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Intimacy
This is Sartre's masterly portrait of life seen from new and revealing angles, in which the human soul is stripped of all its civilized veneer, and layers of experience are peeled back with ferocious skill - to reveal the depths of the private oppressions, sensualities and neuroses of our time, and the overpowering evil to which modern man can descend.
CONTENTS:
Intimacy - The Wall - The Room - Erostratus - The Childhood of a Leader
Translated by Lloyd Alexander
CONTENTS:
Intimacy - The Wall - The Room - Erostratus - The Childhood of a Leader
Translated by Lloyd Alexander
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
82 people are currently reading
2212 people want to read
About the author
Jean-Paul Sartre
1,094 books12.9k followersJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology). His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, 'bad faith') and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943). Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism Is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946), originally presented as a lecture.
Sartre held an open relationship with prominent feminist and fellow existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyles and thought. The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, 'bad faith') and an "authentic" way of "being" became the dominant theme of Sartre's early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant, 1943). Sartre's introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism Is a Humanism (L'existentialisme est un humanisme, 1946), originally presented as a lecture.
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January 30, 2016
Intimations of Intimacy
This collection of five short stories was first published in French in 1939.
At the time, Sartre had already written his first novel, “Nausea”, and several philosophical works.
My copy of the English translation was published by Panther Books and was marketed as“the brilliant study of the corruption of love”.” There are four photos of a naked brunette woman only partly cloaked by her bedsheets, as if viewed in an oval mirror (the frame of which could also pass for a large keyhole).
I’m not sure how well it sold in the English-speaking world. However, I don’t think either of these pitches gets at the appeal of the book.
On the other hand, it does sequence the stories in a way that adds to the appeal (compared with what I understand was the order of other versions):
1. “Intimacy”
2. “The Wall”
3. “The Room”
4. “Erostratus”
5. “The Childhood of a Leader”.
Exercises in Voice Projection
A couple of stories into the book, I started to wonder about the best way to approach the book as a whole. How would I review a collection?
Was there a linking theme? Was there an overarching style? Did the book consciously or unconsciously anticipate any of Sartre’s later works?
Ultimately, I abandoned these approaches.
What was fascinating about all five stories was how different they were in subject matter and how differently they were written in style.
In a way, the stories were partly exercises in style. “The Wall” reminded me of Camus and Orwell; “Erostratus” of Dostoyevsky; “The Childhood of a Leader” was Proustian.
Sartre seemed to be experimenting with different voices.
“Intimacy”
I found this story the most difficult, and therefore recommend that you read it first.
The story is a strange combination of third and first person narration. The protagonist is a woman, Lulu, whose perspective dominates the story. However, midway through a third person omniscient narration, she seems to intrude in the first person. I searched for a pattern, and the only one that I could find was that the first person seemed to arrive after a colon or a semi-colon. Here’s what I mean, though I love this passage about a torn sheet:
”Lulu was sleeping on her back, she had thrust the great toe of her left foot into a tear in the sheet...It annoyed her: I’ll have to fix that tomorrow, still she pushed against the threads so as to feel them break.”
My other query about this passage is the translation: do you have a great toe or a big toe? (In the third story, a woman opens the door and “penetrates” the room, rather than entering it. Did the publisher’s marketing department manage the translation?)
Still, the story itself is an interesting illustration of how somebody can attempt to seize freedom, only to turn back to the relative security of domesticity.
“The Wall”
This story is a first person narrative by Pablo Ibbietta, a member of the International Brigade who has been captured by pre-war Spanish fascists. He’s one of three anarchists who will be taken out and shot against a wall the following morning.
Pablo tells us a little about himself:
“I took everything as seriously as if I were immortal.”
However, now, confronted with his mortality, most of what he tells us concerns the actions around him, with the exception that, having accepted his fate, he now has only one wish (which he keeps to himself and us):
“I want to die cleanly.”
Nevertheless, he’s given the opportunity to live if he betrays a superior. He decides to play a game with those who will ultimately kill him regardless:
“I found that somehow comic; it was obstinacy. I thought, ‘I must be stubborn!’ And a droll sort of gaiety spread over me.”
I like the fact that one of Sartre’s characters is both stubborn and gay in the light of inevitable death, even if it is destined to be tomorrow.
This is real black humour in confrontation with absurdity. But you’ll have to read it to find out why!
“The Room”
While Eve’s mother sits quietly at home consuming Turkish delights, her own husband (Pierre) is confined to a room with advanced dementia.
Early, a character warns, “One must never enter the delirium of a madman.” Only Sartre does exactly that, without necessarily entering the mind of the madman. The effect on others is enough for us to see: for example, Pierre now only knows Eve as Agatha.
Eve's parents want her to abandon Pierre to an institution, as if he had ceased to be a person, let alone a spouse. On the other hand, she maintains a brave face: “I love him as he is.”
Eve is sustained by the belief that one day it will all end, and that she might have one more role to play in Pierre's life before then.
