At the Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell (2016)

A wide ranging exploration of the lives and ideas of the existentialist philosophers.

Nonfiction Review: At the Existentialist Cafe is subtitled "Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails," which gives a clue that this is not your grandma's existentialist handbook. Sarah Bakewell tells the story of and explains existentialist philosophy through the lives of its proponents, which makes for a human, engaging, and accessible story. Full credit to her for bringing life to such a rarefied subject, and for bringing such a rarefied subject to the general reading public. Although this has become the most successful pop philosophy book since Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), within there is the makings of a serious and informative textbook. Bakewell is a master of disguise: she can teach and entertain in the same sentence. For the serious reader, At the Existentialist Cafe provides a highly useful Cast of Characters, detailed and extensive supplementary chapter Notes, a  thorough Select Bibliography, and a well-organized Index. Her short but incisive discussion of Simone de Beauvoir's groundbreaking The Second Sex (1949) is a high point of the book. Bakewell notes that The Second Sex "can be considered the single most influential work ever to come out of the existentialist movement." Worth noting is that The Second Sex relates practically to everyday life, as did the Epicureans and the Stoics, than does the philosophy for philosophy's sake that fills these pages.

Today it's possible to live in a superficially religious country (where one does not have to believe, but cannot too openly disavow the customs of belief), caught somewhere between the less religious countries of Europe and the truly devout countries of the world. It's surprising how shocking and controversial, even unnerving, existential philosophies once were, and how little they move the needle now. Much of what Bakewell relates, seismic at the time, is taken for granted today. Many people now seem to live existential lives, although most probably would not identify as existentialists. "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom," wrote Kierkegaard, and today anxiety is a natural and constant element of our lives. As such, the philosophy is less interesting, less necessary, to many modern readers except historically, as it is simply how many live, like fish in water. Bakewell notes: "Existentialist ideas and attitudes have embedded themselves so deeply into modern culture that we hardly think of them as existentialist at all."

As is common with many biographers these days, Bakewell gives herself time in the spotlight along with her subjects, but unlike most biographers at least she does it with taste and restraint. Interesting to me is that Bakewell has a philosophy degree, but she is primarily a biographer, yet explains philosophy better than any book I've ever read by an academic in the field. Perhaps we need biographers to be the new teachers, combining lives with knowledge. For the average reader interested in existentialism, this is the perfect book for painless pedagogy.  [5★]