Papa Sartre is a famous Arabic novel by Iraqi writer Ali Bader, it was originally published in Arabic in Beirut, 2001, and met warmly by cultural critics and intellectuals in the Arab world. An English translation was published in 2009, by American University in Cairo Press, and won Ali Bader several literary prizes.
The novel opens with two charlatans commissioning a biographical novel. A starving academic is hired to write the life story of Abdel Rahman, an Existential philosopher who died in the late 1960s and was acclaimed as the "Sartre of Baghdad." Father Hanna and his sexy consort, Nunu Bihar, are pragmatic and clear from the very beginning: philosophy is a business, and the narrator's assignment is to create a larger-than-life Iraqi equivalent of the original French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. The would-be narrator is introduced to a third party - the project's funder, Sadeq Zadeh - whose remit is to approve the written version of the philosopher's death. He is then handed dossiers of documents, photographs, diaries, and letters and assigned a dubious research assistant, who looks more like a pickpocket, to accompany him on interviews with the few remaining friends of the late philosopher.
The charlatans demonstrate an amorality that fascinates the narrator, with their wide latitude for unconstrained heckling, irreverence, and recklessness along with factual discrepancies - not to mention the scandalously seductive nature of Nunu Bihar's overt sexuality. A biography can depict a life with all its flaws, weaknesses, and baseness, thinks the narrator. This proves difficult for him at first, with collective memory being subject to strict cultural variables. He finds there were those who admired all the dead: servants overlooked and forgave mistakes, hesitated at admitting domestic scandals, attributing superhuman qualities in hagiographic proportions to those no longer living.
The philosopher's friends, on the other hand, told another story, accurate but equally flawed. Glossing over a sense of shame, they assigned to themselves important roles, describing 1960s Baghdad as a lost paradise that had expelled its most prominent philosopher with no recognition. Documents prove similarly discouraging for the narrator: "All spoke a single character, a unique and towering figure, one that summarized for an entire society a tragic world and symbolized for an entire nation tragic anomie." Overriding these methodological obstacles, the narrator eventually succeeds in producing a candid account of the life of Abdel Rahman, the Existentialist of al-Sadriyah.
One day, as on many other days, the Sartre of Baghdad woke up feeling nauseous. He picked up a gilt-framed photograph of Sartre and admired the physical resemblance between them. But adoration turned to feelings of inadequacy. He glanced at the philosopher's bad eye. "Abdel Rahman had immense faith in the philosophical bad eye, he understood its value and greatness while appreciating how difficult a condition it was attain. It was the defect of the impossible, a metaphysical defect like that of god. He experienced despair…as if something was missing in his existence…(a shortcoming) remained a heavy load on his heart, a cruel destructive feeling that he felt when he was in Paris.
The reality of Abdul Rahman Sartre student days in Paris was dismal. His linguistic proficiency was such that he was unable to approach, let alone conducts a conversation with, the giant of existentialism. Incapable of learning French, he never completed his degree, his rapturous audience back in Baghdad would lovingly support Abdul Rahman, "was Sartre a philosopher because of his degree or because of his philosophy?" True. He assumed the role of witness, the man who had seen Sartre and had arrived from Paris to tell them all about him. Unable to write in either French or Arabic and incapable of concentrating for long hours or of thinking with any systematic logic, he owned the complete works of Sartre from which he would read a few lines and swoon into day-dreaming. Our philosopher despised writing as an act of estrangement; it resembled masturbation in that it was an act of identification with words –images of nothingness-and not with nothingness itself. Speech, on the other hand represented the moment, the emotion-it was as cathartic as it was euphoric. Oral discourse was integral to the culture of the coffee house of the early 1960s in Baghdad . Most of the intellectuals of his generation pontificated endlessly over dominoes in the morning and regrouped in the local bars at night. Their knowledge of philosophy was limited to books titles and short summaries found in newspapers and literary magazines. Existentialism legitimized a way of life. "There was no reality, no reality to be understood". Abdel Rahman Sartre's identity was locked into that world. His aristocratic background shielded his self-image; he never saw the need to work for a living, always believing that he was a speaker not a writer, a philosopher not charlatan. One of the outstanding characters in Papa Sartre is Ismael Hadoub, he first appears selling pornographic photographs in Baghdad in the mid-1950s, his most enthusiastic customer being a rich Jewish merchant, Saul, who owns a store in al Sadriyah and bargains tirelessly over prices. Saul takes on Ismail and transforms him into an obedient and grateful acolyte.
Some of the novel's more remarkable pages describe the young Ismail's unwitting transformation into a master of deceit. He sensed hypocrisy in his dealings with Saul, who represented the paradox of the rich in his Fabian ideals, which nowadays is dubbed as compassionate conservatism. "If Saul had paid so little for his photographs, how could he possibly believe in a commune of happiness and purity? If, as Saul said, wealth belonged legitimately to the poor, then why not hand his shop over to them, or open his residence to the downtrodden and impoverished?"
