Customer Reviews

The Reprieve: A Novel

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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."

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.

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..!

A few months ago I was standing in the Post Office line, right here in Albuquerque, and there was an "elderly" lady behind me, talking to another, about her recent trip to the Czech Republic. The conversation revealed that she had a bit of an "edge" to her. On her trip, which was apparently a trip "home," she had explained to the Czech officials that although born and raised there, she did not speak any Czech, she spoke only German and English. I turn and looked at her, and I did know who she was: a Sudeten German. And their expulsion after World War II eventually led this woman to what we tend to call the Land of Enchantment. No doubt, another story.

I first read Sartre's trilogy, "Roads to Freedom" some 40 years ago. This is the middle volume, preceded by The Age of Reason: A Novel and followed by Troubled Sleep: A Novel The entire novel concerns events in the lives of about 30 individuals, almost all of whom are French, during one week at the end of September, 1938. It was the week that Europe mobilized for war. The issue: the woman in the Post Office, and around 3 million of her compatriots, the Sudeten Germans. Sartre places the supporting arguments in the mouth of Jacques, brother of Mathieu. Democracy, self-determination, plebiscites. Arrogant Czech officials are oppressing the Sudetens. Why shouldn't they have the right to join the Reich if they want to? And didn't Hitler promise that this was "his last territorial demand in Europe"?

In terms of the scope and breadth of characters, Sartre's choices provide a dazzling spectrum. There is Gros-Louis, a giant of a man, an illiterate shepherd who washes up in Marseilles. Charles Darrieux is a casualty of WW I, an invalid confined to a stretcher, in a hospital up north, near the border, who must be evacuated, and is fearful of losing his favorite nurse, Jeannine. There is the Professor of Philosophy, Mathieu Delarue, on vacation, late in the season, at Juan-les-Pins. Francois Hannequin is a Pharmacist from St. Flour, in the Auvergne. Boris and Lola are vacationing at Biarritz. The youthful Philippe, in full rebellion mode, against his step-father, General Lacaze, and who proclaims his pacifism in the streets, with negative results. Daniel is a pederast, who realizes the "mark of Cain" is upon him. Sartre waits until more than half way before introducing the French Prime Minister, Edouard Daladier. Chamberlin, Hitler and Mussolini are also in the background. And of the non-French, there are Milan Hlinka, and his wife, Anna, Czechs living in the "Sudetenland." And Col. Gomez, still in fighting mode with the Spanish Republican Army.

Sartre is a true master in handling his characters, revealing a complete range of emotions and attitudes to the coming war; predominate being a sense of resignation to another war 20 years after the "war to end all wars." But there is also anticipation, the thought of a "holiday" from unhappy personal situations, and even the women who are glad to see their "significant others" go away. And there are those who cannot find Czechoslovakia on a map, proving that it is not only Americans who have "geographic deficiencies." What sets this novel apart are the switches Sartre makes from one character to the next, sometimes within the same paragraph, sometimes the same sentence. It did make it difficult to follow 40 years ago; it was far less so on this re-read, since it is much easier to follow if you know France, and the hints of location Sartre makes, as well as the historical context. The "blending" of lives, using this technique, is one of the true strengths of this novel.

For sure, Sartre has his critics, and there is a reasonable basis for criticism: a willingness to overlook or even support Stalinism, his treatment of Simone de Beauvoir (and yes, her willingness to accept such treatment is another matter) and the image of a "pointy-headed" and alas, wall-eyed, Left Bank intellectual pontificating in an obtuse jargon only 10 other people in the world could truly understand. But this novel belies so much of the critic's image of him. He truly understands France, and has immense insights into the human condition of a broad variety of individuals. And his prose is brilliant. So, if you must, tape over his name on the cover, but read this book; even re-read it for I found it all the better the second time around. 6-stars.

*The Reprieve* is the second book in Sartre's epic World War II trilogy, which starts with *The Age of Reason* and ends with *Troubled Sleep.* Because it happened to be the one I found in the library, I started in medias res, so to speak, with *The Reprieve.*

Maybe the greatest compliment that I can pay this novel is that even after 450 pages I immediately ordered the other two in the trilogy and can hardly wait to start *The Age of Reason.* It's hard to believe that the same author who, in *Being and Nothingness,* gave the world what is probably the most turgid philosophical masterpiece since the works of Hegel can write a novel as quickly paced, as compulsively readable, and as utterly absorbing as *The Reprieve.* Indeed I'd been prejudiced for years against reading this trilogy because I couldn't imagine it being anything but the dullest sort of fictional clunker.

I couldn't have been more wrong!

The war hasn't even started in *The Reprieve* and yet the drama is perhaps all the more intense for the oppressive sense of the storm of blood and steel about to break. The novel covers about a week in France during which the major European powers attempt a last-minute negotiation with Hitler to maintain the peace. Sartre tells the story of this tense week through the viewpoints of a wide variety of characters from every strata of French society. In doing so, he dramatizes the impact the shadow even a looming war can throw over individual lives--paradoxically defining and negating the very concepts of freedom and individuality. On the verge of being swept into history, Sartre's characters are also on the verge of being annihilated...and on some level, whether it's instinctual, intellectual, or emotional, each of them know it and each experience a kind of terrified exhilaration.

