December 18th, 2008 / 3:18 pm
I Like __ A Lot

I like existentialism a lot

walking_aloneI think when people talk about existentialism, they are talking about one of two things: the actual philosophy, and—more generically—books that ‘feel’ and are labeled as being existentialist.

Existentialism, since like Jr. year in highschool, has always been ‘cool,’ like the Smiths or the Cure, for smart and depressed people. I’m not saying I was or am smart or depressed, just that certain books made me feel less lonely, which is weird because those books and authors seemed really lonely. I guess it’s the whole ‘read to know you’re not alone thing.’

Academic existentialism is dry, difficult to understand, and makes me feel more lonely. I tried reading Being and Time, and Being and Nothingness by Heidegger [see Pink’s] and Sartre, respectively, but it was sort of like math. Every time they said a sentence, they tried to prove it using other sentences which they then had to prove. I lost track of what they were arguing (at me) about. It’s like arguing with a girlfriend, without the boobs. Most philosophy is this way: noble and boring.

The existentialism I like are the books that people call existentialism. I will name them and talk about them briefly after the break.

The Stranger [Camus]: I liked the book, but it felt too much like a commercial, like too rhetorical and adroit and eager to seduce the audience.

Nausea [Sartre]: I liked this way more than The Stranger because the narrator was more intellectually restless, struggled more, was more self-conscious, which made the ‘emptiness’ more complex.

Notes from the Underground [Dostoyevsky]: Dostoyevsky is probably the most neurotic writer ever, and it’s very endearing. And I guess in the context of the time of its publication it was ground-breaking, but I just felt it was a lot of yelling and ranting.

The Fall [Camus]: Also a bunch a yelling, and one-dimensional tone, like Portnoy’s Complaint but not funny. [Again, Pink]

The Sun Also Rises [Hemingway]: People don’t think Hemingway was existentialist which I don’t understand. He is totally existentialist.

Steppenwolf [Hesse]: It’s funny because most people think of Herman Hesse as being ‘spiritual’ because of Siddhartha, but Steppenwolf was like the opposite. I remember thinking either Hesse was very agile and dynamic, or had multiple personality disorder.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge [Rilke]: This is my favorite ‘journal confession’ type book. I don’t remember much, other than feeling it was amazing. Rilke is known for his ‘Letters to a young poet,’ because he’s ‘deep,’ well, imagine a guy who is ‘deeper’ than Sartre thinking about the same stuff. His tone was so gentle I thought Rilke was gay sometimes and hid the cover while reading on the bus. When you start evaluating the sexual orientation of an author, it means that author has affected you deeply.

Swann’s Way [Proust]: I know this isn’t existentialism, but I wanted to include it to bring me to my main point of this post. The narrator of Swann’s Way is not self-absorbed they way we call people we don’t like ‘self-absorbed,’ but he is completely absorbed in his perception. When you (Proust) spend 50 pages talking about how your pillow feels or wall looks while you try to go to sleep, you are making a point about some sort of ‘universal empiricism’ which exists between all writers and readers of variable generations; in other words, being human.

I think people like reading about themselves, like they want to read their diary without actually writing it, and these books are like everyone’s diaries; like an autobiography on a bookshelf with somebody else’s name. To understand people like Tolstoy, Saul Bellow, or Philip Roth, you need to come equipped with a set understanding of something outside yourself, namely, social constructs (history, culture, politics, etc.) To understand existentialism, all you need is to have lived a day on this earth. I guess that’s why I liked those books a lot between the ages of 17 – 22. I really think my life would have turned out differently had I not read those books, like I would have an SUV now or a ‘real doll.’ Thank you existentialism for waking me up when you did.

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49 Comments

  1. peter b

      i like

  2. peter b

      i like

  3. sampink

      jimmy, come over and we can discuss being and nothingness and being and time and beyond good and evil and the will to power and also i will cook you a plate of spaghetti

  4. sampink

      jimmy, come over and we can discuss being and nothingness and being and time and beyond good and evil and the will to power and also i will cook you a plate of spaghetti

  5. Jimmy Chen

      sam, that is your plan to bang me. i don’t like it.

  6. Jimmy Chen

      sam, that is your plan to bang me. i don’t like it.

