Book Description
These three long stories draw us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises. In the title story, the heroine's serenity is shattered when she learns that her husband is having an affair. In "The Age of Discretion," a successful, happily married professor finds herself increasingly distressed by her son's absorption in his young wife and her worldly values. In "The Monologue," a rich, spoiled woman, home alone on New Year's Eve, pours out a lifetime's rage and frustration in a harrowing diatribe. Enthralling as fiction, suffused with de Beauvoir's remarkable insights into women, The Woman Destroyed gives us a legendary writer at her best. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Title story is compelling; all three are depressing.
This book contains three short stories, each of them about a "Woman Destroyed."Two are utterly depressing, and one is incoherent.The middle story was stream of consciousness babbling by a mad woman character, and I couldn't even finish it.The first story was depressing, and compelling enough to finish.The third story, the title story, was very compelling, defintely a page-turner, but also depressing.

This third story, A Woman Destroyed," tells the tale of a woman whose children have left home, and she experiences empty nest syndrome, only to find out her husband has been having an affair for years, while discouraging her from seeking emplyment and encouraging her to put all her focus into the children and home.He is a real rat, but yet you can see that he is truly torn, taht he thinks he is somehow protecting his wife, while he is ultimately destroying her.The most compelling aspect is the wife her self, watching her slow demise.

women of age
This are three short stories potraying three middle class women who are past their prime and face crisis in their lives. Simone de Beauvoir - existentialistphilosopherand feminist reflected the conditiion of her contemporaries with genuineinsight and understanding. Written almost 40 years ago the book did not loose its actuality, to the contrary , it's very moving.
I would recommend this small masterpiece to anyone, butI think that mature women's audience is going to appreciate and understand it the most.

the Realm of Existentialism
Three different stories in one book:

Basically, The Monologue: is the confusing diatribe of a spoiled rich woman on-the-edge -- with a lot of mental-baggage that needs unpacking -- alone [by design] in her apartment on New Year's Eve -- the holiday is irrelevant, it could be any evening --while everyone else is out having fun.Her past, present and future are all fair game in this twisted ride with many turns and dead ends -- complete stops and bazaar imaginings.She blames everyone and no one for her current situation.Her daughter has committed suicide, her young son has been taken from her via divorce. It's filthy, it's clean.--Katharena Eiermann, 2006

A Woman Destroyed: How dumb (or in denial) can a woman be?Her husband has been having affairs with other women, on and off, for the past 10 years -- putting in all that overtime at work.All her friends know, her grown daughters know, the people her (highly-successful) husband works with know.The woman's husband finally tells her that he stopped loving her 10 years prior, but still likes her, wants her to have [his] dinner on the table in the evening, wants his laundry done -- that is why he kept living with her.He starts to tear the world she built around him (the only world she has allowed herself to know) down...feeding her imagination with well-placed destructive seeds.All his poisonous barbs on her fragile ego are calculated and exact.He knows what he wants, he wants her to give it to him -- her to do the dirty work -- her to cause their break-up.Huh?This is a very good story. Exquisitely written, realistic, existential, stays on track. --Katharena Eiermann, 2006

The Age of Discretion:Classic "but, that's not the way your Father and I raised you..." story, or, "a little too much time on my hands...so, let me dissect your life and all the reasons why".Heart warming, but not brilliant.--Katharena Eiermann, 2006, the Realm of Existentialism -- Presidential Hopeful

Fascinating and very sad
Good gods, how French women needed the feminism De Beauvoir sought to bring them.I wish I didn't sometimes think they still did....

When Monique in the title story reflects that she should have known her marriage was on the skids when her husband told her she should buy a one-piece bathing suit, she immediatley reflects guiltily that she has let her thighs get fat, that her stomach is no longer completely flat... If I were Monique, I might reflect that it was a missed chance to craquer cher Maurice on the head with a deckchair.

Instead, Moniqueimmediately stops eating (quelle surpise) and the first thing her estranged daughter says to her is that her resulting weight loss suits her.It's no wonder that after fifteen years of this, Monique is gimpless when Maurice starts an affair with a younger woman.

