judul : nausea
penulis : jean-paul sartre
penerbit : penguin books, 1965

nausea adalah karya pertama sartre yang saya baca, dipublikasikan pada tahun 1938, satre menulis novel ini dalam bentuk diary, saya kan penulis diary, itu kenapa saya tertarik untuk membaca habis--dan membaca ulang banyak bagian--nausea padahal bahasa inggris saya pas-pasan. nausea adalah sebuah diary seorang peneliti sejarah bernama antoine roquentin berusia 30 tahun yang tinggal selama 3 tahun di bouville--sebuah kota imajiner di prancis, roquentine berkontemplasi mengenai adventure dan existence.

"the best thing would be to write down everything that happens from day to day. to keep a diary in order to understand. to neglect no nuances or little details, even if they seem unimportant, and above all to classify them...i think that is the danger of keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything, you are on the look-out, and you continually strech the truth."

roquentin adalah seorang yang soliter, dia habis berkelana ke eropa tengah, afrika selatan, dan timur jauh. kegiatan sehari-harinya: berjalan kaki menelusuri jalan2 dan taman kota, ke perpustakaan mengerjakan penelitiannya tentang monsieur de rollebon--seorang hakim yang fenomenal abad 18, nongkrong dan makan di cafe mably, pergi ke cinema, lalu kembali ke kamarnya di hotel printania. roquentin hanya punya seorang kenalan (bukan teman) : the autodidact--bernama ogier, seorang yang mengaku humanis dan socialist. roquentin hanya berhubungan secara fisik dengan françoise dan dia sudah tidak lagi mengenang anny--mantan kekasihnya.

"i for my part live alone, entirely alone. i never speak to anybody, i receive nothing, i give nothing. the autodidact doesn't count."

"perhaps it is imposible to understand one's own face. or perhaps it is because i am a solitary? people who live in society have learnt how to see themselves, in mirrors, as they appear to their friends: is that why my flesh is so naked? you might say--yes, you might say nature without mankind."

di tengah interaksinya dengan lingkungan, roquentin didera nausea--feeling of sickness. nausea akibat alienasi, kepura-puraan, kehampaan, kemonotonan, kebosanan.
"then the nausea seized me, i dropped on the bench, i no longer even knew where i was; i saw the colours slowly spinning around me, i wanted to vomit. and there it is: since then, the nausea hasn't left me, it holds me in its grip. the nausea isn't inside me: i can feel it over there on the wall, on the braces, everywhere around me."

kontemplasi mengenai adventure, bagian favorit saya X)

"you see a woman, you think that one day she will be old, only you don't see her grow old. but there are moments when you think you see her growing old and you feel yourself growing old with her : that is the feeling of adventure."

"adventures are in books. and naturally, everything they tell you about in books can happen in real life, but not in he same way."

"its seem to me as if everything i know about life i have learnt from books. the palaces of benares, the terrace of the leper king, the temples of java with their great broken staircases, have been reflected for a moment in my eyes, but they have remained yonder, on the spot."

nah ini bagian tentang eksistensialisme, sebenarnya novel ini adalah alat yang dipakai sartre untuk menjelaskan pemikirannya mengenai eksistensialisme--saya jadi sedikit paham (semoga) mengenai eksistensialisme.

"i exist. i think i exist. oh, how long and serpentine this feeling of existing is--and i unwind it, slowly...if only i could prevent myself from thinking! i try, i succeed: it seems as if my head is filling with smoke...and now it starts again: "smoke...musn't think...i don't want to think...i think i don't want to think. i musn't think that i don't want to think. because it is still a thought."

"my thought is me: that is why i can't stop. i exist by what i think...and i can't prevent myself from thinking. at this very moment--this is terrible--if i exist, it is because i hate existing. it is i, it is i who pull myself from the nothingness to which i aspire: hatred and disgust for existence are just so many ways of making me exist, of thrusting me into existence."

novel ditutup dengan catatan hari terakhir roquentin di bouville, ia akan pindah ke paris bersama pemikirannya atas existence, nothingness, adventure, freedom.

"alone and free. but this freedom is rather death."