“Erostratus”
This is another first person narrative that adopts the form of the classic myth of the man who, in a quest for notoriety, set fire to the temple of Diana in Ephesus, on the day Alexander the Great was born.
Self-styled anti-humanist Paul Hilbert sets out to shoot five people, then himself. We see everything as if it’s been filmed by a headcam. Even now, there are only two ways a story like this can end.
This story, while it might extrapolate on "Notes from Underground", is eerily prescient of the mass shootings of our times.
“The Childhood of a Leader” (This Odd Disquietude)
This, the longest and most psychologically insightful of the stories, concerns the childhood of Lucien Fleurier, the son of a regional captain of industry.
His father employs 100 people. He regards himself as bound by noblesse oblige, his privilege governed by a sense of responsibility rather than entitlement.
Lucien is a Proustian character whose sensitivity sees him slide down a slippery slide of peer group pressure that leads from self-doubt, “disorder”, anguish and nihilism to social inadequacy, self-pity, anti-Semitism and paternalism (all examples of bad faith):
“I have rights...[the right] to command...I exist because...I have the right to exist...You belong to me!”
Inevitably, he turns his back on his leftish mistress, Maud, who might have been his best chance of happiness and success. You have to wonder to whom Sartre was referring (Simone de Beauvoir or the third person in their triad to whom he dedicated the collection, Olga Kosakiewicz/Kosakievicz?) when he described her as follows:
”...her narrow, closed face which seemed so unattainable, her slender silhouette, her look of dignity, her reputation for being a serious girl, her scorn of the masculine sex, all those things that made her a strange being, truly someone else, hard and definitive, always out of reach, with her clean little thoughts, her modesties, her silk stockings and crepe dresses, her permanent wave.”
What Exit from Existence?
Some might question Sartre’s (like any man’s) ability to get inside the mind of a woman. However, in the majority of these stories, women take centre stage.
Like de Beauvoir’s own writing, these stories are relatively dry in their style. However, their power derives from the dilemmas in which Sartre positions his characters and out of which he then allows them to work their way (or not).
In a way, then, these stories are concerned with the existence (or otherwise) of an exit.
SOUNDTRACK:
This collection of five short stories was first published in French in 1939.
At the time, Sartre had already written his first novel, “Nausea”, and several philosophical works.
My copy of the English translation was published by Panther Books and was marketed as“the brilliant study of the corruption of love”.” There are four photos of a naked brunette woman only partly cloaked by her bedsheets, as if viewed in an oval mirror (the frame of which could also pass for a large keyhole).
I’m not sure how well it sold in the English-speaking world. However, I don’t think either of these pitches gets at the appeal of the book.
On the other hand, it does sequence the stories in a way that adds to the appeal (compared with what I understand was the order of other versions):
1. “Intimacy”
2. “The Wall”
3. “The Room”
4. “Erostratus”
5. “The Childhood of a Leader”.
Exercises in Voice Projection
A couple of stories into the book, I started to wonder about the best way to approach the book as a whole. How would I review a collection?
Was there a linking theme? Was there an overarching style? Did the book consciously or unconsciously anticipate any of Sartre’s later works?
Ultimately, I abandoned these approaches.
What was fascinating about all five stories was how different they were in subject matter and how differently they were written in style.
In a way, the stories were partly exercises in style. “The Wall” reminded me of Camus and Orwell; “Erostratus” of Dostoyevsky; “The Childhood of a Leader” was Proustian.
Sartre seemed to be experimenting with different voices.
“Intimacy”
I found this story the most difficult, and therefore recommend that you read it first.
The story is a strange combination of third and first person narration. The protagonist is a woman, Lulu, whose perspective dominates the story. However, midway through a third person omniscient narration, she seems to intrude in the first person. I searched for a pattern, and the only one that I could find was that the first person seemed to arrive after a colon or a semi-colon. Here’s what I mean, though I love this passage about a torn sheet:
”Lulu was sleeping on her back, she had thrust the great toe of her left foot into a tear in the sheet...It annoyed her: I’ll have to fix that tomorrow, still she pushed against the threads so as to feel them break.”
My other query about this passage is the translation: do you have a great toe or a big toe? (In the third story, a woman opens the door and “penetrates” the room, rather than entering it. Did the publisher’s marketing department manage the translation?)
Still, the story itself is an interesting illustration of how somebody can attempt to seize freedom, only to turn back to the relative security of domesticity.
“The Wall”
This story is a first person narrative by Pablo Ibbietta, a member of the International Brigade who has been captured by pre-war Spanish fascists. He’s one of three anarchists who will be taken out and shot against a wall the following morning.
Pablo tells us a little about himself:
“I took everything as seriously as if I were immortal.”
However, now, confronted with his mortality, most of what he tells us concerns the actions around him, with the exception that, having accepted his fate, he now has only one wish (which he keeps to himself and us):
“I want to die cleanly.”
Nevertheless, he’s given the opportunity to live if he betrays a superior. He decides to play a game with those who will ultimately kill him regardless:
“I found that somehow comic; it was obstinacy. I thought, ‘I must be stubborn!’ And a droll sort of gaiety spread over me.”
