Read At the Existentialist Café Online

Authors: Sarah Bakewell

Tags: #Modern, #Movements, #Philosophers, #Biography & Autobiography, #Existentialism, #Literary, #Philosophy, #20th Century, #History

At the Existentialist Café (56 page)

55
  Necessary and contingent loves: POL, 22.

56
  ‘Languorous excitement’ and ‘feelings of quite shattering intensity’: POL, 63.

57
  Sartre on his sexuality: Beauvoir,
Adieux
, 316.

58
  ‘The luminous sparkle’, almond trees, lights: MDD, 7.

59
  ‘Jackets and skirts’: FOC, 245.

60
  Marseilles explorations: POL, 89–90.

61
  Mont Mézenc: POL, 217–18.

62
  Stuck in a gorge: POL, 93.

63
  Alpine fall: POL, 301.

64
  Sartre climbing a hill: BN, 475–7.

65
  Skiing: BN, 602–5, esp. 605 for waterskiing.

66
  Books, pipes, pens: Sartre,
War Diaries
, 251.

67
  ‘On an
evening out
’: ibid., 244.

68
  Tips, wads of cash: Sartre, ‘Self-Portrait at Seventy’, in
Sartre in the Seventies
(
Situations X
), 3–92, this 68.

69
  ‘Theirs was a new kind of relationship’: Bair,
Simone de Beauvoir
, 183.

70
  Sea elephant: POL, 19.

71
  Beauvoir tending to lose herself: POL, 61.

72
  Telling every detail of day: see Lanzmann,
The Patagonian Hare
, 265; cf. Beauvoir,
She Came to Stay
, 17, where she gives this urge to her protagonist Françoise.

73
  ‘But Castor’: Alice Schwarzer,
Simone de Beauvoir: conversations 1972–1982
, tr. M. Howarth (London: Chatto & Windus/Hogarth, 1984), 110.

74
  Canadian film: Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, interviewed by Madeleine Gobeil and Claude Lanzmann, dir. Max Cacopardo, for
Radio Canada
TV broadcast, 15 Aug. 1967.

Chapter 6: I Don’t Want to Eat my Manuscripts

1
    ‘Anything rather than war!’: David Schalk,
Roger Martin du Gard
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 139n., citing a letter of 9 Sept. 1936, as well as similar lines in a novel. See also Weber,
The Hollow Years
, 19.

2
    ‘I have no wish’: POL, 358.

3
    ‘What is so detestable’, and buildings falling: David Gascoyne,
Paris Journal 1937–1939
(London: The Enitharmon Press, 1978), 62, 71.

4
    Bombs falling, and only tyranny: George Orwell,
Coming Up for Air
(London: Penguin, 1989; originally published 1939), 21, 157.

5
    Stream of consciousness: Sartre credits both Woolf and Dos Passos: Sartre, ‘Please Insert 1: 1945’, in
The Last Chance: Roads of Freedom IV
, 22–3, this 23.

6
    Omelettes: Sartre,
The Reprieve
, 192, 232.

7
    ‘A hundred million’: ibid., 277.

8
    ‘A philosophy that was not just a contemplation’: Sartre,
War Diaries
, 185.

9
    Proposal to move Husserl documents to Prague: Josef Novák,
On Masaryk
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988), 145.

10
  Malvine Husserl and the rescue of the papers: for this and the whole account that follows, see Van Breda, ‘Die Rettung von Husserls Nachlass und die Gründung des Husserl-Archivs — The Rescue of Husserl’s
Nachlass
and the Founding of the Husserl-Archives’, 39–69.

11
  
‘Les cons!’
: Sartre ended
The Reprieve
with Daladier saying this on leaving
his plane: Sartre,
Le Sursis
(Paris: Gallimard, 1945), 350; Sartre,
The Reprieve
, 377.

12
  Debates on peace: POL, 336.

13
  Fink and Landgrebe: see Ronald Bruzina,
Edmund Husserl and Eugen Fink
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 522, and his ‘Eugen Fink and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’, in Toadvine & Embree (eds),
Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl
, 173–200, this 175.

14
  Husserl portrait: see Husserl, ‘Recollections of Franz Brentano’ (1919), in
Shorter Works
, eds P. McCormick & F. Elliston (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 342–48; and Spiegelberg, ‘The Lost Portrait of Edmund Husserl’, 341–2. (Husserl’s daughter kept it on the wall of her apartment in Freiburg, and a photograph of it there has been used to reconstruct its appearance: see plates in Spiegelberg.)

15
  Brentano papers: J. C. M. Brentano, ‘The Manuscripts of Franz Brentano’,
Revue internationale de philosophie
, 20 (1966), 477–82, this 479. (The author is Brentano’s son.)

