Sartre's second century

144 Chapter Ten
And what is L'Age de raison {The Age of Reason), the title of the first
volume of this same unfinished tetralogy, if not a virtual synonym of l'age
murl And is this title not meant to apply, ironically, both to Mathieu
Delarue, the main character, and the age itself? Puns are not rare in
Sartre's work: Walter Redfern points out, as Sartre himself explains in Les
Mots {Words), that he had been, like Flaubert, his "enemy brother",
addicted to punning from early childhood. 7 But whereas a postmodernist
like Derrida will flaunt his puns, Sartre on the whole prefers to keep his
hidden. Thus, instead of calling his novel VAge mur, which would, it is
true, have lost perhaps somewhat in irony, he calls it VAge de raison. It is
true also that L'Age mur would have been awkwardly reminiscent of Le
Mur, and would have risked drawing attention to its hidden wordplay.
Let us look at some of Sartre's proper names. There are some,
certainly, which contain plays on words which are immediately obvious:
Frantz, for example, in Les Sequestres d'Altona {The Condemned of
Altona), symbolises France, as the author has confirmed; Genet becomes
Saint Genet, comedien et martyr because he bears the name of the patron
saint of martyred actors; Sartre bestows on Simone de Beauvoir the
nickname le Castor not only because she is industrious, but also because
her name resembles the English word "beaver"; Bouville, the name of a
real place not far from Le Havre, which is where La Nausee {Nausea) is in
fact situated, becomes the fictional scene of the novel because of its name,
with its evocation of mud {boue, in French, plus ville, town), and the
distaste that the port of Le Havre arouses in the hero, Roquentin. 8 But
there are also other linguistic games that, while not hidden, are less
obvious. The three "inseparables" of Huis clos {In Camera or No Exit),
Garcin, Ines, and Estelle, have names that interlock {GarcInEstelle). The
role of Goetz, in Le Diable et le bon Dieu {The Devil and the Good Lord),
is no doubt based on the actions of the historical Gotz, who had inspired
daydreams in the infant Sartre. 9 But could not Sartre have chosen this
name partly because Gbtze in German, a language he knew, means "idol"
and thus "diabolical god"? Other proper names involving wordplay are the
7 See Redfern, "Applying the Tourniquet".
8 Roquentin's name may also involve a play on words. Various theories have been
advanced about its meaning, but it appears to me to have affinities with rouquin
(redhead or ginger nut), which is what Roquentin is proud to be. Whereas the word
marron, as we shall see, has sinister overtones for Sartre, roux and roussi, which
are used to describe any number of "red" things (houses, wood, light, cats, bushes,
mountains, plains, smells, moustaches, cities, wine, onions, and so forth), generally
have a positive sense.
9 See Sartre, Les Mots, 126.