At the Existentialist Café
Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
At the Existentialist Café
Buy Now for $27.21
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Antonia Beamish
-
Written by:
-
Sarah Bakewell
About this listen
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 cafés 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 Café 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 audiobook 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.
©2016 Sarah Bakewell (P)2016 Audible, LtdWhat the critics say
"This lucid study of the existentialists picks out some overlooked figures and exposes the sexual hypocrisies of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre." (Jane O’Grady, Sunday Telegraph)
What listeners say about At the Existentialist Café
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- J. Bird
- 2024-07-30
A fascinating and dramatic account of the lives of the great existentialist thinkers, and what they wrote, thought, and taught.
As a bookish, self-involved teenager I wolfed down (but only partly understood) several books by existentialist thinkers: Nietzsche, Sartre, and especially Camus.
I learned a lot (probably too much) about Sartre, Camus and other existentialists (and phenomenologists) from reading Bakewell’s book (although I still don’t appreciate what is so exciting about phenomenology).
In the end, Sartre disappointed me. His early thinking about individual responsibility and commitment (Existentialism is a Humanism) was, and still is, so compelling and important to me. But, seduced by Marxism and later Maoism, and unable to reconcile his ideas of individual freedom with these ideologies, and increasingly impaired by his addictions to drugs and alcohol, his thinking became ever more muddy, banal, undisciplined and incomplete.
Camus is what I expected - an outsider even among the existentialists.
Bakewell was unsuccessful in convincing me of Heidegger’s genius. His thinking is impenetrable, autistic, claustrophobic, there is too much Nazi “blood and soil” in him. Life is too short to spend time inside that mind.
But she did convince me to read more of Beauvoir - I ordered the Ethics of Ambiguity.
By the end I was exhausted by the inconsistencies in their thinking, their endless arguments and petty disputes, the long lists of people that Sartre and Beauvoir (and both Sartre and Beauvoir) slept with, their personal and intellectual failings, and the pathetic end to all of their lives. But I still look forward to reading more of Bakewell, and more existentialism.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars
-
Performance2 out of 5 stars
-
Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 2021-11-28
Engaging and Insightful Overview of Existentialism
Existentialism and phenomenology from a personal point of view well told by an author who has done the work. Unfortunately, the reading is subpar. The reader mangles every foreign word and affects an awful American accent for U.S. personalities, unnecessarily. She also betrays in comprehension of the content, a cardinal sin in audio books.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful