Sartre rejected Proust while embracing American crime fiction

Evidence

Even their more elevated choices in American fiction were suspect, since cultured Americans were less inclined to appreciate their own modern novelists than the filigree meanderings of Proust — whom Sartre abhorred. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 551

Categorization

• XREF: Pairs with existentialism’s broader anti-escapism: Sartre’s dismissal of Proust echoes his turn away from introspection toward engaged, gritty social reality — relates to the reader’s orientation goal for the movement.