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The Age of Reason (Les Chemins de la Liberté #1)

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 4,241 ratings · 171 reviews

The first novel of Sartre's monumental Roads to Freedom series, The Age of Reason is set in 1938 and tells of Mathieu, a French professor of philosophy who is obsessed with the idea of freedom. As the shadows of the Second World War draw closer -- even as his personal life is complicated by his mistress's pregnancy -- his search for a way to remain free becomes more and mo...more

Paperback, 416 pages

Published July 7th 1992 by Vintage (first published 1943)

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Mar 24, 2008 Stephanie A. Higa rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of dialogue

Shelves: france

This is basically a soap opera with brains and direction, which is my favorite kind of book ever. The character development is EXTRAORDINARY. I recommend this book on that facet alone. I didn't read this as an exemplification of Sartre's philosophy, but rather as a study of the philosophy of the characters in the story. None of these people are truly likable, but they are all the more human because of that. Even the most agreeable people think disagreeable thoughts. This is something most of us...more

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Jul 14, 2008 Cody rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read Nausea by Sartre while in college and really go into Existentialism and novels based on Existential themes. After Nausea (which is great!) I had only read a few essays and some short stories by Sartre. Now, a few years later, I wanted to get back into Sartre and I thought I would start by reading his Freedom trilogy. I began with The Age of reason, a story about a man dealing with the inevitability of becoming middle-aged and possibly becoming a father. The catch is...he is neither ready...more

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Jul 17, 2009 Hollis rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

I wasn't expecting to like this that much and I didn't really (although it's a good novel, I suppose). From reading the blurb it just sounded too much like a John Updike-style of novel: a plot that seems trivial and unimportant elevated to importance by some trick or other that the writer uses. With Updike, it is the hyperactive, ornate language: with Sartre (as you probably guessed) it is profound meditations on angst and existentialist philosophy. Like Updike, I felt that Sartre's method was f...more

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Mar 14, 2007 melissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had this job one summer at a Dillard's department store. I worked in the linens section. Nobody shops for sheets in the summer, I guess, because I spent a lot of time doing absolutely nothing. My boyfriend used to write me letters and send me to work with them so that I would have something to read. Well that got old so one day when I was poking around the props (you know - how they set up the entire fancy-pants mock bedrooms?) I found a copy of this book on a table. So I parked myself on a st...more

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Feb 25, 2011 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, france, fiction, library-book-or-loan

I was expecting this to be 'difficult' but it wasn't and I really enjoyed it. To see my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...

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Jan 19, 2009 Leslie rated it 2 of 5 stars

The book has been lauded for decades as an insightful look into the notion of individual freedom and I wanted to read it and experience Sartre's writing. Overall, I thought the book was okay. I didn't feel that any of the ideas were particularly new or interesting and I didn't sympathize with the characters. However, I think that might have been the point.

I think we've all gone through periods of wanting to be free from the burdens of commitment and responsibility but as we get older (and reach...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Damian rated it 4 of 5 stars

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Apr 09, 2013 Hortense added it

The first in the trilogy, the one I didn't read. I'm not going to do that to myself now. I won't travel the Les Chemins backwards. I'm still not certain if an effect could precede a cause. But one thing I do know is this Mathieu guy could bring up last night's dinner.

As always, read the French. The English translation of Les Chemins is unforgivable, sodden, swampy, horribly out-dated. You'll get stuck every other step of the way. and the way is long. I always loved reading existentialists. Perh...more

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Nov 21, 2012 John P rated it 3 of 5 stars

While interesting, the characters are not believable. Their internal (and external) strife, angst, and ambivalence represent to me two things.
First is Sartre's own internal struggle to come to grips with his own mortality, his own feelings, his own reason. Of course, this is to be expected since any book is a product of the author's mind and must, after all, reflect same regardless of the content of the work.
Second is Sartre's attempt to instruct the reader and elucidate his (Sartre's) idea of...more

