Intimacy

by Jean-Paul Sartre

Paperback, 1965

Status

Available

Call number

813

Collections

Your library, Philosophy

Publication

Berkley Medallion (1965), 190 pages

Description

'The Wall', the lead story in this collection, introduces three political prisoners on the night prior to their execution. Through the gaze of an impartial doctor--seemingly there for the men's solace--their mental descent is charted in exquisite, often harrowing detail. And as the morning draws inexorably closer, the men cross the psychological wall between life and death, long before the first shot rings out. This brilliant snapshot of life in anguish is the perfect introduction toa collection of stories where the neurosis of the modern world is mirrored in the lives of the people that inhabit it . This is an unexpurgated edition translated from the French by Lloyd Alexander.

User reviews

LibraryThing member therska

When I started this book I had no expectations what so ever about it. After I'd read the first two stories, I had to look up the year of publishing (1939) and was puzzled by how current the topics were. It blew me of. Carried away in the story of the room, hunted by flying statues, I began

questioning the true meaning of (in)sanity. And I knew I wanted to read the last story called 'L'enfance d'un chef', but was afraid it would be something close to 'Mein Kampf'. But it was much more than I had expected. The sore wandering of a young man, lost between two wars, times and places, trying to find a reason to live on in a surrealistic and seemingly non-existing world. So deep. I truly liked 'Le mûr' as well, twighlighting between life and death, night and day. Also the loneliness and uncertainty of the 'hero' in 'Érostrate' touched me. But I could not grab hold of it. Neither the intimacy in 'Intimité', which seem to me to be the most archaic of them all. But over all a very good book.

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LibraryThing member joannajuki

Sartre is a brilliant writer of fiction and this could have made up his career in another life. I loved these short stories, but the last, "The childhoold of a Leader", tracing the life of a fascist through his own memories, is a little unpleasant when the narrator is a child and then frightening

when he is a young man and becomes a thoughtless, racist brute. It's almost too believable, except for the intelligence and awareness of its main character.

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LibraryThing member DanielSTJ

This short story collection by Sartre was unexpected, and it's still really sinking in, but I feel that it has a lot to offer to the contemporary reader. Sartre is a complicated writer, one that has vast undercurrents and philosophical connotations with his work. This might not always be apparent

while you are reading, but when you are finished sections (or stories) you kind of get the grasp of what he is trying to say- or get at. Overall, a good collection of short stories that shouldn't be missed for aspiring writers, world literature fans, French-lit enthusiasts, or those interested in philosophy itself.

3.5 stars.

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LibraryThing member dan.ostermeier

Title story is a interesting complement to The Stranger.

LibraryThing member Seven.Stories.Press

I bought this book about a year ago, when I was in the midst of ending a horrible short-lived relationship and felt rather existentialist, though I feel "rather existentialist" on a regular basis, so that's not saying much. The slim volume includes five short stories by Sartre, and of those The

Childhood of a Leader is my favorite by far. I would suggest this as bedtime reading if you have a somber side, or else bathtub reading if you adopt a more cheerful attitude toward life.

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LibraryThing member drsabs

The five stories in this book address different life situations which provide ample opportunity for existential themes. Probably the best known is the title story, Le Mur, which involves the thoughts of men condemned to death during the Spanish Civil War. La Chambre concerns how a young woman and

her parents deal with the growing insanity of the woman’s husband. Erostrate, named after the Greek who burned down the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus to get his name in the history books, has an eerily contemporaneous ring (at least in the United States), albeit it seems Parisians did not have access to assault weapons in late 1930’s France. L’Intimite takes a close look at sexual relations between men and women. By far the longest of the stories, L’Enfance d’un Chef, tells the story of a boy from early childhood as he goes through various phases in seeking and establishing his identity. While each of these stories strikes Sartrian themes and indeed could all be fruitfully analyzed using Sartre’s principles of existential psychoanalysis, they also are interesting, and in parts compelling, as stories in their own right.

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