Sans doute, de Beauvoir was attempting a critique of such overmastering dependency, but it's also very, very raw-feeling.The price paid by those chic women for thier polish and beauty is this overpowering, constant self-scrutiny; no wonder existentialism, no wonder a modern book like Thornytorinx (in case you think the problem is solved).

This is powerful, true stuff, then, which reminded me of some of Dorothy Parker's best stories (without the humour) but I also felt irrtated with the spineless protagonists of all three stories.Don't be so needy, I wanted to scream.Go to a bar.Go to a jardin.Go to a boulanger.Live a little, before you finally die.In other words, the book feels not so much dated as in need of contestation.I would have enjoyed it more if another character had voiced the limitations of the protagonists' viewpoints.

A surprise
This was my first experience of de Beauvoir, and I remember it vividly: I was seventeen and staying at my grandparents house, supposedly studying for my final high school exams, but it was a sweltering afternoon and I was bored and listless; I found an old 70s copy of "The Woman Destroyed" on the bookshelf (it must have belonged to my radical aunt during her university days.) Anyway, I picked it up and couldn't stop reading until I finished it. While "The Woman Destroyed" described experiences very removed from my own limited seventeen year old world - mainly, the pain experienced by three different women as they grow old and watch their children, husbands and even sanity abandon them - these stories absorbed me totally. These are intense, complicated, ambiguous tales, and de Beauvoir has a breathtaking ability to capture and elucidate the knottiest of emotions. It's certainly a bleak collection of stories; de Beauvoir is unflinching and sheds no sentimental tears for her women characters. They are wrenchingly, sometimes pathetically human, and that's why you come to inhabit them so completely and care about them so much. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Amazon.com
In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir posed questions many men, and women, had yet to ponder when the book was released in 1953."One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should ...," she says in this comprehensive treatise on women. She weaves together history, philosophy, economics, biology, and a host of other disciplines to show women's place in the world and to postulate on the power of sexuality. This is a powerful piece of writing in a time before "feminism" was even a phrase, much less a movement.Book Description
(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)

Introduction by Margaret Crosland; Translation by H. M. Parshley ... Read more

Customer Reviews (36)

Worth more than gold
I wish I was aware of this insightful study on women when I was in high school or even junior high--it might have saved me some adolescent grief!

Anyone who wishes to understand more about women would benefit from reading this. Simone de Beauvoir's thinking and writing is lucid--she explains things exceptionally well.There were a few literary and philosophical references that went over my head because I wasn't familiar with an author, nor do I have a philosophy background, but overall, I was totally engrossed with it.

Some have complained that this work is dated. To my mind, it is only dated from the time she wrote it. Sure, some things have improved for women in the last 60 years in varying degrees, but it's not enough. If it were, why are there still such grave problems related to gender inequality around the world today, in the 21st century: domestic violence, violence against women with impunity, spread of AIDS, poverty, pay inequality, sexual harrassment on the job, etc.? The issues she raised are as relevant today as when she wrote them.

She clearly described and explained contradictions that women feel in love, marriage, and work. She wrote of the ways in which women's frustrations with men--and vice versa, manifests in destructive ways in relationships, how women's anxiety about work due to parental and societal expectation hinder progress, etc.Much of what she wrote I could certainly relate to!

Her historical, biological, mythical, and literary chapters in the beginning of the book provided much food for thought and helped me to understand how many ideas about women came about. Every chapter in the book seemed to flow seamlessly into the next. Whatever thoughts or doubts I had growing up and have now--she helped to clarify, from the standpoint of societal views and expectations.

I am deeply passionate about women's issues and I LOVED this work. I intend to read it again more than a few times...there is so much to learn and digest!

To what extent are women responsible for being the other?
I found this book enlightening in a number of ways, but especially to understand our contradictory feelings towards marriage and children. This book should be obligatory reading, at least for Argentinian women!

good book
Pleased with the book.We got what we paid for and what we expected.Arrived in a timely fashion.

the treaty on feminism
Anyone who is interested in women's issues needs to read this book!
To me it appears to be the best discourse on feminism ever written.Well researched it gives abilogical, historical ,psychological and philosophical persective of so called feminie condition across the centuries and outlinesit with great accuracy and professionalism. It deals with various aspects of woman's life , her roles in the family and the society , her psychology and sexuality. Sure, women's condition changed since the book was written, but it's messagestill seems shockingly revolutionary.No wonder that its publication almost 60 years ago caused so much fear and hatred.