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Sep 10, 2012 Sonja rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is French writing heavily-influenced by authors who came before him--I see so much Flaubert and (even more so) Balzac in the description, scene construction, and characters (mostly youngish men in Paris, on the edge of "the age of reason"). The character of Mathieu is developed to be such a dud, intentionally, that when the climactic decision-making rests on him, and his decision is ultimately the most cowardly of the possibilities and deemed to be "for nothing," I was disappointed. However...more

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May 23, 2012 Perry Whitford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first book of Satre's Roads of Freedom trilogy, set in 1938 Paris, with war and occupation still an unlikely prospect. The main character, school teacher Mathieu, flirts with bohemianism and communism whilst rather ignobly trying to force his mistress to have an abortion, asking friends and family to help him out so that he retain his freedom.
It's a long time since I read this book, over twenty one years in fact, but I still remember being strongly impressed by it as a seventeen year old. I...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Max rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read this book twice. It is not an easy read, nor does it contain a 'clever plot' or historical references - elements seemingly compulsory in contemporary 'literature'. No, this is true literature. Great characters that are blessed with very human thoughts and experiences. We meet Matieu and his friends not by a description of their character, no we meet them by reading their thoughts and having to build their character ourselves based on these thoughts. This is the true art of literature and...more

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Mar 21, 2011 Jackie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Where to begin... I'm not sure what to say about this book except that I liked it ok. I was most impressed by Sartre's ability to blow out a short period of time through the very interesting perspectives of several different characters and come out with a fairly long book. You'll think it's predictable until you find out that it isn't. If anything it feels very real, honest in a different way from Hemingway's honesty, but honest all the same.

Should you read it? It depends. Do you like classics?...more

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Oct 17, 2011 Gene rated it 3 of 5 stars

I felt so cool, reclining in mid-summer in the courtyard of the building I used to work in, reading Sartre, sipping a coffee, the sunlight bronzing my skin, gettting buzzed and dehydrated and feeling a sense of intellectual superiority wash over me ...
It was after reading Jonathan Franzen's uber-politically correct sob-fest, "Freedom", that I picked up this book, and was delighted with the risque material: a man needs money to pay for his girlfriend's next abortion, and he goes around asking his...more

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Jan 28, 2012 Jim Leckband rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm free. At least I strive to be free. I'd like to be free. Freedom would be nice, but, the thing is, I'm free except for a book that's been on my bookshelf for over twenty years. It's taunting me, it makes me feel pity and scorn for it, I'm shackled to it and the book is shackled to me. I will be free when I read it! But, I've read it and yet I find I'm not free, unless...

Sartre is a philosopher (and he has an "S" in his name) and the main character Mathieu is a philosopher. One can make the "...more

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Mar 10, 2011 uh8myzen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: existentialism, fiction, my-favourites, philosophy, series

It has been a number of years since I read this series, so i will have to be rather general about it even though it has stuck with me all these years.

I am a fan of Sartre's and his existentialist contemporaries, but this series was an amazing display of Sartre's skill as a fiction writer. While I am generally more fond of Camus' fiction, every book in the "The Roads to Freedom" trilogy stands out as my favorite fictional work by that group. Make no mistake, this trilogy is a masterpiece of exis...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Jeremiah Tillman rated it 4 of 5 stars

