The Age of Reason (Penguin Modern Classics)

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He and Marcelle have been together for some seven years, but it's an odd, hidden arrangement of convenience: he sneaks into her house -- careful not to wake her mother -- a few times a week and otherwise is on his merry way. Yes, admirably Sartre tries to show, rather than tell -- but he doesn't quite show enough of, or look deeply enough into any of the characters for his fiction to attain much gravity. Here I am, lounging in a chair, committed to my present life right up to the ears and believing in nothing. Mathieu Delarue ( Michael Bryant) – an unmarried philosophy professor whose principal wish (like Sartre's) is to remain free I mention the characters because there is little else and there doesn't need to be; the characterization is simply brilliant. Sartre cuts the frills to the bone and at times I wondered what period we were in-the 1930s, the 1870s or the 1960s. Are they selfish early yuppies? Beautiful people? Spoilt brats or pioneers of 20th Century personal freedoms? My own view is that they are all of these.

In reality, Sartre was, of course, a socialist and didn’t concern himself with material wealth, dying with little fortune to his name in 1980 – once again, it’s apparent Monsieur Delarue is very much the author actively purveying over his novel. Delarue’s predicament actively amuses him and, although Daniel is wealthy and Mathieu knows it, he pretends to be in debt. Once it’s clear from his expression Delarue doesn’t believe him, Daniel becomes angry. Sartre writes that during this exchange Mathieu “was furious with himself.” He was furious because he already knows what his brother says is true. He has fallen into a way of life that is easy and comfortable, all the while denying that this is the type of person he really is. Mathieu does not conceive of himself as a conventional, married family man. He sees himself as a radical philosopher, living outside of conventionality. And yet the very details of his life tell a different story. When his friend, Brunet, urges him to join the Communist Party and to fight against the fascists in Spain, Mathieu is still resistant. He actively choses to avoid a life of adventure and danger, even when the opportunity presents itself, and instead continues to live, de facto, a bourgeois life. He is not who he claims to be; and this is why he is furious with himself. It wasn’t difficult at all, but look here: Lola isn’t dead.’ Boris raised his eyes, he looked as though he did not understand: ‘Lola isn’t dead,’ he repeated idiotically. He sank deeper into his chair, he seemed utterly crushed: ‘Good Lord,’ thought Mathieu, ‘he had begun to get accustomed to it.’ Set in the volatile Paris summer of 1938, The Age of Reason follows two days in the life of Mathieu Delarue, a philosophy teacher, and his circle in the cafés and bars of Montparnasse. Mathieu has so far managed to contain sex and personal freedom in conveniently separate compartments. But now he is in trouble, urgently trying to raise 4,000 francs to procure a safe abortion for his mistress, Marcelle. Beyond all this, filtering an uneasy light on his predicament, rises the distant threat of the coming of the Second World War.

The Renaissance and the Ship of Fools

In an interview in 1973 concerning The Roads to Freedom, Sartre revealed at least one of the reasons he discontinued the series:

Instead, he visits his mistress of seven years, Marcelle, who lives with her elderly mother. This lady, with her “masculine hands”, greets him with an affable, “Are you all right, old boy?” and their pained relationship becomes apparent from the off.

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Michel Contat, in his "General Introduction for Roads of Freedom" in: Jean Paul Sartre, The Last Chance: Roads of Freedom IV, Continuum Books, 2009, p. 196. His writing in these novels was semi-autobiographical. His separation from his accustomed life in Paris and the leisure and structure of his war work led him to continued introspection during this period. [6] Mathieu was based upon himself, Ivich was based on Olga Kosakiewicz (a student of Simone de Beauvoir and friend of Sartre), Gomez was based on Fernando Gerassi, Sarah on Stephania Avdykovych (both very close friends of Sartre and de Beauvoir), and Boris was based on Sartre's friend Jacques-Laurent Bost. [7] Marcelle, perhaps loosely based on Simone de Beauvoir, was the character most removed from the real-life model. [8] June 1940 – Afternoon. (The Defeated). Boris meets his sister Ivich telling her he wants to escape to Britain to continue the fight. Mathieu's unit has been deserted by their officers and the men are getting drunk whilst awaiting capture. After initially hesitating, Mathieu decides to join them to prove a kinship he does not feel. From the article on Jean-Paul Sartre in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale, 1989, p. 372. Available online with library card, retrieved 7/24/2014.

For chapter four, one of the real treats of the novel arrives: Ivich. This bizarre young student clearly has all many of psychological issues which make her difficult to be around, but due to her good looks she arouses great interest. You can’t help but believe Sartre developed the likes of Daniel, Boris, and Ivich from people he knew, and they’re so magnificently observed as individuals it’s as if they really were living and breathing in the 1930s. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.Such notions of youth are thoroughly trampled on when Marcelle announces she is pregnant. “I’m two months late,” says she. “Hell!” says he, although Mathieu’s most notable reaction is: “Well – I suppose one gets rid of it, eh?” and the matter is seemingly settled.