E. Haensel

Misleading and Obscure, Mar 23 2011

I would wonder how many reviewers of this book have read any Sartre.

This book is a nice introduction to the life of sartre seen as a comic strip. It selects from his texts to convey more of a drama of thoughts and actions than a sincere attempt to introduce, however briefly, his ideas with any integrity.

In my opinion it is incredibly misleading, although entertaining in its thesaurus straining attempt to give the same impression of someone in as many different words as possible.

Highly un-recommended.

*For those interested in my implied authority to label this as a misrepresentation of his work, I have read (among other texts of his):… Read more

Excellent, Oct 2 2008

This short, thoughtful work gives quite a good overview of Jean=Paul Sartre's work in relation to the work of so called post-modernists: Foucault, Derrida, Delueze etc. The thesis that Fox develops is that Sartre's work has been much more central to the development of subsequent ideas than is often credited, and furthermore that there is much in sartre's work, particularly his later work, that solves some of the impasses of more contemporary theory.

The thesis is quite well developed and I believe successful in arguing for a renewed focus on Sartre's thought. The book also functions as an excellent, if challenging, introduction to both Sartre's thought and post-modernism… Read more

An Epic of Excess, Mar 24 2008

Ulysses is an unparalleled work. True. But this is not a bad thing. No, contrary to previous reviewers who have bemoaned that no book will ever reach these heights, I am happy that that is true. Joyce cleared the way to get beyond the over-stuffed pedantic literature of the English tradition. This book is as playful as it is dense, and as fantastic as it is realistic. He has overblown his characters 'stream of consciousness' to the point of caricature.

Yes, yes its brilliant, loaded with symbols, intricate so on so forth. But, after the games are over, after the dots have been connected what do you see. A newspaper cartoon of Dublin life. Yes, the most detailed cartoon ever… Read more