A friend told me that Sartre had a long interest in novels, stemming back to his childhood, where he was forced to read Dostoevsky. Maybe JP wasn't a seven year old prodigy forced to read the Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot back to back, but the point is that Sartre has an intuition for drama. This novel is only a vehicle for that attention to drama. It drives the Age of Reason, more so than any kind of character development, I'd argue. Yet, as with pretty much every piece of fiction I've read...more A friend told me that Sartre had a long interest in novels, stemming back to his childhood, where he was forced to read Dostoevsky. Maybe JP wasn't a seven year old prodigy forced to read the Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot back to back, but the point is that Sartre has an intuition for drama. This novel is only a vehicle for that attention to drama. It drives the Age of Reason, more so than any kind of character development, I'd argue. Yet, as with pretty much every piece of fiction I've read from Sartre, I hated all the characters and their rotten developments. They absolutely develop, but they're just awful people. Matheiu, Daniel (the most ridiculous character in the entire novel), and Boris are all stupid bastards, whereas Ivich, Lola, and Marcelle are egotistical bitches. Thus the drama is tense. Things are triggered in the first chapter, as we are introduced to the plot's core concern, what will Mathieu do with Marcelle's pregnancy? How will he get the money? Will he marry her? Ironically the first chapter alludes to all of the possibilities for both the characters' lives and how the novel itself could turn out.

Yet Mathieu is a character without possibility, though he is enamored with the possibilities of freedom, which are both boundless and indefinite, but by no means certain. Mathieu uses the idea of freedom to forget himself, only further distancing himself from any of his own individual possibilities. Therefore Mathieu hasn't any individual possibilities. He's a man without a future and seemingly without a past. Sartre doesn't really give any insight into Mathieu as a philosophy professor, how he met all these "friends" of his, why he's with Marcelle. None of these things matter in regards to the three days that transpire during this novel. Everyone in the novel is aware of Mathieu as a man simultaneously without a past and future. Ivich, his lolitaesque love interest, can't even begin to fathom our protagonist as a child. "Oh I had curly hair", Mathieu responds. This curt response implies that he barely has an identity. Who is he really? Yet the novel progresses. In conference with his brother Jacques, Jacques exclaims that "when I think of you, I am the more convinced that one oughtn't to be a man of principles. You are stiff with them. In theory, there's no one more independent, it's all quite admirable, you live above all class distinctions" (131). In practice, we do not see any sort of principles from Mathieu. He cheats on his girlfriend and steals. He's a loser, that's a part of his identity, if he has one and he knows it. Sure, he's a philosophy professor, but he reflects upon himself as a "wash out" , i.e. someone who has totally missed opportunity, before a professor, before a boyfriend, before someone's friend.

Supposedly we're all just free without wanting or choosing to be, but Mathieu has confined his freedom. He's chained to Marcelle, to Ivich, to Boris, then to Lola and Daniel. He has all these missed opportunities to have the abortion done and over with, yet he saves himself for further possibilities. It's this saving himself for the future that ultimately restrains him. An old friend, Brunet asks Mathieu to join the communist party. Of course Mathieu refuses, but Brunet directly asks him "'do you suppose you can live your whole life between parentheses?'" and Mathieu answers "of course not", but he's downright lying to both Brunet and himself. He thinks he can. Later in the novel, the brief hesitation, among other events, to steal Lola's money points to that "living between parentheses". I think that one of the overall implications of Sartre's novel is that freedom and possibilities only apply to people with identities. If you're nothing at all, what can become of you? One could answer everything and anything, but that is such a vapid statement, one would essentially be saying nothing. Someone who is a "washout" has no possibilities, if they've limited themselves. Mathieu is afraid of "existing too much", a phrase which implies being stretched out to all sorts of identities and situation and forgetting their own freedom. Instead Mathieu keeps himself tightly together and avoids existing all together, I'd say. Sartre beckons the reader to ask what's the use of freedom if there's nothing to even apply it to? In the same scene where Mathieu is contemplating others "existing too much", Mathieu thinks "'perhaps it's inevitable; perhaps one has to choose between being nothing at all and impersonating what one is. That would be terrible," he said to himself; "it would mean, that we were naturally bogus'" (227). The phrase "impersonating what one is" is purposefully oblique, suggesting all of Mathieu's ties, friends, lovers, etc., are meaningless.