  7. bryan

      I liked The Stranger — not at first, but it started to gnaw on me and then I had an epiphany about the whole thing a few weeks later. Just thinking about it now still gives me the chills.

      You should read Sartre’s Existentialism and Human Emotions — I’ve read that it offers a more transparent approach to Sartre’s philosophy, though I haven’t read Being and Nothingness or much else by him. I’m trying to read The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness now, but I haven’t been able to get through it yet. Lately I’ve needed to read “lighter stuff” so I don’t feel completely crushed.

  8. bryan

      I liked The Stranger — not at first, but it started to gnaw on me and then I had an epiphany about the whole thing a few weeks later. Just thinking about it now still gives me the chills.

      You should read Sartre’s Existentialism and Human Emotions — I’ve read that it offers a more transparent approach to Sartre’s philosophy, though I haven’t read Being and Nothingness or much else by him. I’m trying to read The Transcendence of the Ego: An Existentialist Theory of Consciousness now, but I haven’t been able to get through it yet. Lately I’ve needed to read “lighter stuff” so I don’t feel completely crushed.

  9. matthew savoca

      sam can i come over, i will make the spaghetti i will bring it from italy

  10. matthew savoca

      sam can i come over, i will make the spaghetti i will bring it from italy

  11. ryan

      i am big on existentialism. i don’t know what that means. i have an obsession with the work of kierkegaard. when my insomnia gets really bad i sometimes focus on thinking of my head and the pillow being one, trying to concentrate on when the particles of each fuse and i become the pillow. sometimes that helps me fall asleep. sometimes it makes me want liquor.

  12. ryan

      i am big on existentialism. i don’t know what that means. i have an obsession with the work of kierkegaard. when my insomnia gets really bad i sometimes focus on thinking of my head and the pillow being one, trying to concentrate on when the particles of each fuse and i become the pillow. sometimes that helps me fall asleep. sometimes it makes me want liquor.

  13. sam pink

      savoca, my family still lives in italy. if you want to stay in the mountains with them, they will let you. i am being serious.

  14. sam pink

      savoca, my family still lives in italy. if you want to stay in the mountains with them, they will let you. i am being serious.

  15. pr

      that means Sam is Catholic, which I knew in my heart.

  16. peter b

      papists

  17. peter b

      papists

  18. matthew savoca

      yes to sam pink

  19. matthew savoca

      yes to sam pink

  20. Ken Baumann

      Essays in Existentialism, the Sartre collection, is great.

  21. Ken Baumann

      Essays in Existentialism, the Sartre collection, is great.

  22. Brad Green

      This is a good post, Jimmy. Have you read Musil’s, The Man Without Qualities?

      It’s in my tower to read. The bookmark is fifty or so pages in. I like it so far. It’s big in that big book sort of way but with sentences I can understand — as opposed to big book Joyce.

  23. Brad Green

      This is a good post, Jimmy. Have you read Musil’s, The Man Without Qualities?

      It’s in my tower to read. The bookmark is fifty or so pages in. I like it so far. It’s big in that big book sort of way but with sentences I can understand — as opposed to big book Joyce.

  24. jereme

      i think all philosophy has both valid and absurd ideas. extremes are never true.

      my philosophy states ‘it is okay to be selfish’ then i have validated my selfishness and feel better about my existence.

      now i can go be a fascist or a political loon or whatever.

  25. jereme

      i think all philosophy has both valid and absurd ideas. extremes are never true.

      my philosophy states ‘it is okay to be selfish’ then i have validated my selfishness and feel better about my existence.

      now i can go be a fascist or a political loon or whatever.

  26. Jimmy Chen

      no brad i have not. i tried but gave up.

  27. Jimmy Chen

      no brad i have not. i tried but gave up.

  28. Brad Green

      This has nothing to do with existentialism, but that’s ok. everything is relativistic anyway.

      I’d like to see some postings about writers that have fired the poster up, changed them, influenced them…etc. Certainly that happens. It happens with me. When I was a teenager, it was Delany. Two months ago, it was James Salter. Reading Salter just forced me to write, and to write in new ways. Last month it was Benjamin Percy. Tonight it was Lorrie Moore. I’d like to hear about those types of writers that when you first read them made you mad that you hadn’t read them yet, writers that you cussed out for being so much better than you are.