16
  Husserl Archives: see Husserl-Archiv Leuven,
Geschichte des Husserl-Archivs = History of the Husserl Archives
, and the site
http://hiw.kuleuven.be/hua/
, as well as a list of
Husserliana
volumes at
http://www.husserlpage.com/hus_iana.html
.

17
  Merleau-Ponty’s visit: Van Breda, ‘Merleau-Ponty and the Husserl Archives at Louvain’, in Merleau-Ponty,
Texts and Dialogues
, 150–61, this 150–52; Bruzina, ‘Eugen Fink and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’, in Toadvine & Embree (eds),
Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl
, 173–200, this 175. The whole volume is useful on the relationship of their ideas.

18
  Unnoticed
Lebenswelt
: Husserl,
Crisis
, 123–4; see also D. Moran,
Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: an introduction
(Cambridge & New York: CUP, 2012), 178–217. Husserl’s analysis has a lot in common with that of sociologists such as Max Weber and W. I. Thomas, as well as Alfred Schulz, who later wrote an eloquent essay about disruptions to the ‘world’ of a stranger abroad, partly based on his own experience as an émigré fleeing Nazism (Alfred Schutz, ‘The Stranger: an essay in social psychology’,
American Journal of Sociology
, 49(6) (May 1944), 499–507. Husserl may also have been influenced by the ethologist Jakob von Uexküll, who wrote of the
Umwelt
or environment experienced by different species. A dog, for example, has a world rich in smells but not in colours. J. von Uexküll,
Theoretical Biology
(London: Kegan Paul, 1926).

19
  Proprioception: Husserl,
Crisis
, 107–8; 161–4.

20
  Others: ibid., 331–2.

21
  Home-world, alien-world and Greeks: Husserl, ‘The Vienna Lecture’, in
Crisis
(Appendix I), 269–99, especially 279–89.

22
  ‘I know by my own experience’: Marcel, ‘On the Ontological Mystery’, in his
The Philosophy of Existence
, 27.

23
  ‘The largest and, as I actually believe’: Dan Zahavi, ‘Merleau-Ponty on Husserl: a reappraisal’, in Toadvine & Embree (eds),
Merleau-Ponty’s Reading of Husserl
, 3–29, this 7, quoting a letter from Husserl to Adolf Grimme, published in Husserl, ed. Iso Kern,
Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität
(
Husserliana
XV) (1973), lxvi.

24
  
Solaris
sea: Safranski,
Martin Heidegger
, 78.

25
  History took hold of them: POL, 359.

26
  ‘Was it preferable?’: POL, 372.

27
  ‘Used to cure his chilblains’: Koestler,
Scum of the Earth
, 21.

28
  Journey to Paris: POL, 375; Beauvoir,
Wartime Diary
, 39 (1 Sept. 1939).

29
  University of Louvain: Van Breda, ‘Merleau-Ponty and the Husserl Archives at Louvain’, in Merleau-Ponty,
Texts and Dialogues
, 150–61, this 152.

30
  Husserl’s urn: Van Breda, ‘Die Rettung von Husserls Nachlass und die Gründung des Husserl-Archivs — The Rescue of Husserl’s
Nachlass
and the Founding of the Husserl-Archives’, 66. Destruction of the portrait: Spiegelberg, ‘The Lost Portrait of Edmund Husserl’, 342.

31
  Edith and Rosa Stein: Borden,
Edith Stein
, 13–15.

32
  Stein’s papers: ibid., 16.

33
  Valhalla: ‘Die heilige Nazi-Gegnerin’,
Süddeutsche Zeitung
(17 May 2010).

34
  Burial of Malvine Husserl: Van Breda, ‘Die Rettung von Husserls Nachlass und die Gründung des Husserl-Archivs — The Rescue of Husserl’s
Nachlass
and the Founding of the Husserl-Archives’, 66. Husserl’s ashes: Herbert Spiegelberg,
The Context of the Phenomenological Movement
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981), 192n.10, citing information from their daughter, Elisabeth Husserl Rosenberg.

Chapter 7: Occupation, Liberation

1
    Gas masks, headlights: Beauvoir,
Wartime Diary
, 42–3 (3 Sept. 1939).

2
    ‘Sartre’s pipe’, and gas mask: ibid., 43–6 (3 Sept. 1939).

3
    Blacking out windows: ibid., 58 (11 Sept. 1939).

4
    Turning grey: Koestler,
Scum of the Earth
, 40.

5
    ‘Foreign’: Camus,
Notebooks 1935–1942
, 170 (March 1940).

6
    ‘No future’: ibid., 176 (undated, but early 1940).