Sartre beats the reader over the head with the fact that they're meaningless because they're so restricted. Maybe Sartre didn't see a necessary connection between identity and freedom, but I do. I think this is one of the more Heideggerian ideas of the novel. Freedom does not exist, not unlike a lot of other things we take for granted such as space and truth, without Da-Sein, or human existence. It stems from us. Heidegger's influence on the Age of Reason continues. In one of my favorite scenes in the book, Lola's "death", Mathieu's long ruminations seem to suggest the three ecstasies of time, past, present, and future in Heidegger's Being and Time. I think this was written in one of JP's moments of inspiration and in a sense it sums up the entire novel, JUST READ THIS:

"She was dead. Her consciousness was destroyed. But not her life. Abandoned by the soft affectionate creature that had for so long inhabited it, that derelict life had merely stopped, it floated, filled with unechoed cries and ineffectual hopes, with somber splendors, antiquated faces and perfumes, it floated at the outer edge of the world, between parentheses, unforgettable and self-subsistent, more indestructible than a mineral, and nothing could prevent it from having been, it had just undergone its ultimate metamorphosis: its future was determined. "A life", thought Mathieu, "is formed from the future just as bodies are compounded from the void". He bent his head; he thought of his own life. The future had made way into his heart, where everything was in process and suspense. The far-off days of childhood, the day when he had said: "I will be free", the day when he had said: "I will be famous", appeared to him even now with their individual future, like a small, circled individual sky above them all, and that future was himself, himself just as he was at present, weary and a little overripe, they had claims upon him across the passage of time past, they maintained their insistencies, and he was often visited by attacks of devastating remorse, because his casual, cynical present was the original future of those past days. It was he whom they had awaited for twenty years, it was he , this tired man, who was pestered by a remorseless child to realize his hopes; on him it depended whether these childish pledges should remain forever childish or whether they should become the first announcements of a destiny. His past was in continual process of retouching by the present; every day belied yet further those old dreams of fame, and every day had a fresh future; from one period of waiting to the next, from future to future, Mathieu's life was gliding—towards what? Towards nothing." (272)

Good one, JP.(less)

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Jan 18, 2011 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

There's a bit where Sartre describes Mathieu's sister-in-law: she's pretty, but "Mathieu had on countless occasions tried to unify these fluid features, but they escaped him; as a face, Odette's always seemed to be dissolving, and thus retained its elusive bourgeois mystery." (p. 127) And that's a little how I feel about this book, halfway through; it's certainly very good, and pretty to look at, but it's weirdly slippery. I can't quite get a handle on it.

That may be my fault. Tough to say what...more

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Feb 28, 2013 Don rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: european-novel

The BBC’s famous production of ‘Roads to Freedom’ , broadcast in 1970 was a seminal experience for a whole generation of Brits who were marked by the events of May 1968 and the prospect of a late 20th century dominated by the intellectual insights of the Mediterranean and Latin world, and the displacement of hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon.

I was one of them. In those days it felt like the world was in revolt and the only decent thing to do was join the revolution. The French had thrown their bourgeo...more The BBC’s famous production of ‘Roads to Freedom’ , broadcast in 1970 was a seminal experience for a whole generation of Brits who were marked by the events of May 1968 and the prospect of a late 20th century dominated by the intellectual insights of the Mediterranean and Latin world, and the displacement of hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon.

I was one of them. In those days it felt like the world was in revolt and the only decent thing to do was join the revolution. The French had thrown their bourgeois republic into turmoil with mass actions that had brought the working class into alliance with youthful intellectuals and the urgent need seemed to be how to understand the thoughts and outlooks of the people who were populating this new world.

Something of this was set out in Sartre’s tale of Mathieu Delarue, the Parisian philosophy professor who lived through the dilemmas of his personal life. An eight year long relationship with the reclusive Marcelle has been going nowhere for a long time. An infatuation with Ivich, the damaged and emotionally constrained sister of Boris, his student, offers no prospect of satisfaction. The two other significant figures in his life, long-time friends Brunet and Daniel, and the mirror opposites of the way to live life -one a committed communist, the other an introvert and self-reproachful homosexual – throw out other challenges as to the proper way to lead life, but not ones available to Mathieu.

