The Age of Reason (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Reading The Age of Reason felt like navigating the dark recesses of my subconscious and coming face-to-face with my innermost anxieties. Love was not something to be felt, not a particular emotion, nor yet a particular shade of feeling, it was much more like a lowering curse on the horizon, a precursor of disaster. It is also about this guy name Daniel who realises that he is a homosexual, but still wants to marry a woman whom he is in love with because she wants to have children (strange attitude for a homosexual to take – I thought that would be what we would consider bi-sexual, but then again this is 1945 so the intricacies of the modern sexual system sort of did not exist back then). He reveals his inability to secure funds for the abortion and, crushingly for Marcelle, drops an emotional bomb on her which leads her to near hysterics. With alcohol in his system, Delarue begins to opine over the nature of Ivich, remarking: “I love that girl for her purity.

Even if he let himself be carried off, in helplessness and despair, even if he let himself be carried off like an old sack of coal, he would have chosen his own damnation: he was free, free in every way, free to behave like a fool or a machine, free to accept, free to refuse, free to equivocate: to marry, to give up the game, to drag this dead weight around with him for years to come. This whole book is about our freedom to make the choices we want to make but never do; about our deep need for change but secret desire to stay the same. Put like that, maybe Sartre and his philosophy have disappeared because they have been so thoroughly subsumed into our modern attitude. All around him, and in full force, there were his anxieties of the day before, his love for Ivich, Marcelle’s pregnancy, money, and then, in the centre, a blind spot—death.Boris busies himself with girlfriend Lola, and the jazz band plays whilst the characters take turns to dance.

It’s also my favourite from the trilogy—whilst the Reprieve and Iron in the Soul are profound and moving, there’s a certain unmatchable edge to Age of Reason which is delivered through its detailed analysis of its lead characters. French author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was awarded (and declined) the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. Only half a dozen characters are seen, representing very little of society, though a good range of neuroticism. Delarue clearly has a thing for her, but is caught between being the intellectual elder statesman and the lust-driven buffoon.Once Sarah leaves, the two argue, with the young student finally breaching the kiss Delarue had forced upon her. Boris had bought a large clasp knife and on a whim Ivich uses it to cut a deep slash right across her palm. You are the son of a bourgeois, you couldn’t come to us straightaway, you had to free yourself first. When he does nothing of the sort but instead proudly brandishes the money for the abortion, Marcelle’s face falls, she is ashen, she says, ‘So that’s what you think of me’. She felt sick…then a sense of uttermost disgust gathered upon her tongue… She disliked her body… the sight of women suckling their babies in the Luxemberg: a feeling beyond fear and disgust…she dreaded having to despise him… (p.

Next up, Delarue visits his brother Jacques in a desperate bid to wrest money off him, but is almost humiliated (and, for the first time, shows considerable annoyance) by his brother’s savage indictment of his life.It’s at this point the concentration camps in operation in Europe are mentioned for the first time in the trilogy, although Delarue passes over this in an attempt to stop his personal information reaching the ears of Ivich. A darkly Machiavellian character, his outward acts are often simply foils for devious, open-ended desires.