Ismail's initial conclusions awakened his predatory instinct; he wanted the best of life without having to work for it. One morning Saul walked into the shop and wept over the fate of a hero in a novel he had read the night before. Bewildered, Ismail imitated him, trying to imagine what it would be like to see the world with Saul's eyes. Mime was the best way of turning the tables on his benefactor and becoming a better master to deceit. The moment Abdel Rahman Sartre returned from Paris and set up shop in the coffee houses of Al-Sadriyah, Ismail teamed up with him and became his "de Beauvoir." He affirmed what Saul had known all along: humanity would sacrifice nothing except for monetary gain. Four years later, Ismail began an affair with Abdel Rahman's wife.
Nausea permeated all Abdel Rahman's activities: sex, voraciously eating a tender steak and washing it down with red wine, smoking expensive cigarettes, even looking at a pair of patent leather shoes - all these things made him nauseous. Nausea became permanent and contagious. Dalal Masabni's night club, where he lovingly hung the portrait of his Existentialist idol and had his reserved "philosopher’s table," exuded overemotional nausea. Patting a well-endowed bosom, the dancer of the evening would proclaim the seat of her nausea to be lodged on her "Existential breasts."
Analysing Abdel Rahman's sexual preferences, the narrator applies a somewhat unconvincing Freudian text-book interpretation and traces a genuine nausea back to the time in Abdel Rahman's childhood when he sneaked in on his parents having sex. The exaggerated odour and the moaning of his mother shocked and nauseated him. His whole life was then a violent rejection of what he saw as his mother's pretension to purity.
Filth represented an antidote, a form of purification, a crude and cruel beauty, desolate, uncivilized. In his world of sexual chaos, filth exited him; debauchery was the closest image to himself and symbolized Existential isolation: cheap, enjoyable, illicit, while the deeper loathing for his body was symptomatic of existential sickness.
Abdel Rahman Sartre's wealth allowed him to reinvent his pain, his inadequacies, his persona. With groupies living off the largesse of their philosopher-king, no one contradicted him even in the simplest matters. This, the narrator maintains in sweeping statement, characterized the entire generation of the 1960s. A difference of opinion implied rejection; it annihilated and humiliated the contender which inevitably resulted in an endless round of insults. What eventually shatters the world of Abdel Rahman Sartre, a week before his suicide, is the sensational scandal of the illicit affair between Ismail Haddub and his wife.
The true nature of the business deal to write the philosopher's biography is revealed when the two charlatans, Hanna and Nunu Bihar, attempt to blackmail no other than Ismail Haddub in his new persona as Sadeq Zadeh. After being swindled out of his manuscript and his money, the narrator encounters Nunu Bihar in another guise. Sporting a short hair-cut, a loose white shirt covering her ample breasts and tight men's trousers and shoes, with no make-up, she offers him another deal. And Ismail/Sadeq Zadeh emerges in a third manifestation: totally bald and wearing silver–rimmed glasses, he now styles himself to resemble Foucault, dubbing himself "the Structuralist of al-Waziriyah." The team of impresarios dream now of creating an "Arab Structuralism," in which all men resemble Michel Foucault and all women wear men's trousers with boyish haircuts.
Existentialism is a family of views and forms of philosophical inquiry that explores the issue of human existence. Existentialist philosophers explore questions related to the meaning, purpose, and value of human existence. Common concepts in existentialist thought include existential crisis, dread, and anxiety in the face of an absurd world and free will, as well as authenticity, courage, and virtue.
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, considered a leading figure in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism. Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism. His work has influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies. He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature despite attempting to refuse it, saying that he always declined official honors and that "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Existentialism Is a Humanism is a 1946 work by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, based on a lecture by the same name he gave at Club Maintenant in Paris, on 29 October 1945. In early translations, Existentialism and Humanism was the title used in the United Kingdom; the work was originally published in the United States as Existentialism, and a later translation employs the original title.
Authenticity is a concept of personality in the fields of psychology, existential psychotherapy, existentialist philosophy, and aesthetics. In existentialism, authenticity is the degree to which a person's actions are congruent with their values and desires, despite external pressures to social conformity. The conscious self comes to terms with the condition of Geworfenheit, of having been thrown into an absurd world not of their own making, thereby encountering external forces and influences different from and other than the Self. A person’s lack of authenticity is considered bad faith in dealing with other people and with one's self; thus, authenticity is in the instruction of the Oracle of Delphi: “Know thyself.” Concerning authenticity in art, the philosophers Jean Paul Sartre and Theodor Adorno held opposing views and opinions about jazz, a genre of American music; Sartre said that jazz is authentic and Adorno said that jazz is inauthentic. Many musical subcultures require artistic authenticity, lest the community consider an artist to be a poseur for lacking authenticity ; artistic authenticity is integral to many genres of music, including but not limited to genres of rock, club music, and hip-hop.