Matters come to a head in the opening pages when Marcelle tells Mathieu that she is pregnant. It appears they are agreed that an abortion is needed and Mathieu sets off to procure the money which is needed. He first of all contemplates his own wretched financial position, causing despondency about the rut he is caught in, and the fact that he will be required to approach others, his brother, Daniel, for a loan. This is refused, but with the opportunity being given for lectures condemning him as someone who has failed to accept responsibility for the state of his life.

The action develops by way journeys through the streets of Paris, by foot and by taxi, the contemplation of acts of cruelty (the drowning of cats), petty law breaking (the theft of a book), and the misery of an older woman, Lola, entangled in an affair with the feckless Boris. The memorable nightclub scene, in which most of the main characters are brought together to mud wrestle in their mutual misery, produces the electrifying moment of acts of self-mutilation as the only way in which people can act as free beings in this life.
Mathieu comes to the realisation that Marcelle might wish to keep the child and that his fate is therefore marriage, but this engages none of his emotions except despair. His belief that he should aspire to freedom, even if that state held out no hope of happiness, drives him towards what proves to be an act which is destructive of what remains of his relationship with Marcelle. He is left alone, without the consolation of any philosophy that would explain his actions and provide solace.

There is a bigger backdrop to what might seem the mundane, banal events of an incompetently led life. Across the borders the Nazi regime threatens war. In another direction the Spanish republic fights for its life. Mathieu wonders whether an engagement with these bigger themes might offer him a way forward, but diffidence holds him back from taking the decisions which might make him an effective actor in the face of these developments. The struggle for freedom is disconnected from politics and looks more like a personal attitude to life, as the individual moves listlessly and hopelessly to recreate the infantile perception of a world which is ordered to provide for his emotional and material needs.

We made a mistake thinking that the pragmatic verities of the Anglo-Saxon world had been eclipsed by the modernism of the Latins. Sartre, the Mathieu of his own life, finally committed himself to revolutionary socialism, but more by reason of his desire for freedom in the sense of scope for personal action rather than any convictions about Marxism. But at least we got a truly great series of novels from the ride.
(less)

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Jan 05, 2009 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first part of his Freedom series should be required reading for any existentialist approaching his mid-30s without any aspirations of marrying or falling in line. Mathieu, a French philosophy professor, spends most of the novel trying to borrow money so he can pay for his mistresses' abortion. His friends are a sorted bunch who attempt to take away his only goal: ultimate freedom.

Some literary experts say the protagonist must transform by the end. But what makes this book so great is that...more

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May 16, 2013 Adarsh rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jean-Paul Sartre's The Age of Reason is not a light read, and I must confess I didn't understand parts of it. Set in unstable Paris with events leading to the second World War as an unobtrusive backdrop, The Age of Reason follows Mathieu, a Philosophy teacher, who has led his life with an abstract aim of being completely "free". Mathieu discovers that his mistress Marcelle is pregnant and decides on an abortion, but needs 4000 francs for the abortion. For two days, he tries to raise the money, w...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars

So, the characters in this book are a bunch of navel-gazing yet simultaneously thoughtless fools and assholes. There's plenty of, "What is the meaning of life? What is freedom? What is love? I'm in love! I am free! Wait, I'm in love with some other person and I am not free! No, actually, I'm not in love with anyone! And by the way, I'm possibly a sociopath! And by the way, I want to castrate myself! Agghhh, I will never be free or happy! Or maybe I will always be free but never happy! I'm not su...more

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Jan 13, 2010 Natali rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wouldn't call this novel beautiful because the characters are so tedious, but the story is strangely captivating. It reminded me why we should all tame our runaway thoughts. If, as this book and existentialist theory would have us believe, the most profound philosophical condition revolves around individual thought, then our philosophical condition can be so silly. Superfluous even. Jean-Paul Sarte writes about really capable people who are fundamentally insecure, petulant, and selfish. They r...more

