The War Diaries of Jean-Paul Sartre, November 1939-March 1940

By Jean-Paul Sartre

Book Overview

During the phony war that preceded the invasion of France, between late 1939 and the summer of 1940, the young Jean-Paul Sartre was stationed in his native Alsace as part of a meteorological unit. He... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394538137
• ISBN13: 9780394538136
• Release Date: February 1985
• Publisher: Pantheon
• Length: 366 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Insightful and Intriguing

_The War Diaries of Jean-Paul Sartre_ is a random collection of the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre during the early years of World War II. Here, we see the germ kernel of existentialist theory--in a word, this is a glimpse into the theoretical chalkboard of the famed philosopher. Indeed, _The War Diaries_ contains extended inspections of the character of an individual, or of any of various topics. For instance, in Notebook 3, Sartre analyzes the character of Pieter, and his perpetual need to put people into little boxes that determine their activities and reactions ("Paul's the _scared type_" (13, emphasis mine)). For those philosophically inclined, _The War Diaries_ should provide suitable material to gnaw on for several years-it's an incredibly thorough, informal analysis of many things. However, this work is a compilation of Sartre's thoughts from 1939 to 1940-and, I suppose, it would be impossible for any human to think about philosophy all the time: it also contains many non-analytical musings and passing thoughts. For example, in Notebook 12, Sartre records a poem he has written, by his own admission, "out of mortification." I'm inclined to agree with that summation. All in all, I found the work enlightening. It was an intellectually stimulating voyage into the mind of a brilliant philosopher. But I'm hesitant to give it the coveted "five stars" for a couple of reasons. One, perhaps most importantly, it's very "heavy" at times; difficult to read. Secondly, by nature, there's no continuity in the writing. By that, I mean that you don't follow one line from beginning to end. It's hard to fault the author for this (it's a diary, not a treatise), but it does evoke a certain agitation with the book from time to time. Therefore, it seems good to me to give it a strong "four star" rating. Were this a magazine review, it would bear the tagline "Brilliant, Thoughtful, Almost Perfect."