Being-in-itself is the self-contained and fully realized being of objects. It is a term used in early 20th century continental philosophy, especially in the works of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and the existentialists.
Existential phenomenology encompasses a wide range of thinkers who take up the view that philosophy must begin from experience like phenomenology, but argues for the temporality of personal existence as the framework for analysis of the human condition.
Nausea is a philosophical novel by the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, published in 1938. It is Sartre's first novel.
The Age of Reason is a 1945 novel by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. It is the first part of the trilogy The Roads to Freedom.
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. Existentialism is a philosophical and cultural movement which holds that the starting point of philosophical thinking must be the individual and the experiences of the individual, that moral thinking and scientific thinking together are not sufficient for understanding all of human existence, and, therefore, that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, is necessary to understand human existence. This philosophy analyzes relationships between the individual and things, or other human beings, and how they limit or condition choice.
In existentialism, bad faith is the psychological phenomenon whereby individuals act inauthentically, by yielding to the external pressures of society to adopt false values and disown their innate freedom as sentient human beings. Bad faith also derives from the related concepts of self-deception and ressentiment.
The proposition that existence precedes essence is a central claim of existentialism, which reverses the traditional philosophical view that the essence of a thing is more fundamental and immutable than its existence. To existentialists, human beings—through their consciousness—create their own values and determine a meaning for their life because the human being does not possess any inherent identity or value. That identity or value must be created by the individual. By posing the acts that constitute them, they make their existence more significant.
Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy is a 1958 book by the philosopher William Barrett, in which the author explains the philosophical background of existentialism and provides a discussion of several major existentialist thinkers, including Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Irrational Man helped to introduce existentialism to the English-speaking world and has been identified as one of the most useful books that discuss the subject, but Barrett has also been criticized for endorsing irrationality and for giving a distorted and misleading account of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
Abandonment, in philosophy, refers to the infinite freedom of humanity without the existence of a condemning or omnipotent higher power. Original existentialism explores the liminal experiences of anxiety, death, "the nothing" and nihilism; the rejection of science as an adequate framework for understanding human being; and the introduction of "authenticity" as the norm of self-identity, tied to the project of self-definition through freedom, choice, and commitment. Existential thought bases itself fundamentally in the idea that one's identity is constituted neither by nature nor by culture, since to "exist" is precisely to constitute such an identity. It is from this foundation that one can begin to understand abandonment and forlornness.
Atheistic existentialism is a kind of existentialism which strongly diverged from the Christian existential works of Søren Kierkegaard and developed within the context of an atheistic world view. The philosophies of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche provided existentialism's theoretical foundation in the 19th century, although their differing views on religion proved essential to the development of alternate types of existentialism. Atheistic existentialism was formally recognized after the 1943 publication of Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre and Sartre later explicitly alluded to it in Existentialism is a Humanism in 1946.
Jewish existentialism is a category of work by Jewish authors dealing with existentialist themes and concepts, and intended to answer theological questions that are important in Judaism. The existential angst of Job is an example from the Hebrew Bible of the existentialist theme. Theodicy and post-Holocaust theology make up a large part of 20th century Jewish existentialism.
Search for a Method or The Problem of Method is a 1957 essay by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, in which the author attempts to reconcile Marxism with existentialism. The first version of the essay was published in the Polish journal Twórczość; an adapted version appeared later that year in Les Temps modernes, and later served as an introduction for Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason. Sartre argues that existentialism and Marxism are compatible, even complementary, even though Marxism's materialism and determinism might seem to contradict the abstraction and radical freedom of existentialism.
Gary Cox is a British philosopher and biographer and the author of several books on Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism, general philosophy, ethics and philosophy of sport.
Sartre: Romantic Rationalist is a book by Iris Murdoch. Published in 1953 by Bowes & Bowes of Cambridge, it was Murdoch's first book and the first book about Jean-Paul Sartre's work to be published in English.
At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails is a 2016 book written by Sarah Bakewell that covers the philosophy and history of the 20th century movement existentialism. The book provides an account of the modern day existentialists who came into their own before and during the Second World War. The book discusses the ideas of the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, and how his teaching influenced the rise of existentialism through the likes of Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone De Beauvoir, who are the main protagonists of the book. The title refers to an incident in which Sartre's close friend and fellow philosopher Raymond Aron startled him when they were in a cafe, by pointing to the glass in front of him and stating, "You can make a philosophy out of this cocktail."
The 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded the French writer Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has exerted a far-reaching influence on our age".