Jean-Paul Sartre's famous autobiography of his first ten years has been widely compared to Rousseau's Confessions. Written when he was fifty-nine years old, The Words is a masterpiece of self-analysis. Sartre the philosopher, novelist and playwright brings to his own childhood the same rigor of honesty and insight he applied so brilliantly to other authors. Born into a gentle, book-loving family and raised by a widowed mother and doting grandparents, he had a childhood which might be described as one long love affair with the printed word. Ultimately, this book explores and evaluates the whole use of books and language in human experience.
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Text: English, French (translation)
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Jean-Paul Sartre's famous autobiography of his first ten years has been widely compared to Rousseau's Confessions. Written when he was fifty-nine years old, The Words is a masterpiece of self-analysis. Sartre the philosopher, novelist and playwright brings to his own childhood the same rigor of honesty and insight he applied so brilliantly to other authors. Born into a gentle, book-loving family and raised by a widowed mother and doting grandparents, he had a childhood which might be described as one long love affair with the printed word. Ultimately, this book explores and evaluates the whole use of books and language in human experience.
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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.
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful
By bongo
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Sartre writes about his very early life. He writes about things that as an adult you aren't even conscious of anymore. How reading a book about horses and armies can bring those things to life. Sartre talks about his grandfather, his mother, his absent father. He is pretty dispassionate about them. The main thing about the book is Sartres' keen observation and reckless honesty. In the usual autobiography you get alot of bluster, the secret to my success type stuff. Someone, I think it was Martin Amis, said, all autobiographies are success stories. You see that all the time. How I rose from my humble background to be a rich and famous such and such. Well you don't get that here. This is Jean Paul's life before he ever did anything noteworthy. Astonishing level of honesty. I look at memoirs differently after this.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By C. Ebeling
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Nearing age 60 and one of the most widely recognized writers and intellectuals of the 20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre decided in the early 1960's to sort out his early influences in the memoir THE WORDS. For anyone familiar only with the adult, his work and philosophy, this should be something of a surprise. Someone once told him that he seemed to be a person who never had parents. They might have well have said that he seemed like a person who was never a child. But he was, and a not unhappy one at that.
When Sartre's French naval officer father died very young, his mother, Anne Marie Schweitzer (cousin of Albert), took her baby home to her parents. In her parents' home, Anne Marie functioned more like Sartre's sister or playmate. Her father, Charles, was a stern academician who loved the child. For the first ten years of his life, Sartre did not know other children; the trio of adults was his world. The book, an extended essay really, is divided into two sections, "Reading" and "Writing." He taught himself to read early and at a young age began writing what he enjoyed reading: adventure books. Charles tried to turn off the adventure spigot and turn the child to writing about serious literature, which did not go over well. For the most part, Sartre portrays the life of a precocious boy who, by age 10, was beginning to get a sense of the tension between the past, present and future and the question of existence. Sartre concludes the book as his young self enters preadolescence, with a foot out in the world, in the society of other boys at school.
The voice of this book is surprisingly spritely, honest, 20th century modern and European. It comes out of a time when autobiography and memoir could be exercises in authentic learning, not mere navel-gazing.
When Sartre's French naval officer father died very young, his mother, Anne Marie Schweitzer (cousin of Albert), took her baby home to her parents. In her parents' home, Anne Marie functioned more like Sartre's sister or playmate. Her father, Charles, was a stern academician who loved the child. For the first ten years of his life, Sartre did not know other children; the trio of adults was his world. The book, an extended essay really, is divided into two sections, "Reading" and "Writing." He taught himself to read early and at a young age began writing what he enjoyed reading: adventure books. Charles tried to turn off the adventure spigot and turn the child to writing about serious literature, which did not go over well. For the most part, Sartre portrays the life of a precocious boy who, by age 10, was beginning to get a sense of the tension between the past, present and future and the question of existence. Sartre concludes the book as his young self enters preadolescence, with a foot out in the world, in the society of other boys at school.
The voice of this book is surprisingly spritely, honest, 20th century modern and European. It comes out of a time when autobiography and memoir could be exercises in authentic learning, not mere navel-gazing.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is Jean-Paul Sartre's brief autobiography about the impact the printed word had on his life. The book is divided into two sections, the first is titled "Reading," and the second "Writing," and I think that's an excellent summary of his life. Sartre recounts his early childhood, being born into a family without a father, and ultimately living a secluded a childhood submerged in his grandfather's library. Sartre then discusses life at the Ecole Superior, when he began to develop as a writer of prodigious genius. Sartre doesn't discuss his work particularly; this text is not a critical examination of his literary and philosophical work. Rather, it is a deeply introspective reflection and inquiry into the powerful and lasting effects words can have in life. I recommend it to all fans of reading.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Captivating and Beautiful
Having only been exposed to Sartre's political and philosophical thought I wanted to explore the other side of his work. Read more
Published 13 months ago by S. J. Boatwright
4.0 out of 5 stars
A different kind of Memoirs
A year after the publication of this book, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize, which he refused, and it is said that this book is what granted him this recognition. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Stefanos Tsimey
1.0 out of 5 stars
An Error of Isolation
He wanted us to read about his life, to discover how he turned himself into a genius, to find the turn that made him conclude earnestly, "God does not exist. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Canto 34
3.0 out of 5 stars
'I had no rights because I was overwhelmed by love'
Everyone's life is unique - the result of events, circumstances and particular sequences of incidents. George Sand in her novella 'The Devil's Pool' says `..... Read more
Published on November 19, 2006 by A. G. Plumb
4.0 out of 5 stars
Self-Creation
It is very understandable that Sartre's "The Words" is often compared to Rousseau's "Confessions". Both autobiographies seem to be brutally honest, striving to take away any... Read more
Published on November 8, 2006 by A. Bachman
5.0 out of 5 stars
Words about words
Sartre's world and life are dense with words. His books are dense with words. He is the kind of writer who seems to crowd the page with more and more words, so many words that... Read more
Published on March 17, 2005 by Shalom Freedman
4.0 out of 5 stars
The author has become an institution
At present one can only experience-Sartre's-absence, but his words are always present if needed, being embedded in the volumes that now populate the world's libraries, or... Read more
Published on August 15, 2003 by Dr. Lee D. Carlson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sinister
Surpassing the likes of Huxley and Orwell in its vision of dystopic horror, told in the guise of a childhood memoir, the story is simple yet brilliantly complex. Read more
Published on June 7, 2002 by Mr. Patrick Pryce
4.0 out of 5 stars
How is it in English ?
I loved The Words, but I read it in French. The story was not really fascinating (still this book helps us to understand Jean-Paul Sartre), it is about Sartre's childhood. Read more
Published on June 25, 1998
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