At The Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails

by Sarah Bakewell

One of the New York Times Top Ten Books of the Year 2016

Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 by the Guardian, TLS, Observer and Mail on Sunday

* AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK *

Paris, near the turn of 1933. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking. Pointing to his drink, he says, "You can make philosophy out of this cocktail!"


From this moment of inspiration, Sartre will create his own extraordinary philosophy of real, experienced life - of love and desire, of freedom and being, of cafes and waiters, of friendships and revolutionary fervour. It is a philosophy that will enthral Paris and sweep through the world, leaving its mark on post-war liberation movements, from the student uprisings of 1968 to civil rights pioneers.

At the Existentialist Cafe tells the story of modern existentialism as one of passionate encounters between people, minds and ideas. From the `king and queen of existentialism' - Sartre and de Beauvoir - to their wider circle of friends and adversaries including Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Iris Murdoch, this book is an enjoyable and original journey through a captivating intellectual movement. Weaving biography and thought, Sarah Bakewell takes us to the heart of a philosophy about life that also changed lives, and that tackled the biggest questions of all: what we are and how we are to live.

• ISBN10: 0701186585
• ISBN13: 9780701186586
• Publish Date: 3 March 2016 (first published 1 March 2016)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 10 August 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Chatto & Windus
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

The upside to the 90 minutes I spent in a traffic jam with a top speed of 7km/h this afternoon is that I was able to finish this most excellent book.   At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails is a comprehensive look at the overall existentialist movement and its major players from the 1920's through the 1950's and 60's.  Part biographical, part exploration of the different facets of phenomenology and existentialism as advocated by Sartre, de Beauvoir, Aron, Camus, Heidegger, Husserl et. al, the book and narrative both are outstanding.   I am at best a dabbler in philosophy, and considering how easy it is to tie one's brain into knots musing over the philosophical aspects of life, Bakewell had her work cut out for her making such dense material comprehensible - and she did.  Most of the time when I got bogged down trying to follow, it was when she was relating concepts that are widely acknowledged to be amongst the most labyrinthine.     My takeaways after finishing this is that I am, by and large, an existentialist (though I'm interested in learning more about Epicurean philosophy), but there were many areas where I diverge, especially if we're talking about Heidegger's existentialism.  That man ... I swear he just made stuff up just to see how inaccessible he could get and still be considered a genius.  Also, Bakewell makes a pretty convincing argument that he was a nazi.  I also was left with a distaste for Sartre in spite of his profound early-career work, although I give him credit for living a "good faith" life until the very end.  The existentialist whose work I most connected with was Husserl; he felt the most rational and accessible, and his life the one that seemed the most authentic.   I listened to this on audio, as narrated by Antonia Beamish and I cannot say enough good things about her narration.  She read this like she wrote it, understood it and lived it, with a voice I just wanted to listen to no matter what she was reading.  Imagine the best, most engaging, professor you've ever had the pleasure of listening to and learning from, and you'll have a good idea of what this book, and this narration, holds in store for you.   Needless to say, I'll be chewing on this book and its contents for a very long time to come.