METAPHYSICAL MONOLOGUES – continued - Nausea

Albert Camus while reviewing Sartre’s book ‘ Nausea’ states, “To live knowing that life is pointless is what gives rise to anguish. And if you live against the stream, the whole of your being is seized with disgust and revolt and this revolt of the body is what is called Nausea.

In Nausea, the diary of Antoine Roquentin starts with the following paragraph –
“ Something has happened to me : I can’t doubt that anymore. It came as an illness does, not like anything obvious. It installed itself cunningly, little by little; I felt a little strange, a little awkward, and that was all. Once it was established, it didn’t move anymore, it lay low and I was able to persuade myself that there was nothing wrong with me, that it was a false alarm. And now it has started blossoming.”

Nausea filled me with disgust. A man judges his life and by doing so judges himself – and what he finds at the bottom of the most elementary act is it fundamental absurdity. The very morbidity of the narration set me thinking. I cannot accept that life is absurd bu that this is not the end but only the beginning of a new realization. A man finds himself in a blind alley and cannot proceed further, what he does is to retrace and pick up a new path. Even Sartre is unable to accept this absurdity which he himself has painted so vividly. Deliverance is possible through creativity. That’s what Roquentin does at the end of the book, he decides to complete the book he had started and free himself from the shackles of absurdity and justify his existence.

Creation results as to fulfil the need for self expression. When a man creates, may be a book, a piece of art or music, he puts into it what is essentially himself. He tries to reach the depths of his being through the medium of his work.