The Second Sex Transcends Time
Simone's treatise is the most brave and brilliant piece of literature ever written about gender and its effects on the lives of everyone we know. She continues to speak the truths about men, women and privilege in society and the corrosive effects of the constructed and artificial roles that we still struggle with. The Second Sex is as essential and appropriate reading today as it was 40 years ago. To anyone interested in the roots of gender oppression, definition and equal access to opportunity, this is the go to reference book. Simone de Beauvoir has found another generation of readers who understand its appeal to rationality, historical accuracy and truth. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

An adventurous ride through time
This second volume of de Beauvoir's autobiography made me feel as if I had been transported back in time, observing her daily activities, people she interacted with, and also made me think I was privy to her private thoughts, as I had with Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, the first volume of her autobiography.

The Prime of Life continues her life from 1929--picking up where she left off in Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter and when she is finally independent of her parents, to the end of WWII--the Liberation of Paris.

After I finished the first volume, I couldn't imagine how another autobiography--a sequel, if you will, could be just as good, but Prime of Life IS equally good. I was captivated by her descriptions of enjoying her personal freedom: being able to go wherever she wished, dressed however she wished, socialize with whomever she wished, etc. I felt I was accompanying her on her travel adventures, with and without Sartre or other friends. I was intrigued by her self-criticisms of her writing. And I was engrossed in the many suspenseful moments of the second half of the book describing the war years--of the days leading up to it, the years of want during the war, and the Liberation. It all was very exciting!

I read the Penguin Books version, a purse-sized book, with its smaller font compressed into 607 pages. Don't let that scare you--most versions are larger-sized books, and therefore larger font and fewer pages; I wanted something small and compact to carry in my backpack for public transportation reading. It's a lot of good food to digest for your mind.

Engaging personal experience of a worldwide story
This is the second volume of de Beauvoir's five-volume autobiograpy, and it covers 1929 to 1944.

This one was harder to break into than the first, I felt, as she began somewhat vaguely about her philosophy, the things she was working on, etc. The first part of the book vaguely and distantly describes the beginning of her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, so the personal is perhaps rather squashed here (maybe that's why I found it less engaging than "Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter" at first). But as I made my way forward, I found the same compelling qualities of the first, and more -- as de Beauvoir is older: Her interests and her circle of friends are expanding.

This book is interesting on so many levels, and I would recommend it to stand on its own (it doesn't have to be read as part of the whole), as well. It's interesting, as the first one was, for the way she describes her life in Paris at the time (she names all the cafes, neighborhoods, etc., that she frequents), and, as the first one, because it still dwells on how she is beginning her professional life that would lead her to be one of the foremost twentieth century philosophers and writers. So it's got something on both personal and broader themes.

But this book also adds the elements of the writer, as during its years, de Beauvoir writes her first books "She Came to Stay" and "The Blood of Others." I like to read about how writers work, their processes, and de Beauvoir very interestingly dissects her work in retrospect, writing things like, "What I was trying to accomplish at the time through Francoise's character was... but I see now that she comes across as ..." De Beauvoir was a very vigilant and disciplined worker, researcher and writer, and she writes of these routines. For writers interested in how others work, where they get their ideas and how they edit and redraft, I would certainly recommend this.

But this work is also interesting on another level; its most compelling part is when she details the beginning of WWII and the occupation of Paris. Rather than summarize it with the view the passing years have given her, de Beauvoir excerpts her diaries from the time, so that the reader feels the fears, understands the unknown dangers that she felt and gets the immediacy and intimacy of the worries of Parisiens such as de Beauvoir. I really couldn't put these sections down as she wrote about fleeing the Nazi occupiers, then deciding that if Sartre were released, he would only be able to find her in Paris and her desperate journey home again.

The book also starts a theme I can see will continue in all of them, outlining her travels as she (sometimes alone, sometimes with Sartre or others) goes around France and abroad and writes of how she feels and what she discovers there. In this volume, to name a few, she goes to Greece, Spain and all over
France.