I like the fact that one of Sartre’s characters is both stubborn and gay in the light of inevitable death, even if it is destined to be tomorrow.
This is real black humour in confrontation with absurdity. But you’ll have to read it to find out why!
“The Room”
While Eve’s mother sits quietly at home consuming Turkish delights, her own husband (Pierre) is confined to a room with advanced dementia.
Early, a character warns, “One must never enter the delirium of a madman.” Only Sartre does exactly that, without necessarily entering the mind of the madman. The effect on others is enough for us to see: for example, Pierre now only knows Eve as Agatha.
Eve's parents want her to abandon Pierre to an institution, as if he had ceased to be a person, let alone a spouse. On the other hand, she maintains a brave face: “I love him as he is.”
Eve is sustained by the belief that one day it will all end, and that she might have one more role to play in Pierre's life before then.
“Erostratus”
This is another first person narrative that adopts the form of the classic myth of the man who, in a quest for notoriety, set fire to the temple of Diana in Ephesus, on the day Alexander the Great was born.
Self-styled anti-humanist Paul Hilbert sets out to shoot five people, then himself. We see everything as if it’s been filmed by a headcam. Even now, there are only two ways a story like this can end.
This story, while it might extrapolate on "Notes from Underground", is eerily prescient of the mass shootings of our times.
“The Childhood of a Leader” (This Odd Disquietude)
This, the longest and most psychologically insightful of the stories, concerns the childhood of Lucien Fleurier, the son of a regional captain of industry.
His father employs 100 people. He regards himself as bound by noblesse oblige, his privilege governed by a sense of responsibility rather than entitlement.
Lucien is a Proustian character whose sensitivity sees him slide down a slippery slide of peer group pressure that leads from self-doubt, “disorder”, anguish and nihilism to social inadequacy, self-pity, anti-Semitism and paternalism (all examples of bad faith):
“I have rights...[the right] to command...I exist because...I have the right to exist...You belong to me!”
Inevitably, he turns his back on his leftish mistress, Maud, who might have been his best chance of happiness and success. You have to wonder to whom Sartre was referring (Simone de Beauvoir or the third person in their triad to whom he dedicated the collection, Olga Kosakiewicz/Kosakievicz?) when he described her as follows:
”...her narrow, closed face which seemed so unattainable, her slender silhouette, her look of dignity, her reputation for being a serious girl, her scorn of the masculine sex, all those things that made her a strange being, truly someone else, hard and definitive, always out of reach, with her clean little thoughts, her modesties, her silk stockings and crepe dresses, her permanent wave.”
What Exit from Existence?
Some might question Sartre’s (like any man’s) ability to get inside the mind of a woman. However, in the majority of these stories, women take centre stage.
Like de Beauvoir’s own writing, these stories are relatively dry in their style. However, their power derives from the dilemmas in which Sartre positions his characters and out of which he then allows them to work their way (or not).
In a way, then, these stories are concerned with the existence (or otherwise) of an exit.
SOUNDTRACK:
October 28, 2019
Intimacy - 5
Erostratus - 4
The Wall - 5
The Childhood of a Leader - 4
The Room - 5
I'd read The Wall before, which is arguably his best piece of short fiction, but I would say Intimacy is just as good, in terms of Sartre's compelling interior monologue. He delves with great intelligence into the souls of his characters, as the stories are told from a deeply psychological viewpoint, with Erostratus being the most chilling, while The Childhood of a Leader is the longest story.
July 19, 2017
"The Wall" was by far my favorite story in here. I got completely absorbed and felt almost as mentally exhausted as the protagonist at the end. Although- disclaimer: I was quite stoned when I read it.
June 5, 2016
Written in 2011. I am versed in the Sartre these days.
You know, for a book titled Intimacy, there's never a truly intimate moment.
I actually don't know much about Sartre, other than the fact that he developed existentialism, his relationship with Simone de Beauvoir, and that he wrote No Exit. Albert Camus is more in my realm of interest. When I was in an introduction to philosophy class, my teacher presented Camus and Sartre as almost Camus' philosophy vs. Sartre's philosophy, which I think is the wrong way to look at it. Sartre and Camus developed ideas sprouting from the same source (Søren Kierkegaard), so comparing and contrasting is the better way to go. Having read novels by Camus and Intimacy, I have to say that both philosophers were absolutely brilliant.
Sartre was fascinated by Immanuel Kant's proclamation that humans are "condemned to freedom." Freedom, in existentialism, is a double-edged term. On one hand, humans have the freedom to find something that will fulfill their lives. On the other hand, freedom can seem like an unbearable choice. And in Intimacy, I'd say that all the characters are plagued by freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of someone taking their hand and leading them forward.
