Reading Order
Les Mots Reading Order
Les Mots (The Words, 1964) by Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the most extraordinary literary autobiographies of the twentieth century — the account of his childhood in his grandfather's library in Paris, his discovery of reading and writing, and the founding illusion that he has spent the rest of his life trying to overcome: the belief that literature saves, that writing is a form of redemption. Sartre won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 and refused it, partly on the grounds that Les Mots (published the same year) was his self-criticism of the very literary vocation that the Nobel was honoring. The prose of Les Mots is among the most brilliant Sartre ever wrote — it is, paradoxically, his greatest literary achievement, a self-criticism of literature that demonstrates the power of literature. Les Mots is essential for understanding the late Sartre, who had spent the 1950s moving away from existentialism toward Marxism (the Critique de la raison dialectique, 1960) and who writes Les Mots as a farewell to his literary vocation.
Where to start
Les Mots stands alone as an autobiography and requires no prior reading of Sartre's philosophy or fiction. But reading La Nausée (1938) first gives the fictional counterpart — Roquentin's disgust with the permanence of the past that Les Mots argues Sartre used as a child to justify his literary vocation. The essays in Qu'est-ce que la littérature? (1948) give the earlier, confident version of the thesis about literature that Les Mots undermines.
Complete Les Mots Book List
- 1Buy
Les Mots
Jean-Paul Sartre·1964·Start here — the Nobel-refusing autobiography; the self-criticism of literature as salvation; brilliant prose - 2Buy
La Nausée
Jean-Paul Sartre·1938·The fictional counterpart — Roquentin's nausea and the permanence of the past; read alongside or before Les Mots - 3Buy
L'Être et le Néant
Jean-Paul Sartre·1943·Being and Nothingness — the major philosophical work; not required reading but gives the full philosophical context - 4Buy
Qu'est-ce que la littérature?
Jean-Paul Sartre·1948·What is Literature? — the earlier confident account of literary engagement; Les Mots is the self-criticism of this - 5Buy
Saint Genet, comédien et martyr
Jean-Paul Sartre·1952·The account of Genet — Sartre's existentialist analysis of the writer as the man condemned; read alongside Les Mots
Les Mots — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the 'illusion' that Les Mots describes?
The illusion Sartre describes is the belief he formed in childhood (in his grandfather's library, surrounded by books) that literature is a form of salvation — that writing gives permanence to a life that would otherwise be contingent and meaningless, that the writer is the man whose life achieves meaning through the act of writing. This is the founding illusion of Sartre's career as a writer — and Les Mots is his attempt to expose and overcome it. The irony is that Les Mots is one of the most brilliant books Sartre ever wrote: in writing the self-criticism of the literary vocation, he demonstrates the very power of literature that he is criticizing.
Why did Sartre refuse the Nobel Prize?
Sartre refused the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964 for two reasons, which he gave in a letter to the Nobel Committee. The first was personal: he had always refused official honors (having declined election to the Collège de France and the Légion d'honneur) because he did not want to be institutionalized by the structures of literary and academic recognition. The second was political: he felt the prize was given by Western cultural institutions and that accepting it would compromise his ability to participate in the politics of the Cold War without being identified with one side. He also mentioned that Les Mots, his self-criticism of the literary vocation, had just been published.
What is Sartre's childhood like in Les Mots?
Sartre describes his childhood in two sections, 'Lire' (Reading) and 'Écrire' (Writing): both describe the Schweitzer household of his grandfather Charles Schweitzer and his mother Anne-Marie, where he was raised after his father's early death. The childhood is depicted as a performance — Sartre was a pretty, clever child who learned early that adults approved of him when he performed intelligence and enthusiasm, and he performed accordingly. The library was his sanctuary and his prison: surrounded by books, he decided that literature was what human beings were for, and himself was what literature was for. The self-analysis is merciless but never self-pitying.
How does Les Mots relate to Sartre's philosophy?
Les Mots is both a practical demonstration and a critique of existentialist concepts. The existentialist claim that existence precedes essence — that we are not defined by a fixed nature but by our choices and projects — is dramatized in the account of the child who chose the project of becoming a writer without understanding what he was doing. The illusion that Sartre describes (the belief that writing gives permanence) is a form of bad faith: the attempt to have a fixed essence (writer) rather than accepting the radical freedom and contingency of existence. Les Mots is Sartre's autobiography as existentialist self-analysis.
What is the relationship between Les Mots and La Nausée?
La Nausée (1938) and Les Mots (1964) are the two poles of Sartre's relationship to literature. In La Nausée, Roquentin discovers that the past — and particularly the past captured in literary art — has a kind of false permanence that gives it an authority over the present; his nausea is partly nausea at this false permanence. In Les Mots, Sartre identifies the belief in this false permanence as the founding illusion of his own literary vocation — the childhood belief that writing could make life permanent and justified. Reading the two works together gives the full picture of Sartre's ambivalent relationship to the literary vocation he spent his life pursuing and questioning.
Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.