I started off The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre as sort of a blunder--I thought that I had seen it on the list of classic works to choose from given to us in my AP English class, but it wasn't actually on the list. I didn't discover this until I'd started reading and brought it to class several times, but I was cleared to keep going with it. Once I start a book, I have a hard time just putting it down, and I was fascinated by The Age of Reason, so I'm glad that I can continue.
While I'm only about one fifth of the way through, the novel follows three days in the life of a philosophy professor named Mathieu, as he tries to procure the money for an abortion for his mistress, set in Paris in the 1930's. Through character narratives and detailed analysis of their psychologies, Sartre illustrates his existentialist theory that the ultimate goal of human existence is freedom, which he believes is achieved through "nothingness".
