourself with mementoes of the past, he only has a few
papers, and memories that he can't bring to life anymore. 'Well so it's you, you old swine,' he exclaims. 'So you aren't dead yet?' He addresses the waitress: 'You let a fellow like that in here? He looks at the little man with his fierce eyes. A direct gaze which puts everything in its place. He explains: 'He's an old crackpot, that's what he is.' (p.99) The doctor
is the equivalent to Nietzsche's Higher Man: in this case he has brought
a sense of order to the swimmingly unclassifiable suchness that the
two alienated men are groping in; there is a sense of relief well, so
he is a crackpot, that explains it, after all the doctor is experienced
in the world. But the experience of the doctor cuts no ice with Roquentin
- he knows that the doctor is as much a jellyfish stranded on the shore
as he is, cut loose in an amorphous existence which cannot be
ordered with his so-called experience. The doctor attempts to bring
Roquentin in on the joke but he freezes him out - the doctor is contemptuous,
why even bother placing him in a category: crackpot, scoundrel, who
cares? Yet he turns away, a tiny defeat. How I should like to tell him that he's being duped, that he's playing into the hands of self-important people. Professionals in experience? They have dragged out their lives in stupor and somnolence, they have married in a hurry, out of impatience, and they have made children at random. (p.101) Sartre is almost as cruel as Nietzsche, the many-too-many theme emerging in subdued tones throughout Nausea. Roquentin has no time for anybody, he just realises that they live meaningless lives, they live on a tiny fund of real experience, and after the age of forty they trot it out like a slot-machine. With his experiences he could get himself invited to endless social occasions, he could make capital out of it for years, but instead he is trapped in a growing, aching now, where memories betray him, have lost all sustenance. The doctor has summed up Monsieur Achille as a crackpot, as the summation of all his experience, but: He isn't an old crackpot: he is frightened. What is he frightened of? When you want to understand something, you stand in front of it, all by yourself, without any help; all the past history of the world is of no use to you. And then it disappears and what you have understood disappears with it. (p.103) Roquentin is talking about himself of course: he is frightened. The days go by, he worries that the patron has died, but it is just an illness, Roquentin is sinking. On the calm water, speckled with black spots, a cork was floating. 'And under the water? Haven't you thought about what there may be under the water? A monster? A huge carapace, half embedded in the mud? A dozen pairs of claws slowly furrow the slime. The monster raises itself a little, every now and then. (p.116) Crabs again. He spends a long time in the local museum, analysing the horribly bourgeois achievements of the dignitaries immortalised in the collection of gloomy paintings he has nothing in common with them; leaves muttering 'farewell, you Bastards.' And suddenly his life collapses: he cannot continue with the book he is writing. He tells himself wearily: 'How on earth can I, who haven't had the strength to retain my own past, hope to save the past of somebody else?' (p.139) The last words he had written suddenly lost their brilliance, and the room crowds in on him. I looked anxiously around me: the present, nothing but the present. Light and solid pieces of furniture, encrusted in their present, a table, a bed, a wardrobe with a mirror and me. The true nature of the present revealed itself: it was that which exists, and all that was not present did not exist. The past did not exist. Not at all, neither in things nor even in my thoughts. True, I had realised a long time before that my past had escaped me. But until then I had believed that it had simply gone out of my range. (p.139) Roquentin is stranded in the present. And his writing is finished. Now nothing remained of him. No more than anything remained, in those traces of dry ink, of the memory of their brilliance. It was my fault: I had uttered the only words that had to be avoided: I said that the past did not exist. And straight away, noiselessly, Monsieur de Rollebon had returned to his nothingness. (p.140) He makes one last try to revive his project, his great passion, but it is no use: Monsieur de Rollebon is dead. Monsieur de Rollebon was my partner: he needed me in order to be and I need him in order not to feel my being. Roquentin is painfully honest: the whole project was there so that he could prevent himself feeling his being. And now existence was taking its revenge: it was presenting itself naked to him. He does everything he can now to prevent himself moving, from moving out into the existence that surrounded him and threatened him. Above all not move, not move ... Ah! I couldn't prevent that shrug of the shoulders. ... The thing which was waiting has sounded the alarm, it has pounced upon me, it is slipping into me, I am full of it. It's nothing: I am the Thing. Existence liberated, released, surges over me. I exist. I exist, It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd swear that it floats in the air all by itself. (p.143) Roquentin,
or Sartre, is experiencing a satori! Do we not recognise the
description? Of a transforming moment when the ego disappears and the
union is there, the union with the whole? Look through all the mystics,
Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, non-affiliated: this description occurs
again and again. Only with Sartre the accompanying mood is not love
and bliss but disgust. The suchness of his hand disgusts him,
he tries to hide it, to be unaware of it, but hanging from the end of
his arm, or in his pocket, he can feel the warmth of it; it reminds
him a crab as he turns it over and watches the fat pink legs curl up.