This is a deeply philosophical novel but not in a heavy-handed or didactic way. There are very few "philosophical digressions" in the true sense in *The Reprieve*; rather Sartre's philosophy permeates the entire novel from beginning to end in so seamless and un-intrusive a fashion that you experience an understanding of existentialism from the gut. And this is perfectly as it should be; for existentialism is a response as well as a manifestation of a felt sense of being, the nausea resulting from the absurdity of human life, not an arid and wholly theoretical intellectual exercise. What is so riveting, rare, and admirable about *The Reprieve* is that Sartre--a bona-fide major philosopher--was able to repackage his ideas with the skill of a first-rate novelist.

Sorry Jean-Paul. I had you pegged wrong. You beat the pants off Camus hands-down.

The only thing I will comment (because I do not give away the book) is the writing style. If you are expecting "Age of Reason" part II, then you will not get what you were looking for...the writing style or mode is very different. The way the book is put together is there are many characters all in different parts of French territory in different walks of life, ages, sexes, etc. Often times when you are reading you will lose sight of where one character speaks or thinks and the next one. you will have to go line by line in the same paragraph, where a sentence ina paragraph represents a though of a different character and that character will not be identified...but you will know...but it becomes irrelevant who says or feels what because it is about the collective consciousness of french people in the midst of war...and this is the biggest success of the book is that this technique so succesful and masterfully implemented. It makes the book feel like events are happening so quickly and things are moving so fast which lends to the urgency of the situation in France. I feel like its a forrest fire...that starts with a brush and picks up momentum until its raging! There are new characters in this book and he has carried the old characters over. Please do yourself a favor and do not read the series out of order.

However one disagrees with Sartre's philosophy, his Marxism, and his anti-Americanism, it is difficult to argue against his personal involvement in what he believed in. Sartre was no pipe-smoking, arm-chair academic content to let others do his fighting. He was always there on the front-lines, perhaps bellicose in his utterings, but always visible. An issue he disagreed with never experienced-his-absence, and Sartre did not hesitate to also be a novelist-philosopher, and as such, he showed more moral courage than perhaps any 20th century philosopher. The equality of idea and action was perhaps an axiom for Sartre, and his life was definitely an empirical validation of such.

Definitely introspective to extremes, this novel, the second in his series "The Roads to Freedom", is the ultimate portrayal of life in France before the Munich Pact and the takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1938. As a reader, it is easy to get trapped in the stream of consciousness approach that Sartre takes in his novel. Each character is not to be found alone, but immersed in the quagmire of panic, and for some, exhiliration, at the prospect of wartime conflict. The characters define themselves by the instant, their attitudes caught in the flux, that flux impossible to arrest, but their choices completely free nonetheless. Their individuality is sometimes robbed by the gaze of the other, but captured again by choice. Ideology has a short time scale for them.

Sartre does not really shout at the reader through his characters. But their predicament is believable. Their anxiety sometimes familiar, but they also have a perhaps hidden optimism. They know it is themselves, and no other, that determines their future history. The (burden?) of choice is with them always, and they understand fully the power of consequences. But choice works for them as well as against. This makes the appreciation of these characters easy and familiar.

this is sartre's 2nd book in the "roads to freedom" series. i stongly suggest that you read them in order as one builds off the other. i liked this book alot, but it was not as powerful as "the age of reason"(see my review).

the books tells of the 5 days preceeding the munich agreement when all of europe was gearing up for war. a general knowledge of that historical moment would be very beneficial in understanding the book. unlike the 1st book which follows the traditional storytelling mode, this book jumps from scene to scene with great rapidity. these jumps can occur in the middle of a paragraph and sometimes in the middle of a sentence. this kaleidoscopic effect can be frustrating at first, but as you get comfortable with it and the various characters and story lines, it is very easy to catch the jumps. as a matter fact, it actually gives the storyline a much greater sense of movement and action than without it.

the title comes from the fact that the munich agreement does not really prevent the war as it was first thought it would do by the signators. it simply put off the inevitable. as a matter of fact, europe's giving up of czechoslovakian territory to hitler may have actually emboldened him to grab more territory, thereby starting the war. appeasement didn't work then either.

the individual stories cover a myriad of issues from cowardice to duty from both men's and women's perspectives. since it involves mainly the french, it even gives some historical insight into why the french are the way they are today.

both of these books show sartre as an excellent story teller who incorporates challenging and thoughtful themes that keep you pondering long after you have turned the last page.

What is war other than as it exists in the minds of the people who experience it? Sartre explains that in order to locate it, one would have to be everywhere at once, which is precisely what this novel permits its readers. This text, which is a complex weaving of the psychological states and experiences of a diversity of people who are forced to anticipate and conceptualize war, sheds light not only on the events leading to WWII, but the events which shaped Sartre as a writer and philosopher. A novel that could be read a thousand times, it contextualizes existentialism as a philosophy and serves as a framework for understanding the evolution and existence of existentialist thought.

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..!