The voice of these autobiographies is somewhat distant and aloof, which I find useful, as she seems intent on presenting her life very objectively, but when Sartre is attacked or criticized, she loses this coolness of tone and makes personal attacks on his critics.

The last aspect I'll mention of this long volume (nearly 500 pages) is the circle of friends she creates. She happens to befriend Alberto Giacometti, who is my favorite artist, in Paris and writes very fondly of his intellect and engaging conversations. She meets Hemingway and is an aquaintance of Picasso and his longtime lover Dora Marr. She also meets Cocteau through Sartre's theatrical work.

I found the wartime writing of this second one particularly engaging and probably of wider interest than the episodes of de Beauvoir's daily life later on... but we'll see!

readable, juicy, challenging, fascinating
This is my favorite volume of de Beauvoir's autobiograghy. It covers her life from her graduation at age 20 to the beginning of her fame after the war, when she was about forty. This book paints a vivid piture of now famous Left Bank intellectuals; their philosophies, politics, love lives, travels, and various predicaments they inevitabley get themselves into. I stumbled across this book by accident as a teenager and read it only because I was bored. It opened up an entire world for me;existentialism, feminism, socialism, French history and culture, all of which I now study at university. This book is aslo a great introduction to de Beauvoir's THE MANDARINS, which is a fictionalized account of the same people and places ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

In Good Faith
If there was any reason for Simone de Beauvoir's claim that "I am not a woman of action....", this book proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the claim is unfounded. In an autobiography filled with heroes, villains,friends, and foes de Beauvoir cast aside all doubt that was (and still is) a person of consequence.

Hard Times: Force of Circumstance is filled (over and above her constant devotion to Sartre) with references to Claude Lanzman and Nelson Algren. We are taken into her world and all her most intimate thoughts. Her insights on Brazil, Castro, Kruschev and the Algerian conflict are from a first hand source and you really can't beat that.

Of all of de Beauvoir's acts of courage, the independent (independent of Sartre) acts relating to the Algerian conflict in general and Djamila Boupacha in particular are acts of bravery and are in her own terminology "Good Faith" as an Existentialist. De Beauvoir centers her "Action" on 3 things: motive, the act itself, and the willingness to take the consequences. As a concrete example, along with her cohort Gisele Halimi (who saw her role as Boupacha's lawyer) and Djamila Boupacha (who saw her role as sacrificial lamb/symbol), de Beauvoir was set in her role as writer. Before I go on, I should background the Boupacha case for those who have not read book. During the French/Algerian conflict, Boupacha was accused of planting a bomb (which never exploded) at the University of Algiers. Convicted solely on the merit of her confession, a confession that was extracted via torture and rape. Compelled to "Act" both Halimi and de Beauvoir moved to see the trial transferred and attention and awareness raised regarding the acts of torture in Algeria.

As much a she claims that others "Did more..." what is important to note is that the writer has an important function - that of an educator. In the realm of public vs. private, all "freedom" regarding public acts are in "good faith" if the call to action has a liberating effect on all.

In the area of perception - we see ourselves as subject and the "other" as object. Writers help us realize that to the "other" we are object to their subject. Coming back to Boupacha, de Beauvoir's actions as writer are clearly acts of "good faith". Writing the introduction to "Djamila Boupacha" and signing in as co-author is proof positive of "Action". I guess in a struggle such as this one, one cannot help but rank extent of action based on risk. In a life full with travel, writing, teaching, success and disappointment - these "Hard Times" don't seem so bad after all.

I salute de Beauvoir for a life well spent. She went beyond most of her colleagues/peers in terms of impact. Through it all, she is just as human as any of us - she cries, she hurts, she loves - she is human and she is woman (you can take that however you like) and like all of us, has struggles and triumphs. A bit like a travel diary at times, this book is highly under rated and deserves its place beside "Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter". A resounding 5 stars!

Miguel Llora ... Read more

Book Description

A superb autobiography by one of the great literary figures of the twentieth century, Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter offers an intimate picture of growing up in a bourgeois French family, rebelling as an adolescent against the conventional expectations of her class, and striking out on her own with an intellectual and existential ambition exceedingly rare in a young woman in the 1920s.

