Quote:
Originally Posted by Nothingness
Jean-Paul Sartre and François La Rochefoucaul are my favorite. Sartre's plays are also good and contains elements of his philosophy.
|
My favorite Sartre is his trilogy,
The Roads to Freedom (
The Age of Reason, The Reprieve, and
Troubled Sleep). It was supposed to be a tetralogy but the fourth book was never finished. I read it as a teenager and it has stuck with me for more than 50 years.
The three main characters are interesting but what I found most interesting was the philosophical thought I drew from the books:
There is no freedom without responsibility. Essentially, the characters are an unmarried professor, his mistress, and their best friend, a gay man. When the mistress becomes pregnant by the professor, he offers to pay for an abortion but will not marry her because he believes that to do so would mean giving up his most cherished possession, his freedom. She wants to keep the baby and the best friend steps forward and offers to marry her. Ultimately, the professor learns that to be free one must accept the responsibilities that being free imposes.
I think this is what ails American society today. Too many Americans think that being free equates with no responsibilities when just the opposite is true.
Although the books are not literary classics, they are well worth reading.