7
    Sartre writing all day: Beauvoir,
Adieux
, 387–8. Ping-Pong: Sartre,
Quiet Moments in a War
, 97 (Sartre to Beauvoir, 6 March 1940).

8
    ‘If the war goes on’: Sartre,
Witness to My Life
, 312 (Sartre to Beauvoir, 24 Oct. 1939).

9
    Sending books: Beauvoir,
Wartime Diary
, 153 (14 Nov. 1939), and Sartre,
Witness to My Life
, 409 (Sartre to Beauvoir, 15 Dec. 1939).

10
  Bost: Beauvoir,
Wartime Diary
, 295 (30 June 1940).

11
  ‘The narrow chest’: Merleau-Ponty, ‘The War Has Taken Place’, in
Sense and Non-Sense
, 139–52, this 141.

12
  Aron: Aron,
The Committed Observer
, 66.

13
  Merleau-Ponty in hospital: Emmanuelle Garcia, ‘Maurice Merleau-Ponty: vie et œuvre’, in Merleau-Ponty,
Œuvres
, 27–99, this 43–4.

14
  Beauvoir’s flight from Paris: Beauvoir,
Wartime Diary
, 272–6 (10 June 1940).

15
  Return on German truck: ibid., 290 (30 June 1940).

16
  ‘It seems to me’: Guéhenno,
Diary of the Dark Years
, 51 (7 Jan. 1941).

17
  Nazis in Paris: Beauvoir,
Wartime Diary
, 288 (30 June 1940).

18
  ‘Repugnant’: POL, 464.

19
  Cooking: POL, 511.

20
  Ski clothes in bed: POL, 474. In classes: 504.

21
  ‘I aimed at simplification’: POL, 504. For turban: see also Beauvoir,
Wartime Diary
, 166 (22 Nov. 1939).

22
  Bourgeois homilies: POL, 465.

23
  Reading Hegel and Kierkegaard: Beauvoir,
Wartime Diary
, 304 (6 July 1940); POL, 468–9. See also Beauvoir,
Ethics of Ambiguity
, 159.

24
  Reading Heidegger: Sartre,
War Diaries
, 187 (1 Feb. 1940); Sartre, ‘Cahier Lutèce’, in Sartre,
Les Mots, etc
., 914; also see Cohen-Solal,
Sartre
, 153.

25
  ‘I’ve begun to write’: Sartre,
Quiet Moments in a War
, 234 (Sartre to Beauvoir, 22 July 1940). Her letters arrived: 234 (Sartre to Beauvoir, 23 July 1940).

26
  His eyes: Sartre,
War Diaries
, 17 (17 Nov. 1939). Being blind in one eye: Sartre, ‘Self-Portrait at Seventy’, in
Sartre in the Seventies
(
Situations X
), 3–92, this 3. The escape: Cohen-Solal,
Sartre
, 159.

27
  His own skin was the boundary, and ‘On my first night’: Sartre, ‘The Paintings of Giacometti’, in
Situations
[IV], 177–92, this 178.

28
  Sartre’s complaints to Beauvoir:
POL, 479–80.

29
  Eating her stews: POL, 503–4.

30
  Lost briefcase: Cohen-Solal,
Sartre
, 166.

31
  ‘Of not knowing what to do’: Sartre, ‘Merleau-Ponty’, in
Situations
[IV], 225–326, this 231.

32
  Paulhan’s poems: Paulhan, ‘Slogans des jours sombres’,
Le Figaro littéraire
(27 April 1946). See Corpet & Paulhan,
Collaboration and Resistance
, 266.

33
  Tricolours: Guéhenno,
Diary of the Dark Years
, 101 (17 July 1941).

34
  Merleau-Ponty and Sous la botte: Cohen-Solal,
Sartre
, 164; Bair,
Simone de Beauvoir
, 251–2; Sartre, ‘Merleau-Ponty’, in
Situations
[IV], 225–326, this 231. School and portrait: Marianne Merleau-Ponty, personal communication.

35
  Cycling holidays: POL, 490–91. On their visits to Gide, Malraux and others, interpreted as Resistance activity: Lévy,
Sartre
, 291–2.

36
  Sartre somersault: POL, 491. Tooth: 495–6; 505.

37
  ‘Gave up their seats’ and ‘do not go imagining’: Sartre, ‘Paris Under the Occupation’, in
The Aftermath of War
(
Situations III
), 8–40, this 11 (originally published in
La France libre
, 1945).

38
  Guéhenno refusing to give directions: Guéhenno,
Diary of the Dark Years
, 195 (22 Feb. 1943).

39
  Merleau-Ponty being rude: Merleau-Ponty, ‘The War Has Taken Place’, in
Sense and Non-Sense
, 139–52, this 141–2.

40
  Jewish friends: POL, 512, 525.

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