This is the one time when I feel as though the description on the back of the book is incredibly apt: "Here is a portrait of life seen from new and revealing angles, in which the human soul is stripped of its civilized veneer, and layers of experience are peeled back with ferocious skill-to reveal the depths of the private oppressions, sensualities and neuroses of our time, and the overwhelming evil to which modern man can descend." I was truly amazed with Sartre's writing style, and I recall, upon finishing the first short story, "Intimacy", thinking, "So that's what Pulitzer Prize writing is like."
Intimacy is a book about anxiety in the city. Specifically, the anxiety of losing sense of one's self, one's identity. Identity is rather difficult to understand. Usually, we break it up into roles or simple words so that people won't have to think about it too much. "I'm a mother," or "I'm an athlete," or "I'm Christian," or "I'm an Aries." One of the primary concepts in existentialism is despair, which is a reaction to the breaking-down of an identity. If a man identifies himself as a leader and he loses that position, his world comes crumbling down and he is in despair. This is a generalization, but you get the point.
In the short story "Intimacy," Lulu goes through many different roles: wife, lover, friend. She fails at all three and runs away only to return to her husband. In "Erostratus," the main character defines his attitude by an object, which in turn, destroys him in the end. In "The Wall," Pablo's life loses meaning because of his supposed inexorable fate. But I think "Childhood of a Leader," deals with this topic beautifully. Not to say that it is a beautiful story. Sartre tells each in grotesque language, which I appreciated. There's a sense of gritty reality to each story.
"The Childhood of a Leader" is about the life of a man, Lucien Fleurier, from age 4 to college years. Sartre understood that children are malleable until they are stuck in their ways. Lucien moves from one concept to another. Each friend hands him a new book to read, a new concept to identify with. Early on, he learns to identify himself with a title: a complex, a disorder, not existing, fascist, and leader. At a young age, Lucien has a homosexual relationship and ponders about this topic: "He knew what he made me do has a name. It's called sleeping with a man and he knew it . . . am I intelligent, am I stuck-up and you can never decide. And on top of that, there were labels which got stuck on to you one fine morning and you had to carry them for the rest of your life." But Lucien's supposed identity is a collection of labels. At every new turn in his life, he drops the old concept and gravitates to a new one. It isn't until he acts upon one of his labels that he finally decides that's what he is. Lucien decides his defining label is "anti-Semitic," because he kills a Jewish man.
For a novel titled Intimacy, it's strange that there's so much voyeurism. You, the reader, see everything in the lives of these characters. Possibly one of the most fascinating ideas I have ever seen in writing, when Sartre slips from "she" to "you", I feel as though the character's subconscious is talking to them. This is fairly obvious in "Intimacy," in which there is Lulu's thoughts and Lulu's true, unconscious thoughts. "When you're on your feet all day you like to relax a little in a nice place, with a little luxury and a little art and stylish help." In "The Room," Eve fears that her father will take her business out of the room, to society: "A little of their life had escaped from the closed room and was being dragged through the streets, in the sun, among the people." There's a great fear of not knowing yourself when other people know who you are. They know everything about you. The reader knows everything about the characters, even their innermost thoughts. And some of those thoughts are discomforting.
Sometimes words can subconsciously direct the next phase of your life. In "The Wall," Pablo lies about the location of Ramon Gris. Just to mess with them, he tells the soldiers that Gris is in the cemetery. He's taken out of the room and led past the wall, where he feared his life would end. Instead, his life is spared, because it turns out, Gris was in the cemetery. A lie somehow told the truth. But I think Sartre was fond of irony, seeing as "Intimacy" is an ironic title.
I love the way Sartre played with titles. I think my favorite is "Erostratus," and perhaps I'm looking a little too far into this. The man that the main character speaks of is Herostratus, but for some reason, it is spelled Erostratus. Maybe that's just the French way of spelling it. However, I see "Eros" in that title. And in this short story, the main character seems to have a great will to live and a great will to die, which are referred to as the Eros instinct and the Thanatos instinct. In the end, when the main character is cornered in a bathroom, he thinks about shooting himself in the head. But his Eros instinct prevails and he follows police orders.
You know, for a book titled Intimacy, there's never a truly intimate moment.
I actually don't know much about Sartre, other than the fact that he developed existentialism, his relationship with Simone de Beauvoir, and that he wrote No Exit. Albert Camus is more in my realm of interest. When I was in an introduction to philosophy class, my teacher presented Camus and Sartre as almost Camus' philosophy vs. Sartre's philosophy, which I think is the wrong way to look at it. Sartre and Camus developed ideas sprouting from the same source (Søren Kierkegaard), so comparing and contrasting is the better way to go. Having read novels by Camus and Intimacy, I have to say that both philosophers were absolutely brilliant.
Sartre was fascinated by Immanuel Kant's proclamation that humans are "condemned to freedom." Freedom, in existentialism, is a double-edged term. On one hand, humans have the freedom to find something that will fulfill their lives. On the other hand, freedom can seem like an unbearable choice. And in Intimacy, I'd say that all the characters are plagued by freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of someone taking their hand and leading them forward.
