Sartre's conception of hell: surprise, no red-hot pincers. More philosophically interesting and psychologically penetrating is a room with pleasant furnishing and two other likable people.
No Exit operates on a good premise and an obvious style, both of which clear some land for quality intellectual farming.
The genius with the wild eyes is not fully out to play-- his scary brainpower is restrained to a simple drama, a piece of theater stimulating and affecting. The Pillars of the Intellectual Earth are not upheaved, but Sartre contributes a play of buzzing energy and authentic worth. It's difficult to get out of one's mind.
I exit the experience (insofar as exiting is possible) wondering whether hell is the finite -- the imposing death -- or the infinite, the inescapable.
Of course, that suffering/chaos/wrongness is the rule for existence, the place to which all things return in time, is a mere proposition. I could claim as easily that in infinite time all things fall toward stability/harmony.
But I can comfortably assert that I don't want to be anywhere for infinity. Death as a release is probably among the greatest blessings the cold universe has ever given us.
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