The Notebooks of the Strange War | Jean-Paul Sartre

The Stoic philosopher Seneca said: I will always monitor myself, and I will evaluate every day of my life. This is what makes us wicked; not looking back, and only thinking about what we are about to do. The original title of this book was "Diary of the Strange War" accompanied by a subtitle "Letters to Castor and Others," and it is indeed a diary since the author over the course of a year and seven months wrote every day, indicating that day, date, and month. It is also letters, as some of these days included messages between Jean-Paul Sartre and various acquaintances. However, he ultimately titled it "The Notebooks," which has a broader and more comprehensive connotation than diaries and letters, consistent with the nature of these writings that are outside classification. Not to mention that in some aspects, they take the form of daily chatter that disregards all formal writing, in addition to other forms that borrow conversational communication styles in different contexts, such as investigations, political speeches, newspaper articles, postcards, and free associations. Although these appear as dreamlike material, in other places, they are characterized by warm and bold confessions, among other types of discourse. Sartre demolishes everything and takes the reader to places where nothing is believable, not even himself. The first thing that catches attention in all this systematic destruction is that he breaks away from all familiar writing styles, so his writing does not follow a single pattern, even his sentences are always chaotic.