This is the one time when I feel as though the description on the back of the book is incredibly apt: "Here is a portrait of life seen from new and revealing angles, in which the human soul is stripped of its civilized veneer, and layers of experience are peeled back with ferocious skill-to reveal the depths of the private oppressions, sensualities and neuroses of our time, and the overwhelming evil to which modern man can descend." I was truly amazed with Sartre's writing style, and I recall, upon finishing the first short story, "Intimacy", thinking, "So that's what Pulitzer Prize writing is like."
Intimacy is a book about anxiety in the city. Specifically, the anxiety of losing sense of one's self, one's identity. Identity is rather difficult to understand. Usually, we break it up into roles or simple words so that people won't have to think about it too much. "I'm a mother," or "I'm an athlete," or "I'm Christian," or "I'm an Aries." One of the primary concepts in existentialism is despair, which is a reaction to the breaking-down of an identity. If a man identifies himself as a leader and he loses that position, his world comes crumbling down and he is in despair. This is a generalization, but you get the point.
In the short story "Intimacy," Lulu goes through many different roles: wife, lover, friend. She fails at all three and runs away only to return to her husband. In "Erostratus," the main character defines his attitude by an object, which in turn, destroys him in the end. In "The Wall," Pablo's life loses meaning because of his supposed inexorable fate. But I think "Childhood of a Leader," deals with this topic beautifully. Not to say that it is a beautiful story. Sartre tells each in grotesque language, which I appreciated. There's a sense of gritty reality to each story.
"The Childhood of a Leader" is about the life of a man, Lucien Fleurier, from age 4 to college years. Sartre understood that children are malleable until they are stuck in their ways. Lucien moves from one concept to another. Each friend hands him a new book to read, a new concept to identify with. Early on, he learns to identify himself with a title: a complex, a disorder, not existing, fascist, and leader. At a young age, Lucien has a homosexual relationship and ponders about this topic: "He knew what he made me do has a name. It's called sleeping with a man and he knew it . . . am I intelligent, am I stuck-up and you can never decide. And on top of that, there were labels which got stuck on to you one fine morning and you had to carry them for the rest of your life." But Lucien's supposed identity is a collection of labels. At every new turn in his life, he drops the old concept and gravitates to a new one. It isn't until he acts upon one of his labels that he finally decides that's what he is. Lucien decides his defining label is "anti-Semitic," because he kills a Jewish man.
For a novel titled Intimacy, it's strange that there's so much voyeurism. You, the reader, see everything in the lives of these characters. Possibly one of the most fascinating ideas I have ever seen in writing, when Sartre slips from "she" to "you", I feel as though the character's subconscious is talking to them. This is fairly obvious in "Intimacy," in which there is Lulu's thoughts and Lulu's true, unconscious thoughts. "When you're on your feet all day you like to relax a little in a nice place, with a little luxury and a little art and stylish help." In "The Room," Eve fears that her father will take her business out of the room, to society: "A little of their life had escaped from the closed room and was being dragged through the streets, in the sun, among the people." There's a great fear of not knowing yourself when other people know who you are. They know everything about you. The reader knows everything about the characters, even their innermost thoughts. And some of those thoughts are discomforting.
Sometimes words can subconsciously direct the next phase of your life. In "The Wall," Pablo lies about the location of Ramon Gris. Just to mess with them, he tells the soldiers that Gris is in the cemetery. He's taken out of the room and led past the wall, where he feared his life would end. Instead, his life is spared, because it turns out, Gris was in the cemetery. A lie somehow told the truth. But I think Sartre was fond of irony, seeing as "Intimacy" is an ironic title.
I love the way Sartre played with titles. I think my favorite is "Erostratus," and perhaps I'm looking a little too far into this. The man that the main character speaks of is Herostratus, but for some reason, it is spelled Erostratus. Maybe that's just the French way of spelling it. However, I see "Eros" in that title. And in this short story, the main character seems to have a great will to live and a great will to die, which are referred to as the Eros instinct and the Thanatos instinct. In the end, when the main character is cornered in a bathroom, he thinks about shooting himself in the head. But his Eros instinct prevails and he follows police orders.
March 26, 2020
كتابة سارتر جميلة ،فينومينولوجية ليس تماما لكن هي ركيزتها الاساسية ، سأقول عنها مطاردة للفكرة والانسان ، يحاول فيها القبض على واصطياد المفكر فيه ويعبر احيانا الى اللا مفكر فيه ، تصنع ادبيته عوالم جديدة او ممكنة بشخصيات واحداث فريدة
كم هي كثيرة الاقتباسات التي يمكن ان تخرج بها من هذا الكتاب في الحقيقة الكتاب كله يصلح لان يكون اقتباسا
كم هي كثيرة الاقتباسات التي يمكن ان تخرج بها من هذا الكتاب في الحقيقة الكتاب كله يصلح لان يكون اقتباسا
January 15, 2016
One day, when I grow up, I want to write with the uncertainty that Sartre seems to be able to put into his words. There is no future determined in each of the short works presented here. Time unravels for the reader as it does for the characters. It is beautiful.
