Re: (TV) On a minor note...

["Joe Thornton" <joe.thornton@gmx.net>]

Keith wrote:
> . . .  Emilie T. Hsu <ehsu@mindspring.com> writes
> >Sartre is a great writer -- but crappy philosopher.
>
> If anything, I'd say quite the reverse.

Not wanting to take sides here, but I must quote one of my heroes, Samuel
Beckett. Beckett and Sartre were acquaintances in Paris. In 1939, Beckett
read Sartre's novel "La Nausee" with enthusiasm, finding it 'extraordinarily
good'. I'm reminded of my own student days when most of us tended to be
enthusiastic about existentialism.

On the other hand, Beckett said in the late sixties that the language of
Heidegger and Sartre was 'too philosophical' for him. 'I am not a
philosopher. One can only speak of what is in front of one, and that is
simply a mess,' according to Beckett.

These days, celebrating the D-day landings and so on, we should spare a
thought for those, like Beckett, Sartre, and so many non-survivors, who
performed heroics in the French Resistance.

[Source: Anthony Cronin's admirable biography, "Samuel Beckett -- The Last
Modernist". There's another quote there, apparently Iris Murdoch's view of
Sartre: 'the marvellous novels of Jean Paul'.]

I noticed that Richard Hell wrote that Robert Quine loved Nabokov. (Me too!)
Nabokov was quite a literary critic among other things. For him, the
greatest modern writer was James Joyce (Beckett's close friend, whom Nabokov
met occasionally in Paris). But, if I recall correctly, Nabokov had a very
low opinion of Sartre...

Those of us who can only read Sartre in translation are at a disadvantage.
>From my limited experience of trying to read translations of Sartre, I'm
inclined to say: Life's too short.

--JoeT
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