Talk:Nausea (novel)

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[edit] Nobel Prize inaccuracies

Sartre was neither the first nor only person to decline the Nobel Peace prize. The first individual to decline the award, whether under coercion or not, was Boris Pasternak.

[edit] Stub?

Does this really still qualify as a stub? --Isis 23:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC) This was a article I used for my library instruction class.

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 07:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anny

Is there actually any indication in the novel that Anny is English? I always assumed she was French as she refers to the copy of Michelet's History which she had when she was a child. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.188.244.52 (talk) 10:34, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

On page 60ff of the ND American edition, she is described as still buying her stationery at Piccadilly, and is generally made to sound English. William P. Coleman (talk) 21:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A First Look

I wasn't sure where people are keeping their notes for the collaboration, since I'm new to it. But I assumed here. I just found out about the collaboration, so I started reading the book. I'm reading it out loud to someone, and, at 18 pages per night, I estimate we'll finish in 10 days. I'll try to do some other research in parallel.

The stub lacks See also, References, Further reading, and External links.

I'm especially concerned about the Psychological section at the end. Without having researched yet, but with some familiarity in the past with existentialism and with Sartre's work, I'd guess that it would destroy the point of the book to imagine that the main character's problem is simply depression or mental illness. I'd think rather that Sartre imagines that Roquentin's problems arise in man's inherent existential condition, and I would guess that his seemingly special circumstances (returning from travel, reclusiveness), rather than just indicating depression, are supposed to induce in him (and in the reader) a state that makes one more receptive to noticing an existential situation that everyone has, but may not be sensitive enough to allow to become noticeable. (Incidentally, I would guess similar things about Dostoevsky and about Rilke. Some of Dostoevsky's characters may be crazy, but their problems and responses are imagined to be universal, and not particular to their neuroses.) These are personal conjectures on my part, and I'd like to find some published critical opinion. William P. Coleman (talk) 05:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to gently repeat my unease about this. As with my other disagreement below, it's perhaps largely a matter of wording, rather than substance. I'd like to avoid allowing a reader to go away with what I feel would be a misinterpretation: that Roquentin's problems are merely a result of personal insanity, without larger significance. Rather, the New York Review article now cited suggests that the characters in the novels it mentions are victims of larger ideological, social, and existential forces that "have brought them to the brink of insanity." He says that Roquentin "undergoes a strange metaphysical experience that estranges him from the world." I think that Sartre's point in Nausea is to comment on our universal reaction to these common external problems, rather than solely on the delusions of a single individual. So, I would appreciate it if we could find wording with a better balance about this. William P. Coleman (talk) 15:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I moved that paragraph to a section discussing Nausea within the history of the psychological novel. William P. Coleman (talk) 17:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References & Footnotes

Come on guys where are these. This article needs more material less than it drastically needs sourcing. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Additions

I've added some referenced material. More on the way in a day or two. I didn't know how to do the references right -- to get two different pages from the same book. Could someone fix it? Thanks. William P. Coleman (talk) 02:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Update: I've added a fair amount more of referenced material and still have some available to add in the next few days. When I get it all in place, my plan would be to organize this more coherently and effectively. (For now, it's a technical struggle for a newbie editor just to get it put there at all.)

Notice: If not dissuaded, I'm planning to delete much of the material in the "Philosophy" and "Psychological overview" sections, unless references can be found for it. William P. Coleman (talk) 05:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for adding those citations.
I would however gently still like to disagree with the wording, "La Nausée serves primarily as a vehicle for Sartre to explain his philosophy in simplified terms." I don't think the reference supports that; rather, if anything, it seems to say that Peanuts serves primarily as a vehicle for Schultz to explain Sartre's philosophy. Meanwhile, I feel our current wording tends to trivialize and undercut the issues about the balance betwee Sartre the novelist and Sartre the philosopher that are debated in the Camus and Barrett quotations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by William P. Coleman (talk • contribs) 15:03, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I am moving this section as well. William P. Coleman (talk) 14:44, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copyedit tag

I have removed the {{copyedit}} tag. It is untrue that the section "is just a bunch of quotes. with no context written." It has section headings that correspond fairly closely to discussions in the rest of the article.