Customer Reviews (3)

Simone rocks!
I have read many biographies and autobiographies of influential and powerful women in history and many were good, but Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter is by far the best written I've come across. Not only is it very thoughtfully expressed, but de Beauvoir has me totally hooked on her writing.

So much of what she wrote about in her youth I could relate to: the feelings of being oppressed and pressures to conform to behaviors and beliefs she didn't believe in, wavering emotions of joy and pain in interactions with parents, sibling, and friends, wanting to break away from a suffocating atmosphere, and being her own person on HER terms. Many write of the same things, but she expressed exactly how she felt and thought in such a way that I felt I was right there with her! Few authors have grabbed me in such a feverish manner as to cause me to want to read EVERYTHING they wrote. I'm glad to say she is one of them. Highly recommended!

the Realm of Existentialism
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter is the first of Simone de Beauvoir's four autobiographies.

"The most innocent conversations were full of hidden traps; my parents construed my words with their own idiom and ascribed to me ideas that had nothing in common with what I really thought. I found myself repeating Barres' phrase: 'Why have words when their brutal precision bruises our complicated souls'. As soon as I opened my mouth, I provided them with a stick to beat me with, and once more I would be shut up in that world which I had spent years trying to get away from, in which everything, without any possibility of mistake, has its own name, its set place and its agreed function, in which hate and love, good and evil are as crudely differentiated as black and white, in which from the start everything is classified, catalogued, fixed and formulated, and irrevocably judged;that world with the sharp edges, its bare outlines starkly illuminated by an implacable flat light that is never once touched by the shadow of doubt."

In Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, Simone de Beauvoir lives in a stark black-and-white world with no gray areas or blurred edges.Everything is stiff and rigid -- almost suffocatingly so -- she cannot breathe (philosophically speaking) and cries a lot. "Dutifulness" has a death-grip around her throat! She abhors blatant tradition, mindless religious rites and glaring absurdity -- but, she loves Paris, books, her first cousin Jacques, writing and nature!

The Luxembourg garden in Paris (filled with picturesque fountains, diverse minds and fragrant flowers, near the Sorbonne university) plays a major (inspirational) focal point in her formative years.At a very early age, Simone decides she will become a world renowned writer -- but, in order to accomplish such a feat, must give up any idea of marriage and children -- at least in the traditional sense. She plans to focus all her creative energies toward her #1 passion, writing.

A meticulous undertaking, satisfying -- very "Dutiful". --Katharena Eiermann, 2007, the Realm of Existentialism, Presidential Hopeful

I read this 20 years ago
and I was amazed at her perception, her understanding of what it is to see as a child and how ones relation with ones parents changes. This is must reading for anyone who has been a child or is a parent. Her intelligent articulation of our experience is a gift.

I'm just about to re-read it, and I bet I'll have more to say then. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

the Realm of Existentialism...
the Realm of Existentialism...

In the middle of a drought?
If it's yellow, let it mellow.
If it's brown, flush it down.

but, if it's a murky green and comes in a dusty old bottle from ancient Egypt, whose keeper is a crusty old street beggar being marched off to his death (to decrease the population of the city of Coroma because there is not enough to feed women, children and the old -- all are sacrificed in this book) -- well, that's the "Immortality Potion" in Simone de Beauvoir's All Men are Mortal -- and, there is only enough for One!

Would you drink it?

Fosca does!

The book begins in the present day, with Regina, an actress (blond, generous, ambitious, scared of death) who is not going to live forever (being a mere mortal, et al), but would like to be remembered...and, thus, live forever.early in the book, Regina discovers Fosca, who convinces her (by slitting his throat from ear-to-ear -- and then magically healing before she can faint) that he is immortal.hmmm, I guess that would work for me.

