This is the futuristic spin-off sequel to Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Age of Reason (1945). Taking place in the year 2045, exactly 100 years after the events of The Age of Reason, it depicts the events of that novel in a new century.

One with distinct science fiction overtones, a world where existential philosophy and personal freedom mingle alongside flying cars, supreme alien overlords, and robots.

Oh yes, and there are raisins. Society has been overrun by an alien species obsessed with dried grapes, thus ensuring the quandary of humanity regarding surplus intake of raisins (and occasionally sultanas).

The Age of Raisins: Existence Precedes Dried Fruit in Modern Sci-Fi Sartre Adaptation That Makes Little Sense

Written by Jeanne and Paul Sorter (a husband and wife team based in Bolton of Greater Manchester), the duo self-published the work in January 2024. In an exclusive interview, they told us this.

“I’d ‘eard Sarter were for dead clever clogs posh people and we’re real smart so we tried Ages of Reasons at t’local book club and it were shite. So I says to Paul, me husband, ‘I can do better than that, me!’ And ‘e were like, ‘You’re dead right on that, woman!’ So we wrote the book, right, with an actually, like, interesting story not like all that… what’s the word? Popsicles. That’s the one.”

Across a meandering and idiotic narrative the main character, Matthew Smith, lives in 2045 Paris and is a slave to a slobbering species of super advanced alien beings.

When not busy farming raisins seven days a week for the consumption of the alien overlords, Smith wonders over the nature of his existence.

He starts questioning whether he has any free will. The prose for the work hints at Smith’s lingering sense of existential angst that yearns to the universe from a position of total, relentless, agonising nihilism.

“Bloody ‘ell! I’m stuck in the bloody mud… pickin’ these bloody raisins. Bloody aliens comin’ down ‘ere… takin’ our jobs… BASTARDS! What’s it all for, eh!?”

Critics of the work have noted 60% of the prose is one long complaint about aliens visiting Earth and taking over human jobs. This had led astute observers to adroitly note the work may be a right-wing criticism on immigration.

Jeanne and Paul Sorter explained to us they didn’t write the work to have any polemical stance, they were chiefly interested in depicting an authentic Lancashire male stuck in Paris whilst slaving under a Communist state.

“The bloody book int about politics! It’s about LIFE. A man, ‘e’s in Paris, but ‘es from Lancashire. An’ ‘e’s thinkin’, ‘Shit! I’m in Paris, I’m from Lancashire, an’ these aliens is makin’ me pick these bloody raisins!’ So, it’s about raisins mainly. An’ sci-fi. That’s why the final thirty pages is a pitched space battle wiv explosions, an’ space babes, an’ raisins, an’ then Smith wins the day and we get all our jobs back and ‘e has some fish, chips, ‘n’ gravy wiv mushy peas. It’s a great book. Anyone who says it ain’t is a dickhead!”

Despite its universal themes of raisins, aliens, and fish & chips, The Age of Raisins has so far only sold 25 copies.

Jeanne and Paul Sorter have blamed this failure on THE WOKE MOB and the UK’s open immigration policy, as opposed to recognising their novel is an incoherent mess.

Notes On Lancashire Slang and Existential Theory in The Age of Raisins

The Age of Raisins does, for the first time, merge (in a weird kind of way) Sartre’s literary genius alongside Lancashireisms. The work contains:

• 1,345 uses of “bloody ‘ell”
• 1,234 uses of “shite”
• 678 references to fish & chips with gravy
• 400 uses of “Ey up, cocker!”
• 175 uses of “Ta very much!”

Jeanne and Paul Sorter also make regular uses of scatological humour (à la Mozart), with 135 uses of “poo”.

Intermingling with the above are (although these aren’t exactly standard traits of Lancashire in action, so take them with a pinch of mushy peas):

• Slobbering alien maniacs from the deep recesses of space.
• Numerous space battles and explosions.
• Spaceships left-right-and-centre (though not in a political bent).
• Raisins.

All-in-all, the work is 60% complaining about immigration, 30% space battles, and 10% toilet humour.

Its abject failure to become a bestseller is, sadly, a telling indictment on the nature of the modern book reader. Philistines, the lot of you! 🖕