I purchased this book thinking it was a novel. I'm glad it isn't, though each of the five stories are interesting enough that they could become a novel, and one, The Childhood of a Leader, is a sweeping tale that certainly would qualify as a novella. Each story talks about shocking experiences in life. Love and salvation, illness, aging. And none of them are stories about beautiful people. You watch the characters become the basest of human creatures. Frail, but convinced of their own ravenous strength. Foxes continually cornered, and fighting back against themselves and the world around them. It is an incredible study.
I think Sartre is a more convincing author with this work than with the other that I have read - Nausea. But, with that said, I will go back to Nausea and try it out. Perhaps I just wasn't wise enough to see what he was saying when I read it this time last year...
I purchased this book thinking it was a novel. I'm glad it isn't, though each of the five stories are interesting enough that they could become a novel, and one, The Childhood of a Leader, is a sweeping tale that certainly would qualify as a novella. Each story talks about shocking experiences in life. Love and salvation, illness, aging. And none of them are stories about beautiful people. You watch the characters become the basest of human creatures. Frail, but convinced of their own ravenous strength. Foxes continually cornered, and fighting back against themselves and the world around them. It is an incredible study.
I think Sartre is a more convincing author with this work than with the other that I have read - Nausea. But, with that said, I will go back to Nausea and try it out. Perhaps I just wasn't wise enough to see what he was saying when I read it this time last year...
February 12, 2013
I remember; It was only the other day that I was with a couple of friends and I spoke to them about a story I intended to write... It was my (in my head, as always) an original idea and they liked it as well. Little did I know that Monsieur le Sartre had deja produced a work which resembled my deepest thoughts. I reckon, after having read the wall, I started to realise that my stories revolved around an existentialist backdrop. This caused me a lot of turmoil, for in I had absolutely no intentions of confirming or appertaining to any particular faction of philosophy... I confess however, that Sartre and I did connect, and this divine connection made me reflect on my own beliefs and areas of interest.
November 12, 2014
The only stuff I knew about Sartre was that he once refused a Nobel and that he was part of the French intelligentsia, plus I had a strong suspicion that his work is of the difficult kind. But curiosity got the best of me, curiosity and the size of this small collection. Four short stories and a novella. The first story in this edition took me a few pages to get into but maybe it was just prejudice or something because it suddenly sort of cleared up and it just got progressively better and better culminating with 'The Childhood of a Leader' which in its 90 pages covers more ground than stories five times the size. I didn't like his prose much but maybe that's the translation or maybe it is his particular style and anyway it doesn't matter because there's depth here and the material is varied, complex and inventive. All negotiate personal and public identity. This is, I came to find out, what is called 'existential' fiction. Nice. So I still don't know much about Sartre except that I don't think I will be skipping any of his work that may come my way in the future. Excellent.
July 27, 2017
The Wall was the best one
Read
January 14, 2020If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company. (c)
April 4, 2022
Once again the way some male authors describe women and sibling relationships leaves me astounded.
What even goes through their minds?
-
Sartre was one of the most influential figures in the philosophy of existentialism, his writings have helped define a lot of the 20th century modern understanding of relationships and human interactions.
In works such as “intimacy” he attempted to show the struggle of being a person absorbed within themselves and their relationships with others. It is to his deepest belief that humans objectify each other as means to use them to satisfy their infinite needs. People make objects out of each other because they cannot experience the minds of others.
While some of his observations rang true, it is with his fatalistic, rigid belief that most relationships are sadomasochistic in nature and in the human lack of empathy that I loose the appreciation for him.
Humans are a lot more nuanced, with the power to be a lot more cruel and a lot better than Sartre thought. His totalitarian intransigent outlook and writing does not appeal to me. I do not like authors or people who deal in absolutes for they are dangerous and being unable to see other human capabilities beyond selfishness and the need for dominance sour most of his stories to me, especially when the author himself complained about said rigidness about other humans.
2 stars ⭐️⭐️
What even goes through their minds?
-
Sartre was one of the most influential figures in the philosophy of existentialism, his writings have helped define a lot of the 20th century modern understanding of relationships and human interactions.
In works such as “intimacy” he attempted to show the struggle of being a person absorbed within themselves and their relationships with others. It is to his deepest belief that humans objectify each other as means to use them to satisfy their infinite needs. People make objects out of each other because they cannot experience the minds of others.
While some of his observations rang true, it is with his fatalistic, rigid belief that most relationships are sadomasochistic in nature and in the human lack of empathy that I loose the appreciation for him.
Humans are a lot more nuanced, with the power to be a lot more cruel and a lot better than Sartre thought. His totalitarian intransigent outlook and writing does not appeal to me. I do not like authors or people who deal in absolutes for they are dangerous and being unable to see other human capabilities beyond selfishness and the need for dominance sour most of his stories to me, especially when the author himself complained about said rigidness about other humans.
