Book Reflections

Nausea Cover

Nausea

Jean-Paul Sartre · Read June 2026

Reflection: I sadly did not really like it. It was very slow and sometimes rather tedious to read. While I like the philosophy of Existentialism and recognize that the end of the book got better, I prefer Hermann Hesse's writing style.

One thing I liked was the idea of Existence preceding Essence. Normally one would assume that something exists for a purpose, i.e. things have a predefined purpose before they exist (Essence before Existence). Sartre instead argues that for humans, existence comes before essence. We first exist, and then have to find purpose.