At the Existentialist Café by Sarah Bakewell is a terrific read. Bakewell charts the lives and works of many of the twentieth-century's greatest philosophers. Her explicit intention is to elevate the biographies of her subjects as much as their ideas, because in her mind their lived experiences are just as interesting as their theories. She's right. I can't think of a better introduction to Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Heideggar, Albert Camus, and many others. The text was fast-paced but thorough, academic but readable. Drawing his name in the family gift exchange, I think I'll get it for my brother-in-law for Christmas this year. It's the type of book that you want to badger others to read, just so that you can talk to someone about it.
Bakewell interjects her opinions sparingly, but they're always welcome. She can't pretend to be an impartial observer of the philosophers as they flirt with Maoism or Nazism, for example. But she also seriously considers their brands of existentialism or phenomenology and the unusual and sometimes contradictory ways that it impacted their personal lives and politics. Baker isn't afraid to rate the validity of the ideas, and their implications. If one could locate a thesis from this wide-ranging text, it's that the freedom found in existentialism should prompt us to lives full of meaning, full of action.
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