2 stars ⭐️⭐️
June 8, 2024
This was my introduction to Jean-Paul Sartre's work, and what an introduction it was! Having encountered his philosophical ideas in bits and pieces before, diving into "Intimacy" felt like discovering the man himself.
The title story follows Lulu, a woman trapped in a loveless marriage. Yearning for escape, she embarks on an affair, only to discover a truth about herself she wasn't prepared for. Sartre masterfully portrays the complexities of human desire, where intimacy can be craved yet feared, and the familiar, even the uncomfortable, holds a strange allure.
The collection isn't all about unhappy marriages. "Erostratus" explores the lengths someone will go to for notoriety, while "The Wall" throws us into the heart of a firing squad, forcing us to confront the existential dread of facing death. "Childhood of a Leader" is a chilling descent into the darkness of fascism, tracing the journey of a young man from existential confusion to hate-filled conviction.
Sartre's genius lies in his ability to display the inner world. His characters grapple with profound questions about existence, freedom, and their place in the universe, all through internal monologues that feel raw and honest. These introspective dialogues are a hallmark of Sartre's style, and while they may not be for everyone, they offer a unique window into the human condition.
If you're looking for a collection of short stories that will challenge you, make you think, and leave you a little unsettled, then "Intimacy" is for you. Just be prepared to delve into the dark corners of the human psyche and grapple with some of life's biggest questions.
Highly Recommended.
Happy Reading!!
The title story follows Lulu, a woman trapped in a loveless marriage. Yearning for escape, she embarks on an affair, only to discover a truth about herself she wasn't prepared for. Sartre masterfully portrays the complexities of human desire, where intimacy can be craved yet feared, and the familiar, even the uncomfortable, holds a strange allure.
The collection isn't all about unhappy marriages. "Erostratus" explores the lengths someone will go to for notoriety, while "The Wall" throws us into the heart of a firing squad, forcing us to confront the existential dread of facing death. "Childhood of a Leader" is a chilling descent into the darkness of fascism, tracing the journey of a young man from existential confusion to hate-filled conviction.
Sartre's genius lies in his ability to display the inner world. His characters grapple with profound questions about existence, freedom, and their place in the universe, all through internal monologues that feel raw and honest. These introspective dialogues are a hallmark of Sartre's style, and while they may not be for everyone, they offer a unique window into the human condition.
If you're looking for a collection of short stories that will challenge you, make you think, and leave you a little unsettled, then "Intimacy" is for you. Just be prepared to delve into the dark corners of the human psyche and grapple with some of life's biggest questions.
Highly Recommended.
Happy Reading!!
November 1, 2018
This finished the last story of the collection, the novella "The Childhood of a Leader". A confusing story of a confused privileged mind, developing opinions and getting more mature page by page. Not exactly in a positive way.
Overall, very interesting collection, touching on human thought, as chaotic or nonsensical as it might be. Very different stories, some more gripping than others, all for different reasons.
Overall, very interesting collection, touching on human thought, as chaotic or nonsensical as it might be. Very different stories, some more gripping than others, all for different reasons.
February 4, 2024
تحاول لولو التمرد على وضعها الاجتماعي وكونها زوجة لهنري الذي تحبه وبالفعل تهرب منه بمساعدة صديقتها وتتخذ عشيقا لكن المحاولة تفشل وتعود لهنري مرة أخرى ... بصراحة لم تعجبني القصة وبذلت مجهودا كبيرا لأمسك بتلابيب الحبكة لأن السرد والتنقل من لسان الراوي لحكي لولو نفسها كان في بعض الأحيان مربك ... أقل قصة أعجبتني في المجموعة
March 5, 2024
I feel like I'd have gotten more out of it if I'd read it at university back before my brain turned to noodles, but alas.
February 15, 2022
I love reading Sartre because he isn’t afraid to go there, and not necessarily in a provocative or crude way. He creates characters that are like mirrors, and by doing so, he dissects and explores the darker parts of the human psyche that we’re prone to deny or shy away from. His stories are painfully relatable.
My favorites of the five in this book (Intimacy, The Wall, The Room, Erostratus, and The Childhood of a Leader) are The Room and The Wall. I personally found Erostratus and Childhood of a Leader the most disturbing/least relatable.
From Intimacy: “…and a voice in her repeated, ‘Happiness, happiness,’ and it was a beautifully grave and tender word… Rirette thought of happiness, the bluebird, the bird of happiness, the rebel bird of love.”
From The Wall: “I was angry, I didn’t want to die. That made me smile. How madly I ran after happiness, after woman, after liberty… I took everything as seriously as if I were immortal.”
My favorites of the five in this book (Intimacy, The Wall, The Room, Erostratus, and The Childhood of a Leader) are The Room and The Wall. I personally found Erostratus and Childhood of a Leader the most disturbing/least relatable.
From Intimacy: “…and a voice in her repeated, ‘Happiness, happiness,’ and it was a beautifully grave and tender word… Rirette thought of happiness, the bluebird, the bird of happiness, the rebel bird of love.”
