Customer Reviews

Troubled Sleep: A Novel

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The capstone to Sartre's monumental *Roads to Freedom* trilogy, *Troubled Sleep* is in itself a magnificent novel and a fitting conclusion to a series that forever remains unfinished, as Sartre had planned but never completed at least one additional volume. Here several storylines--and lives--developed in the first two books are resolved, the direction of others suggested, and the rest left provocatively open to the reader's imagination.

I've read all three novels in succession over the last couple of weeks and found each one as riveting as the other. In *Troubled Sleep,* the French have already lost the war without much of a fight and now must come to grips with their defeat. Do they collaborate, rebel, retreat further from active engagement with the politics of the world? Do they rationalize their cowardice or is it perfectly rational to acknowledge the apparent superiority of the victorious Nazis?

It's Sartre's genius as a novelist to bring these weighty philosophical questions to life in a breathtaking narrative peopled with passionate, complex, fully-realized characters. Before the pallid postmodern ennui of our own age fully set in, Sartre harkens us back to a time when ideas and principles mattered, when evil hadn't been rationalized out of existence and ambiguity dissolved truth into another species of lie, when one's philosophy could literally be a matter of life or death. Those times are gone, probably gone for good, but *Troubled Sleep* gives us an intoxicating taste of what it was like to really care about the Big Questions, even to acknowledge that there *are* Big Questions to answer.

All that aside *Troubled Sleep* is an exciting, engaging page-turner of men at war with each other--and with themselves. Along with *The Age of Reason* and *The Reprieve,* this novel completes one of the richest, most rewarding, and satisfying reading experiences I've had in recent memory.

This is the third book in Sartre's trilogy, "Roads to Freedom." The first two are entitled, in English, The Age of Reason: A Novel and The Reprieve: A Novel. I read the trilogy some 40 years ago, and felt they merited a re-read. And isn't it so much easier the second time around when you actually know, and in many cases have been, to the French towns named in the novel?

Sartre starts not in France, but in New York City, of all places. Gomez, once "Colonel" Gomez, of the Spanish Republican forces, has "washed up there"; now he is trying to make a living. He exhibits dollops of schadenfreude towards the French people, when he learns of the Nazi triumph, since he feels the French abandoned the Spanish Republicans, with an arms embargo, et al., in their hour of need. There is a touching scene when he commiserates with a Frenchman in a bar. The Frenchman says that he is the only person in the States who has done so. Meanwhile, Gomez's wife, Sarah, is fleeing Paris towards Nevers, with their small child, and their vehicle runs out of gas. She has more reason than most to flee since she is Jewish.

A few other characters from "The Reprieve" make "cameo appearances." Boris has been wounded, and is in Marsailles, still with Lola, the age of his mother. And his sister, and fellow Russian émigré, Ivich, is now unhappily married to George. Boris is contemplating fleeing to England and continuing the fight. Mathieu's brother, Jacques, and his wife, Odette are fleeing Paris, through the Haute-Alpes, towards Juan-Les-Pins. And Daniel, the pederast, makes an overture to Phillippe, the pacifist/soldier who is the son of a famed General.
But the vast majority of this novel occurs around the village of Padoux, in the Lorraine, eastern France. The French soldiers there know that the Germans have won the war, and are awaiting a formal declaration of the armistices. This has to be largely autobiographical, since it was in the village of Padoux that Sartre was taken prisoner, and removed to Germany. In the novel though, Sartre utilizes two possible alter-egos, Professor of Philosophy, Mathieu Delarue, and the dedicated communist, Brunet to fulfill two possible answers to man's fate in defeat. Mathieu, along with some other "second-line" troops, mainly clerks, elect to fight to the finish, literally seeking that Warholian 15 minutes of fame... the amount of time they may be able to hold up the German advance. (An older version of Kerry's question to Congress: "How do you ask a man to be the last person to die for a mistake?") But it is Brunet, who sees defeat as an opportunity, and as the French prisoners are being transferred to Germany, seeks to identify and work with fellow communists in order to achieve the "revolution." In the process, so many of the "eternal truths" of war are incorporated, from the officers who abandon their troops, to the latter's propensity to drink when "leaderless," to the lice, the reaction of French civilians to the "losers," and the non-coms who had "won" "The Great War."

