Nausea post IV

The book climaxes with a disturbing brief time spent in Bouville and Antoine sketching out a future for himself that involves writing another type of book, but one that presumably will involve him aping his live in Bouville and flitting from the library to cafes and the park.

Bullet points between pages 220 – 252

* On his return to Bouville Antoine is determined to meet the Autodidact to see how he is after the scene in the café and he finally meets him in the library

* The Autodidact doesn’t want to talk to him and then gets involved with a scene with some school boys and the Corsican librarian hits him in the face after accusing him of being disgusting

* Antoine offers to help the Autodidact, who now will never be allowed to go back to the library, but he is told to go away

* The final port of call is for Antoine to visit the café owned by the woman he has been sleeping with on a casual basis. The waitress offers to play his favourite record one last time and Antoine dreams about the man who created the song

* The book ends with him almost promising to himself to have a quiet life in Paris because there is enough existence as it is without him stirring it up more

A full review of the book will be posted on Saturday but as for what is next I have to admit to being torn between reading more Sartre, moving onto Proust or Scarlet and Black by another French great Stendhal? I’ll pop down to Waterstones in my lunch break and share the decision later.