He gets up: his thoughts emerge in a sticky way, they don't flow in
the normal way: he finds that if he exists it is because he hates existing:
hatred and disgust. He sits down again, opens a penknife and clumsily
stabs his hand; only a superficial wound. I look at the Autodidact with a little remorse: he has been looking forward all week to this luncheon, at which he would be able to tell another man about his love of man. He so rarely has the opportunity of talking. And now I have spoilt his pleasure. In point of fact he is as lonely as I am: nobody cares about him. Only he doesn't realize his solitude. Well, yes: but it wasn't up to me to open his eyes. I feel very ill at ease: I'm furious, it's true, but not with him, with Virgan and the others, all those who have poisoned that poor brain of his. If I could have them here in front of me, I'd have something to say to them, and no mistake. I shall say nothing to the Autodidact, I have nothing but sympathy for him: he is somebody like Monsieur Achille, somebody of my sort, who has deserted out of ignorance and good-will. A burst of laughter from the Autodidact rouses me from my morose reflections: 'Forgive me, but when I think of the depth of my love for people, of the strength of the impulses which carry me towards them, and when I see us here, arguing and discussing ... it makes me want to laugh.' I say nothing, I give a forced smile. The waitress puts a plate in front of me with a piece of chalky Camembert on it. I glance round the room and a feeling of violent disgust comes over me. What am I doing here? Why did I get mixed up in a discussion about humanism? What are there people here? Why are they eating? It's true that they don't know that they exist. I want to leave, to go somewhere where I should be really in my place, where I would fit in ... but my place is nowhere; I am unwanted. (p.174/175) The Autodidact then offers Roquentin some hope: 'Are you a misanthrope?' Even this would help, Roquentin could then be placed, like the crackpot; compassion could be found for him, he would be in the scheme of things. But Roquentin knows that to say yes would be one sort of trap for him, to say no another. He suddenly gets up and leaves, the Nausea overwhelms him; as he goes through the door his is aware that his abrupt exit has caused all eyes to follow him, and he wonders if they see him crab-like, and scuttling away. Poets! If I grabbed one of them by the lapels of his coat, if I said to him: 'Come to my help,' he would think: 'What the devil is this crab?' and would run off, leaving his coat in my hands. (p.178) Roquentin is wandering aimlessly about after the scene in the restaurant, things appear to him 'pale and green as oysters' (which make a change from crabs!), and, with no destination in mind, he jumps on a tram. The seat that he sits on is of green leather, and it exists too strongly, it is an offence: it may as well have been the underbelly of a donkey floating upside down in a river, his feet dangling in the water. The tram is too claustrophobic, he has to get out, he pushes the conductor out of the way, and suddenly finds himself in the park. If you were watching this as a horror-film instead of reading it in a book, there would be music now, the sort of gut-wrenching music that informs you that hideous demonic powers have brought the hero to his slaughtering-ground; all those he trusted turn out to be agents of the devil, and the contraption has been prepared for his end: perhaps the 'wicker man' in the film of the same name (where the upright police officer becomes a human sacrifice because of his purity), or the machine in Kafka's In the Penal Colony that inscribes the crime on his body with knives. However, we are with Roquentin/Sartre in a municipal park on a sunny day, quite alone. But I push him aside and I jump off the tram. I couldn't stand it any more. I couldn't stand things being so close any more. I push open a gate, I go through, airy existences leap about and perch on the treetops. Now I recognise myself, I know where I am: I am in the municipal park. I flop on to a bench between great black trunks, between the black, knotty hands reaching out towards the sky. A tree is scratching the earth under my feet with a black nail. I should so like to let myself go, to forget, to sleep. But I can't, I'm suffocating: existence is penetrating me all over, through the nose, through the mouth ... And suddenly, all at once, the veil is torn away, I have understood, I have seen. (p.181) I want
to refer to the hero of our story as Sartre from now on: you could not
possibly write the following scene without having experienced it, though
whether it was a result of an extreme bout of depression, or from taking
mescalin, or a combination of both, I don't know. What happens next
is, for me, a critical point in Western thought, whether philosophical
or literary it does not matter. Sartre describes an experience so close
to the experiences of the mystics, a critical and transforming experience
sometimes known as 'enlightenment', yet completely distorted and pathological.
It stand for me as a symbol of the barrier for the Western mind to the
process of self-knowledge, and spiritual love, for in order to come
to one's divine nature, to mystical union, the Western mind, with its
loss of innocence, has to confront this experience in the park. We could
say that the intellectual development of the western mind in the 20th
century has come from two observations: firstly that God is dead, and
secondly that any encounter with naked reality is in its essence a pathological
experience: the encounter either comes from madness or leads you to
madness. So the West turns its back, comprehensively, on the divine
essence of simple reality, and the religious are ignored through blank
incomprehension. The polarisation is complete: a secular society which
permits, with slight embarrassment, establishment religion as a kind
of 'hobby', while science, literature, and philosophy concern themselves
with other things. I am not saying, of course, that Nietzsche and Sartre
are responsible: they are symptoms, and an attempt to understand them
is an attempt to understand why they have shaped thought in this century,
not Whitman or Jefferies.
References
for Sartre, part One
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mike
king
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Krishna, Whitman, Nietzsche, Sartre
Introduction:
Pure Consciousness Mysticism
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