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Oct 24, 2011 Basma Abdallah Uraiqat rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is I think a very good book but not the best of Sartre. I found it a little slow at times and didn't know where it was going but in the end it all comes together and I liked the ending very much. It talks about the struggle of freedom within each person and how or even if one can attain it. Overall I think the concept of the book is more powerful than the actual writing, and in order to enjoy it one has to be a little familiar with Sartre in general.

The thing that I liked and hated the mos...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Mohit added it

Extraordinary. That's the one word to describe the first book in the Roads to Freedom trilogy by Jean Paul Sartre. The character development is brilliant. The book is the gripping tale of three days in the life of Matheiu, the protagonist. He has accidentally got his mistress pregnant and does not intend to marry her. The book details his struggles to get money for her abortion. Sartre analyses the concept of freedom as the sole reason for existence. The motives, actions and thoughts of all the...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Keith added it

Finished Jean-Paul Sartre AGE OF REASON. 'I have reached the age of reason' says Mathieu. He means he's no longer young and carefree. The story revolves around Mathieu the college professor and his assumption that his long time girlfriend Marcelle needs an abortion, and he has to get the money for it. Other characters are his young friends-brother + sister Boris and Ivich, Boris's older lover Lola, and Daniel, who turns out to be homosexual yet in the end decides to marry Marcelle and save the b...more

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Apr 30, 2010 molly rated it 3 of 5 stars

i liked the style of his writing very much, and the content a little less. but at the same time i can imagine reading it again... certainly it cannot be denied that sartre effectively conveyed the mental experience of his characters, and because of that they do linger with me, thier more poignant moments coming to my mind at various times. i have a lot of admiration for a book that continues to develop in my mind after i've finished reading it. this volume was my dad's, and i liked reading somet...more

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May 05, 2012 BeeQuiet rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: academic, non-fiction

An achingly analysed view of human's potential to be "free", whatever that means, Sartre shows the way in which morality is important in his view due to the complex web of human relations. Whatever choice a person makes, they are accountable to whoever those choices affect. A person's freedom, according to Sartre, is dependent on their agency in deciding between the myriad paths in life.

I have to say I tend to lean more towards a Foucauldian view than those held by Sartre, it was an interesting...more

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Aug 26, 2009 Natasha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, philosophy

It's hard to believe this book only covers the course of a couple days. It's amazing how quickly the characters emotions change. One moment they like/love the person and the next are disgusted with them. It left me a little confused by how everyone actually felt about one another. They changed viewpoints way too quickly. And it was a little surprising that Mathieu would still be interested/still have an affair with a woman who describes as fat and is sometimes repulsed by it. It doesn't seem to...more

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Mar 16, 2010 Oakley rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is the first segment of the Roads To Freedom trilogy that examines the attitudes and causes that brought on WW2. It seems semi autobiographical and concerns a 30 year old 'wash out' philosophy professor and his oddball friends. It was an easy book for me to relate to. I liked that many of the character's thoughts and actions were often introduced before their names or relations to anyone. The war is still a far off event so this book focuses on more personal aspects like love triangles, com...more

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About Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre, was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. He was a leading figure in 20th century French philosophy.

He declined the award of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his work which, rich in ideas and filled with the spirit of freedom and the quest for truth, has ex...more

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Quotes from The Age of Reason

“She smiled and said with an ecstatic air: "It shines like a little diamond",
"What does?"
"This moment. It is round, it hangs in empty space like a little diamond; I am eternal.” — 47 people liked it

“The individual's duty is to do what he wants to do, to think whatever he likes, to be accountable to no one but himself, to challenge every idea and every person.” — 29 people liked it

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The Age of Reason (Les Chemins de la Liberté #1)

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