Jean-Paul Sartre's 'Nausea' is a foundational work of existentialist literature, chronicling the spiritual and intellectual awakening of Antoine Roquentin, a historian living in the fictional town of Bouville. Through Roquentin's diary entries, readers witness his escalating sense of an unsettling 'nausea'—an intense, visceral awareness of the gratuitousness and contingency of existence itself. This profound realization shatters his perception of reality, revealing the inherent lack of meaning in objects and events. The novel explores themes of freedom, responsibility, and the burden of consciousness, as Roquentin grapples with the terrifying implications of absolute freedom and the necessity of creating his own values in a universe devoid of inherent purpose. It's a powerful meditation on alienation and the human condition.