The format of that section is to list the themes of the novel. I chose to do so by presenting direct quotations so that the section headings provided would economically assist readers in relating the fictional incidents and descriptions in the novel to the abstract philosophy that Sartre was thinking of and that are discussed extensively in the remainder of the article.

I felt (and still feel) that further text on our part (beyond perhaps a brief explanation at the beginning) would only be verbose and redundant of the rest of the article. We want to enable people to navigate this difficult philosophy easily, rather than bogging them down.

Meanwhile the generic warning in the {{copyedit}} box inadvertently but strongly raises the possibility that Sartre's own "grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling" are substandard -- which is upsetting.

The tag leaves a message on the article page and not on the talk page. It is probably not what the WP:DYN editors (who admired the article and thought it should be submitted for WP:GA) and admins hoped that the visitors they were sending from the WP front page would see.

The message is not what I hoped to see when I asked for help.

If anyone disagrees with my writing or editorial decisions (which is always a very reasonable possibility) then the way to do it is to appear personally on the talk page and explain/discuss. I'm not usually unaccommodating. (I have thirty years of experience doing scientific work that involves collaboration and consensus with a team of experts.) William P. Coleman (talk) 15:16, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

The quotes are too long- they need to be very brief, long quotes are discouraged. As to 'sartre's own grammar' being wrong, of course no-one's saying that. But it was copied here in error, I had to check with the original a sentence that was obviously ungrammatical, find it wasn't true to the original, and add a comma. Merkinsmum 13:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks

Thanks to Ms2ger for extensive technical changes and an addition. I had no idea how to do those things and am grateful to learn. William P. Coleman (talk) 15:20, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] long quotes section

This article is nice and long as it is, we don't need to pad it out, which is the main reason people usually use long quotes in articles. They are discouraged per Wikipedia's manual of style. This section is not in a form usually used on wiki, but let's keep the quotes brief at least, if we're going to keep it. Merkinsmum 13:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks sincerely for your help with the proofreading and for your comments.
If you'd like my own opinion about the state of this article, I think it looks like somebody (namely me) expanded it five-fold in five days. It's got way too much undigested material and it sorely needs serious cleanup in a number of ways. I plan to do that cleanup soon and then nominate for GA. (I've been studying the GA guidelines in order to do that.) My only excuses for delaying are (1) it gives me a chance to hear other opinions, including yours, which I appreciate; (2) it gives me better distance and perspective in my own mind; and (3) after working so intensively, I'm sick of it for a while. I do, though, promise to get back to work soon.
About the quotations from the book itself, they're only part of the problem. I also threw in too many quotations from critics, without really attempting to make thoughtful decisions about which should be summarized and which should be direct quotes. I also gave only minimal consideration to organizing them. I plan to get more serious.
I think I would vote for quotations in the "Themes" section. Basically I think the "Themes" section should summarize what Sartre says, whereas extended philosophical and literary discussions should go in the "Significance" section, where the novel can be placed in its historical development.
I've been thinking, since Kevinalewis's criticisms, that there should be some minimal apparatus of text and links that can let the reader navigate back and forth between "Themes" and "Significance." Or,at least, that's my take on it. I think the most important point would be to provide the reader with a way to connect, in a concrete way, between the imagery and incidents in the novel and the abstract philosophy to be found in discussions about it.
As to whether I chose the optimal quotations from the novel, or ones with the optimal length, or the optimal number of them -- no, I don't feel very sure about that. Maybe somewhat. I feel it needs for me to slowly, thoughtfully reread the novel in light of the material I dumped into the "Significance" section and make sure that the fit is right in both directions: that the quotations are rewritten to adequately explain the philosophy and the philosophy is rewritten to adequately explain the quotations. William P. Coleman (talk) 14:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)