From The Wall: “I was angry, I didn’t want to die. That made me smile. How madly I ran after happiness, after woman, after liberty… I took everything as seriously as if I were immortal.”
April 6, 2015
Prolific. Outstanding work. "Intimacy" without any intimate feelings. Cruel and disastrous confession of the human nature.
He loves me, he
doesn't love my bowels, if they showed him my appendix in a
glass he wouldn't recognize it, he's always feeling me, but if
they put the glass in his hands he wouldn't touch it, he wouldn't
think, "that's hers," you ought to love all of somebody, the
esophagus, the liver, the intestines. Maybe we don't love them
because we aren't used to them, if we saw them the way we saw
our hands and arms maybe we'd love them; the starfish must love
each other better than we do.
He loves me, he
doesn't love my bowels, if they showed him my appendix in a
glass he wouldn't recognize it, he's always feeling me, but if
they put the glass in his hands he wouldn't touch it, he wouldn't
think, "that's hers," you ought to love all of somebody, the
esophagus, the liver, the intestines. Maybe we don't love them
because we aren't used to them, if we saw them the way we saw
our hands and arms maybe we'd love them; the starfish must love
each other better than we do.
February 22, 2016
Read this too long ago. It made a huge impression but with time Sartre's contrived narratives to convey his arguments dims somewhat. It is essential reading for a brief, but very, significant period.
March 24, 2023
3,5, "mur" przereklamowany, "intymność" spoko, "pokój" wybitny i niezwykły. Latające posągi
June 7, 2012
MY FAVORITE SARTRE
November 27, 2020
I found these short stories unsettling. I can understand why the collection is called 'Intimacy' - because Sartre appears to give his readers a view of the lives of his characters that is bordering on voyeuristic. I didn't particularly like any of the main characters but maybe that is because they were shown with all of their faults exposed. Lucien in 'The childhood of a Leader' was insufferable and I found his anti-Semitism very difficult to read, but maybe that was the point of these stories. Very few people come off well with the level of scrutiny that Sartre shares about his characters.
October 11, 2025
Mam zwykle mieszane uczucia do zbiorów opowiadań, bo rzadko zdarza mi się trafić na tak dobre jak te. W moim wydaniu były niestety tylko trzy, z których „Mur” okazał się zdecydowanie najlepszy. Czułam się jakbym siedziała z nimi w tej celi, czekając na śmierć, jednocześnie zyskując i tracąc pojęcie o tym kim jestem, wolność i wolę. Niesamowicie duszący utwór, i nie sądzę, żeby to wrażenie szybko zelżało. Tak naprawdę jednak całość zbioru jest dosyć równa, czyli bardzo udana, dlatego naprawdę żałuję braku tych dwóch dodatkowych opowiadań.
December 8, 2020
Every time I read this book I felt this much closer to McFreakin losing it- the stream of consciousness type narratives tap into the darkness that lurks in our thoughts, our judgements, our fantasies, making each short story (despite their wildly different protagonists) uncomfortably relatable. Childhood of a Leader was my favorite, very tongue-in-cheek as it explored the ways in which man's search for meaning can warp and distort (and result in Hitler's existence)
August 4, 2024
I think the first story was to bland and flat. The characters were neither identifiable nor understandable and the story wasn't eye opening or had an interesting plot. (To start of with this story wasn't a smart decision.) The other story on the other hand was an enjoyable read. Lulu's thoughts and feelings about sex were well written and her relationships with the other characters diverse. For a short story it was okay, but I wouldn't necessarily read it again.
August 25, 2024
each one vastly different in style that makes a reader's experience bizarrely unintimate. the majority framing men on the brink of psychotic breakdown, or in the approach to one, induced by a need for intimacy. Sartre's excellent carving out of an interior monologue in 'the childhood of a leader', from infanthood to early adult life speaks to his adeptness. He captures the whole young livelihood of Lucien Fleurier in 90 pages without breaking once
May 3, 2025
2,75/5- Es gibt schon Kurzgeschichten/ kurze Bücher, die mich nachhaltig beeinflussen und mir ein wirklich fantastisches Erlebnis bieten, das gehörte nicht wirklich dazu.
Also es war ganz in Ordnung, sehr in Sartre Manier geschrieben, aber halt auch einfach wirklich nicht weltbewegendes oder interessantes.
Es waren sehr eigene Formen der Intimität (daher wohl auch der Name), wie gesagt, ganz in Ordnung, aber irgendwie auch nicht das Wahre.
Also es war ganz in Ordnung, sehr in Sartre Manier geschrieben, aber halt auch einfach wirklich nicht weltbewegendes oder interessantes.
Es waren sehr eigene Formen der Intimität (daher wohl auch der Name), wie gesagt, ganz in Ordnung, aber irgendwie auch nicht das Wahre.
March 27, 2021
Thought I had read this at Uni. But the publication date is a year after graduation. So it has been in the book collection for many years. Still I finally finished it. Uni Philosophy Professor was a Sartre scholar so it was an opportunity to reflect on the late Anthony Manser. Great stories especially The Wall.
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