The Reprieve: A Novel [Paperback]

Jean-Paul Sartre (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 1992

An extraordinary picture of life in France during the critical eight days before the signing of the fateful Munich Pact and the subsequent takeover of Czechoslovakia in September 1938. Translated from the French by Eric Sutton.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

From the Inside Flap

An extraordinary picture of life in France during the critical eight days before the signing of the fateful Munich Pact and the subsequent takeover of Czechoslovakia in September 1938. Translated from the French by Eric Sutton.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (July 7, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679740783
• ISBN-13: 978-0679740780
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #105,788 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Novelist, playwright, and biographer Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80) is widely considered one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. His major works include "No Exit," "Nausea," "The Wall," "The Age of Reason," "Critique of Dialectical Reason," "Being and Nothingness," and "Roads to Freedom," an allegory of man's search for commitment, and not, as the man at the off-licence says, an everyday story of French country folk.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent novel about pre-war France, January 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Reprieve: A Novel (Paperback)

The Reprieve is one of Sartre's most effective novels in that his philosophy is combined in a very compelling fashion with historical events. His first novel, "Nausea," may well be a finer work, but it is very much caught up in the specific trials and tribulations of one man whereas The Reprieve catches us up in the trials and tribulations of a whole nation (or rather the individuals that compose that nation) while it confronts one of the historical turning points of the 20th century -- the days leading up to the Munich Agreement. Thus the narrative flows effortlessly (and often in mid-sentence) from the French prime minister to an illiterate French peasant to a university professor and to all shades of people in between as they are confronted by the fundamental choices that confronted them in Hitler's threats (to fight, to flee, to pretend that Hitler wasn't really a threat, that Czechoslovakia wasn't important, etc.) Two aspects of the novel were most interesting from Sartre's philosophical position of radical freedom for the individual and his later modifications of this position: how each individual could refuse to participate in the mobilization of the military (that the French government called in the days leading up to the Munich agreement, when it was generally assumed that there would be war), but was so overwhelmed by the sheer force of events that they found it almost impossible not to report for duty, no matter how ambivalent many of them were about fighting another war after the blood bath of World War I; and secondly, the way that an initial reluctance and discomfort about looming war gave way in some to an almost satisfied sense of nihilism. Which is to say, the old trivialities of their lives would be over, and something new, all-encompassing and excitingly catastrophic would replace it -- as one character regretfully says in the end, when the results of the Munich conference (which Sartre effectively communicates by the horrified reactions of the Czech delegates at France's and England's betrayal of them) has become apparent, and that there will in fact be no war: "No war; no planes over Paris; no bomb-shattered ceilings: life must now be lived." Of course war did come, the "reprieve was only temporary, but that is for the third volume in this trilogy, "Troubled Sleep."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Many Brilliant Characters Bring a Historical Crisis to Life, August 8, 2010

By 

Ethan Cooper (Big Apple) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Reprieve: A Novel (Paperback)

In THE REPRIEVE, Sartre follows the actions and thoughts of roughly 20 major characters from September 23rd to September 30th 1938. This is the week when the Sudeten crisis--Hitler's bullying scheme to annex part of Czechoslovakia---reached its climax and the French were mobilizing for war.

In THE REPRIEVE, Sartre goes at his characters from all directions. Sometimes, he contrasts their reactions to this crisis. At one point, for example, the college boy Boris romanticizes a war to preserve Czechoslovakia, calmly considering death in battle his destiny. Meanwhile, Mathieu, a professor, believes the war has annulled his life, making his past a lie. Other times, Sartre raises a theme--innocence, martyrdom, or existential freedom. Then, his characters, through their actions, reveal the fullness of these themes. For example, the issue of martyrdom in THE REPRIEVE is embodied in the stories of Charles (a disabled veteran of The Great War), Gomez (a Republican soldier returning to the lost Spanish Civil War), and Philippe (a confused teenage pacifist who takes pointless risks to express his conscience).

Adding to the richness of THE REPRIEVE are roughly 10 couples, whose relationships range from passionate (Maurice and Zezette) to sterile (Jacques and Odette) and in which the experiences of partners range from empowered (Ivich) to powerless (Mathieu). Sartre moves the effects of the Sudeten crisis through these relationships as well, giving added depth to his characters.

In THE REPRIEVE, Sartre consistently employs a technique that is like cross-cuts in the movies. In the introduction to my edition , David Caute, observes: "Sartre now unveils the formidable resources of the modern novel (and indeed modern cinema...) to move from one location to the next with lightning rapidity, often in mid-sentence. What emerges is a collective stream of consciousness fashioned out of a mosaic of individual lives, each thrashing to be free of the looming... war."

To illustrate how this works, I open THE REPREIVE at random to page 211, where Sartre cuts back and forth between three characters that are on trains. These are: the gurney-bound Charles, who is being evacuated in a freight car from the frontier; Georges, a thirty-something bourgeois father who is reporting to military duty and finding the experience surprisingly benign; and Maurice, a working class man and communist who, for nationalistic reasons, is joining his unit to fight in a war that communists then considered just-deserts for capitalism. Certainly, it's impressive that Sartre is able to maintain absolute clarity of character and situation as he cuts from train to train. But what's really impressive is his control of the narrative, which has enabled him to put three contrasting characters and stories on trains at the same moment. Throughout, THE REPREIVE has this amazing layering of complementary incident. But its effects may culminate as Karl, a young German, and Ella, a young French Jew, listen to the broadcast of Hitler's Big-Lie speech, when he justifies Nazi aggression toward Czechoslovakia.

Sartre's writing in THE REPRIEVE is exceptional. Usually, this takes the form of incredible precision. Even so, Sartre does put the character Mathieu at a midnight outdoor table at the Café des Deux Magots. There, he observes: "A woman clattered along in a hurry... a harassed mortal denizen to time, devoured by a thousand little schemes, she lifted a hand and smoothed back a stray lock of hair. I was like her once: a hive of schemes... The darkness swallowed her up as she pattered into the rue Bonaparte... clacking heels were silent."

A great novel and highly recommended.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible, thought provoking, November 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Reprieve: A Novel (Paperback)

This is one of the most powerful works of literature that I've ever read. It combines a powerfully unique literary style, a philosophical dilemma threaded through lives of a set of well developed characters set against a background of one of the most important historical developments that has defined the rest of the 20th century. This is the kind of a book, where every other page "asks" to be quoted. It will wrench your heart, focus your mind and make you look inward questioning the significance of a man in the context of a historical momentum. Awe inspiring..!