      FYI: I also accidentally posted this on the administrative secret santa post. Why? I don’t know. I’m a dumbass, I guess. The machines are rising up against me. Protect me, Jimmy, protect me!!!!

  29. Brad Green

      This has nothing to do with existentialism, but that’s ok. everything is relativistic anyway.

      I’d like to see some postings about writers that have fired the poster up, changed them, influenced them…etc. Certainly that happens. It happens with me. When I was a teenager, it was Delany. Two months ago, it was James Salter. Reading Salter just forced me to write, and to write in new ways. Last month it was Benjamin Percy. Tonight it was Lorrie Moore. I’d like to hear about those types of writers that when you first read them made you mad that you hadn’t read them yet, writers that you cussed out for being so much better than you are.

      FYI: I also accidentally posted this on the administrative secret santa post. Why? I don’t know. I’m a dumbass, I guess. The machines are rising up against me. Protect me, Jimmy, protect me!!!!

  30. barry

      brad:

      christopher kennedy’s – trouble with the machine

      jayne anne phillips – black tickets

      no one ever talks about or mentions jayne anne phillips. how the fuck has she been forgotten. fuck.

      people rather jerk off to old dead europeans and russians with stupid beards.

  31. barry

      brad:

      christopher kennedy’s – trouble with the machine

      jayne anne phillips – black tickets

      no one ever talks about or mentions jayne anne phillips. how the fuck has she been forgotten. fuck.

      people rather jerk off to old dead europeans and russians with stupid beards.

  32. jereme

      brad,

      hunter s. thompson

  33. jereme

      brad,

      hunter s. thompson

  34. Brad Green

      Excellent, thank you. I’ve heard of neither Christopher Kennedy or Jayne Anne Philips. Thanks, Barry.

      I should give Hunter S Thompson a try again. It’s been a number of years.

  35. Brad Green

      Excellent, thank you. I’ve heard of neither Christopher Kennedy or Jayne Anne Philips. Thanks, Barry.

      I should give Hunter S Thompson a try again. It’s been a number of years.

  36. pr

      i love jayne ann phillips. she hasn’t fallen off the radar, she just isn’t prolific. thats my feeling.

      i love tolstoy so much. maybe his beard is stupid, but i love his novels and stories. poo to you barry. read “the kreuzer sonata’ and “family happiness’ and tell me he doesn’t move you to write. He did to me. I wrote a whole collection of stories “around” those two stories.

  37. barry

      pr:

      im not saying tolstoy and dolstoevsky and all the other long bearded folks arent great and shouldnt be read. im just saying i dont understand all the emphasis on them as opposed to great american writers from the 19th and 20th century who have seemingly been forgotten.

      what about loving twain and caldwell and lowell what about it

  38. barry

      pr:

      im not saying tolstoy and dolstoevsky and all the other long bearded folks arent great and shouldnt be read. im just saying i dont understand all the emphasis on them as opposed to great american writers from the 19th and 20th century who have seemingly been forgotten.

      what about loving twain and caldwell and lowell what about it

  39. pr

      i like those people too. i just have a thing for tolstoy. i once had a HUGE thing for Roth- remember my getting him to write me a letter? I also painted a picture of jean rhys and hung it on my wall! I want to talk about love affiars and heart breaks with writers…obsessions. i’ll write that post someday.
      (but i love you barrry most of all….)

  40. Jimmy Chen

      gertrude stein is my favorite writer with a beard

  41. Jimmy Chen

      gertrude stein is my favorite writer with a beard

  42. jereme

      brad,

      Thompson’s frenetic pace is what glared off of the page (to me). i felt like i was having a cheap amphetamine fueled paranoid episode while reading some of his stuff.

      the beginning of ‘the rum diaries’ comes to mind.

  43. jereme

      brad,

      Thompson’s frenetic pace is what glared off of the page (to me). i felt like i was having a cheap amphetamine fueled paranoid episode while reading some of his stuff.

      the beginning of ‘the rum diaries’ comes to mind.

  44. gazpromdate

      jean giono’s joy of man’s desiring

  45. gazpromdate

      jean giono’s joy of man’s desiring

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