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"I was just thinking," I tell him, laughing, "that here we sit, all of us, eating and drinking to preserve our precious existence and really there is nothing, nothing, absolutely no reason for existing."

I smile at him. I would like this smile to reveal all that he is trying to hide from himself.

It’s really hard for me to rate this book, to write a review or even form an opinion. I kinda feel I’m not old, educated or wise enough to appreciate it fully, and this is one of those books I would be highly interested to re-read at the different time-periods in my life, to see the effect it has on me over time. Reading Nausea was a unique experience, and definitely, mind-blowing read that left me in awe. At times the Sartre’s writing reminded me of The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge and The Magic Mountain, and I was delighted to find out that Rilke's Notebooks of Malte, one of my favorite books, was one of the main influences for Nausea. Jean-Paul Sartre is painfully honest in character of Roquentin, a lost introverted man in his thirties, tormented by loneliness, anguish, doubt and above all, Nausea, the pain of existing. The book starts with notes in his diary, and in the first few words, we see that he is the real truth seeker, the kind that values truth more than conformity, the kind that would rather suffer and know the truth than live in a lie in the painless state of existing.

The best thing would be to write down events from day to day. Keep a diary to see clearly—let none of the nuances or small happenings escape even though they might seem to mean nothing. And above all, classify them. I must tell how I see this table, this street, the people, my packet of tobacco, since those are the things which have changed. I must determine the exact extent and nature of this change.

This is what I have to avoid, I must not put in strangeness where there is none. I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything. You continually force the truth because you're always looking for something.

We soon learn about his loneliness, and he can’t really find meaning, identity in relation to other human beings, or in contributing to the society, things that regular human being finds shelter and comfort running from their own feelings of meaningless and the absurdity of life.

I live alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing.

I was neither father nor grandfather, not even a husband. I did not have a vote, I hardly paid any taxes: I could not boast of being a taxpayer, an elector, nor even of having the humble right to honour which twenty years of obedience confers on an employee. My existence began to worry me seriously.

I don't want any communion of souls, I haven't fallen so low.

I particularly liked Sartre’s witty, honest and satirical comments on man-woman romantic relationships, and love and sexuality are underlying themes in the novel, buried under existentialism and absurdism. It can be the defense mechanism of intellectualization and rationalization of love, but I laughed out loud, as well in some other parts of the novel, in admiration that someone verbalized the part of the truth that we all subconsciously know, but refuse to talk or think about.

I don't listen to them any more: they annoy me. They're going to sleep together. They know it. Each one knows that the other knows it. But since they are young, chaste and decent, since each one wants to keep his self-respect and that of the other, since love is a great poetic thing which you must not frighten away, several times a week they go to dances and restaurants, offering the spectacle of their ritual, mechanical dances. . .

After all, you have to kill time. They are young and well built, they have enough to last them another thirty years. So they're in no hurry, they delay and they are not wrong. Once they have slept together they will have to find something else to veil the enormous absurdity of their existence. Still ... is it absolutely necessary to lie?

Odd feelings Roquentin experiences in the nauseated consciousness are nothing more than confrontation with bare existence and nothingness. He displays obvious cynical mockery and even disgust for himself and for the world, but in the same way, under the feeling of emptiness and deep philosophical debates he has with himself, there is profound interest and concern for the fate of the individual person and longing for meaning. His search for meaning is turned within himself, as he attempts to find meaning in his own inner life and experience. In the void of his inner experiences, he loses track of time, space and himself in the processes of derealization and depersonalization in archaic visions. But he learns that neither the experience of the outer world or contemplative deep inner life can’t give meaning to existence. He tries to give life meaning by writing a book, and reviving old passion with his longtime lover, but is faced with ultimate failure each time. Reconciliation is found in the acceptance of contingency and absurd, concepts in which he finally feels liberated but not fulfilled nor happy.

And without formulating anything clearly, I understood that I had found the key to Existence, the key to my Nauseas, to my own life. In fact, all that I could grasp beyond that returns to this fundamental absurdity. Absurdity: another word; I struggle against words; down there I touched the thing. But I wanted to fix the absolute character of this absurdity here. A movement, an event in the tiny coloured world of men is only relatively absurd: by relation to the accompanying circumstances.

The essential thing is contingency. I mean that one cannot define existence as necessity. To exist is simply to be there; those who exist let themselves be encountered, but you can never deduce anything from them. I believe there are people who have understood this. Only they tried to overcome this contingency by inventing a necessary, causal being. But no necessary being can explain existence: contingency is not a delusion, a probability which can be dissipated; it is the absolute, consequently, the perfect free gift.

I am free: there is absolutely no more reason for living, all the ones I have tried have given way and I can't imagine any more of them. I am alone in this white, garden-rimmed street. Alone and free. But this freedom is rather like death.

I am bored, that's all. From time to time I yawn so widely that tears roll down my cheek. It is a profound boredom, profound, the profound heart of existence, the very matter I am made of.

Expressed absolute boredom and emptiness, and will to sacrifice comfort for freedom reminded me of Madame Bovary, a character that I could heavily relate when I read that books years ago. I could definitely relate to Roquentin, and I think he is a level of epic character, like Dostoevsky characters, that live inside in each one of us. With Nausea, I had a liberating feeling when you read a book for the first time and see someone talk about the parts of you that you never shared with anyone because you thought no one would understand. Even thought Rouqentin had shattering feelings of loneliness in the chaos of existence, I think he made a lot of people like me feel less alone, and I applaud Sartre for that. The more I think about Nause the more I see what a masterpiece of literature it is. Hope to return to this book, and see years from now what are the parts that stuck with me the most, because I’m sure there will be many.