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Title: Obnoxious Characters Make for Masochistic Reading
Review: If this novel had been my only exposure to existentialist thought, I never would have considered the philosophy seriously. The characters in this novel are so obnoxious I'd feel more comfortable hanging out with Dick Cheney in a dungeon full of scorpions, and I feel sorry for anyone who identifies with them or knows people who are like them. Sartre intentionally makes the characters so hateable because he wants to show us the necessity of taking responsibility for one's freedom, but I'm not sure his point works; such people may decide that they willfully want to own up to their whimsically obnoxious ways. If you want to read novels that present existentialist issues, I would recommend Virginia Woolf, especially works like "To the Lighthouse."
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