Overall though, this novel lacked the complexity, punch and vigor of "The Reprieve." And so many characters were missing, that would have provided a kaleidoscope of emotions and feeling to the disaster, such as Gros-Louis, the illiterate shepherd, Charles Darrieux, a WWI casualty, Francois Hanniquin, the pharmacist from St. Flour, and many others. Brunet's approach tended to be too ideological and rigid, and may have been appropriately balanced against the others, but should not have dominated the novel.

I have an older copy published by Vintage (for $1.95), with one of the most marvelous covers ever, showing a crowd of French people, exhibiting perplexity, resignation, and sorrow in the face of this catastrophe. I'm glad to see the latest versions retain the same picture. I gave "The Reprieve" 6-stars, but for the sequel, alas, I can only muster four.

Well, since I'm the one person who read it, I suppose I'm talkin to meself, but I thought that this is one of the greatest books I've ever read. The main purpose of this book is to examine the minds of people with no short, medium, or long term plans (disposessed french soldiers) when facing confrontation with an alternate culture in which everything falls under a master plan (the Nazi invaders.) Lots of good commentary between the lines on topics such as human nature, art, sociology, and moderate international politics of the '40s. A very humbling book, if you're an egotist; a very profound book if you're a fatalist. I've passed it along to a few potheads, and they seem to think it's a very good book too.

this is the 3rd in the trilogy, the "roads to freedom". although not necessary, it is recommended that you read them in order. the main characters you meet in this book were first introduced in the "age of reason" novel.

this tells the story of the overrunning of france by the germans in 1940. the first part of the book looks at the last of the soldiers who face the oncoming germans and face imminent death. the second part looks at the soldiers taken prisoner and their reaction to the war and what the future now holds.

unlike the two earlier novels, this book leaves a lot of open ends. some like the death of mathieu can easily be assumed, while the fate of others is left unresolved.

the interesting part of this book like the previous ones is its perspective of france and its people. although the feelings run the gamut of emotion, they are driven by those who feel betrayed by their leaders, their younger generation, and their laziness. in part 2, we begin to see the drift of the socialist sartre from the communism of russia to pure socialism. this is the most interesting part of the book.

of the three books, this was my least favorite, but i enjoyed them all and highly recommend them. they are very insightful especially about the french, but also about ourselves.

This is the first Sartre book that I have ever read. I liked it enough to read more from this author. There were 2 (maybe more) other sub plots going on that just left you hanging, I thought.I have not read much literature that dealt with WW II that wasn't directlyrelated to the Holocaust(sp?) or from an American perspective. That made, for me, all the difference in the world.

THis is the first novel length fiction I've read of Sartre. Not his best form I think. Perhaps too many blank, beguiling pages to fill with unrelenting existentialism incarnate in meandering vignettes of characters that one can neither really place nor pity. A pity. Such a stunning writer in a shorter format ("The Wall" and other short stories). One grows a bit weary of self-castigating anti heros (the common man hero I gather one is supposed to infer) but a bone to lick for all one's trouble would be nice. Alas, one is not ever offerred a bone, which is not really the problem. One is never offerred a bone and therefore expects one. What one does procure, in turn, is a handful of mordant, self pitying and pitiable characters indignant that their forces were overcome with such swift Teutonic efficiency. Above and outside of this, however, Sartre has his own efficiency for writing dialogue, the sum of which, becomes many times more than the mere words which comprise it. Suffice it to say, if one is interested in Sartre's philosophy, this book, in parts, is not a bad sugarpill.