JeanPaul_Sartre_JeanPaul_Sartre_Basic_Writing

6Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writingsbe exploited with ruthless hilarity by political cartoonists when he became aworld figure. In the 1970s he went blind. Fortunately, by 1975 (when he wasseventy) he felt able to claim in an interview ‘I have said everything I had tosay’ (Life/Situations, p. 20). Although Sartre sometimes suffered from thesymptoms of stress he was blessed with great physical and intellectualstamina.Many conjectures could be made about his motivation to write. Perhapsin his solitary childhood his early reading and writing was a substitute forthe human conversation and playful childhood interchanges that were deniedhim. Certainly, the release from his grandfather’s orderly study into thecomparative chaos of the world fascinated him. The contrast motivates hisexistentialism and perhaps his later socialism. Perhaps he wrote becauseof the excitement of realising he could write. It is certain that he hated hischildhood and much of his writing is writing against it.Sartre’s writing routine was as follows: at 8.30 am he got up. From 9.30am to 1.30 pm he would write. (Four hours in the morning and four hours inthe evening, that was his only rule.) From 2.00–4.00 pm he would lunch in acafé such as Les Deux Magots or Café Flore on Boulevard Saint Germaine,La Coupoule in Montparnasse or Les Trois Mousquetaires on the Avenuede Maine, perhaps work there on some writing but certainly meet friends forconversation. Before 5.00 pm he would walk home and the second fourhourstretch of writing would be from 5.00–9.00 pm. At 9.00 pm he wouldtypically walk to Simone de Beauvoir’s flat and they would talk and listen tomusic. Sartre would be asleep by 12.30 am and, in the morning, wouldbreakfast in a local café, between 8.30 and 9.30 am. The apropriately namedLa Liberté on the corner of rue de la Gaité and Boulevard Edgar Quinet washis favourite for breakfast. He would not overeat. Although he drank plenty ofblack coffee and smoked excessively, he drank very little alcohol. His sociallife took place in the afternoons. Three o’clock in the afternoon, he thought,was too late to finish anything and too late to start anything. The first volumeof the Critique of Dialectical Reason was written at three times the normalspeed because Sartre took twenty amphetamine tablets per day to finish it.Although he was physically strong, or perhaps partly because of it, Sartretook little care of his body. Sport bored him. He was happy to abuse his bodyto accelerate his written output.Sartre never owned a house or an apartment. For long stretches hewould rent rooms in hotels. Indeed, his personal possessions were few:modest clothes, cigarettes, writing materials. When money came, say fromGallimard, he would carry all of it as a wad of banknotes in his wallet donatingit copiously to friends or worthy causes. Michel Rybalka reports that onarriving to interview Sartre about Critique of Dialectical Reason they had to