Reviews

The Labyrinth: An Existential Odyssey with Jean-Paul Sartre by Ben Argon

arijones91's review

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challenging informative fast-paced

220002002owen's review

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adventurous challenging funny informative reflective relaxing slow-paced

3.75

shipwrecksteph's review

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4.0

Received an ARC at NYCC 2019. Many thanks to ABRAMS Books.

Prior to Labyrinth, I'd never read anything by or about Jean-Paul Satre. So I can't speak to how accurately this gets his ideas across. What I can say with confidence is that if my undergraduate classes had used graphic novels to teach philosophy, I would have stuck with the subject for longer.

This is a wonderful format for talking about Big Ideas™. Just look at these two pages.

IMG_20191020_201028

The images say so much. For those of us who are visual learners, this makes a huge difference. The book makes great use of visual explanations throughout. Often, it is in support of the story being told through dialog. Sometimes, the images speak the loudest.

I can see reasons to distrust this method. The biggest being that images can have a much wider interpretation than words. So by introducing images, there is more space created for disagreement in interpretation. But that always exists when discussing Big Ideas™. Usually we are the better for that and the benefits outweigh any downsides.

I believe this would work best as an introduction to Satre's work. It's like reading a charming and insightful summary before diving into the thinker's actual writing. By giving readers this wonderfully relatable mouse and his quest for cheese, Argon gives us a compass to navigate a dense and often intimidating subject. I'm excited to see what comes next.




luckyladybug3's review

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funny informative

5.0

sangloup's review

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3.0

Extreme Book Nerd Challenge 2021 - Category #40
Challenge Topic: Title from or story inspired by another literary work.

This was a graphic novel that was inspired by the work "Being and Nothingness" by Jean-Paul Sartre. He is a Philosopher and his work was published in 1943.

I am not all that in to Philosophy. I have to admit that in college it was my least favorite subject because it always seemed like everyone was just talking in circles. And I hate to admit... it still feels like that. I liked the way this book was able to break it down with pictures and less words.... but it was still talking in circles. However, there were a couple of sections that really stood out with me and a few quotes that stuck with me too.

"The world means what we mean. And beyond the meaning we give... nothing?"

"The world is different... if we're different"

clawrence345's review

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

It’s a very quick read but it’s a good introduction to some philosophical ideas, especially Sartre. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with a working knowledge since it boils down some of Satre’s most known ideas. I would say it’s a good way for someone with no to minimal exposure to these ideas to start thinking about them and connect to them in an easy to understand way.

n8duke's review

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1.0

This book has an exceptional cover. Too bad I cannot base my review on the cover alone, because what's inside (the subject matter, the art, the font) are definitely NOT my jam.
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