What can one do with so much time?

a) become a conquer -- crush everything, take all the booty

b) become a political conquer -- crush some things, take some booty"I decided to change my methods.Renouncing military parades, pitched battles and useless campaigns, I put all my efforts into weakening the enemy republics by practicing cunning politics."When you have "forever" on your side, most republics are enemy republics.

c) ho-hum (bored after so many years of fighting and collecting the same old booty)-- lead your armies up to the intended target and potential booty, and then just walk away without striking?Why?because suddenly, one is faced with the absurdity of it all, and enveloped with nausea.

d) Have a son; give him everything; protect him from all things harmful -- only to have him exercise his free-will and die in battle...doing what he most wanted to do -- see "a)" above.

e) Wait a minute...if one is immortal and there are obviously no gods, all things are possible -- How about one ruler for the entire planet, forever -- but through the use of mere mortals?

...and, this is only the first half of Simone de Beauvoir's (exquisitely crafted existential tale) All Men Are Mortal!

Never a dull moment!Beautifully translated.Historically, well researched and finely tuned.One scenario seamlessly fades into the next as one traverses Fosca's adventures of Immortality.This book reeks with basic existential themes. --Katharena Eiermann, 2007, the Realm of Existentialism -- Presidential Hopeful

All Men Are Mortal by Simone de Beauvoir

All Men Are Mortal
This is an interesting book.It's a good mix for the existentialist history fan.Simone de Beauvoir did a great job of capturing the moods of the various time periods she wrote about.I'm looking forward to reading some of her other books.

Useful for courses in Existentialism
In teaching undergraduates Existentialism, I found this book to be a wonderful addition to Sartre's _Being and Nothingness_, Buber's _I and Thou_ and Marcuse's _One-Dimensional Man._In the novel, especially in the Prologue, De Beauvoir hits all the right chords and themes--the uneasy duality and unity of being-for-self and being-for Others; the necessity and contingency of facticity; the surpassing power of transcendence.Students seem to 'rest their eyes' from the abstract power of dialectic in Sartre and Marcuse on the very concrete descriptions that de Beauvoir offers.Following the novel with her _Ethics of Ambiguity_ only served to ground students further in the character of existentialism and its necessary outpouring into a finite, meaningful, ethical life.A good companion to this piece would be John Russon's _Human Experience_, especially the chapter he has on Memory and how we deposit our memories into the things of our experience.With that in mind, even ordinary passages of the novel, like the one in the Prologue where Annie makes Fosca pancakes and Regina wants them too, despite herself, take on much more meaning.For whom is the absolute?For the one who eats pancakes, the one for whom pancakes matter even when she doesn't want to want them.

This book changed me.Powerful.
An amazing book.It tells the tale of Fosca who is cursed with immortality.Only in reading his tale do you fully understand and appreciate that because life is fleeting it is perfect.To outlive all those you've ever loved, as Fosca does, would be torture.
A must read.

Being immortal is a curse
For various reasons I'm no fan of Simone de Beauvoir, but her All Men are Mortal is one of the ten best novels I have ever read. The book is about a man, Fosca, telling the story of his life, which started 6 centuries ago. Fosca is immortal and has lived through many important historical episodes, such as revolutions and conflict, and he has also loved a number of women in his life. The first thought that comes to mind when thinking of an immortal person is "what a lucky guy". However, as this book clearly shows, without death, life has no meaning. For instance, Fosca goes into battle, but knows deep down he risks nothing and he is not the hero his fellow soldiers think he is. But the most memorable part of the book describes his relation to the woman he has loved most in his long life. Although Fosca tries to hide the fact he always remains as young while his wife ages, she eventually discovers the truth and rejects him because she says his devotion to her means nothing : she is devoting her life to him while he will have hundreds of other wives after her. Without sacrificing our life or part of it, we give nothing. At the end of the book Fosca wants nothing more than to be able to die like every other mortal human in order to give a meaning to his life. Too long as a book, but with profound implications. Unforgettable ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

the Realm of Existentialism
"There is no more obnoxious way to punish a man than to force him to perform acts which make no sense to him, as when one empties and fills the same ditch indefinitely, when one makes soldiers who are being punished march up and down, when one forces a schoolboy to copy lines."

What will the modern man do when slapped in the face with the absurdity of his own existence?Become an adventurer, passionate, serious, intellectual?Where will his values come from when there are no values -- how will he create them out of nothing? Is it easier to adopt a game full of illusions created by someone else? de Beauvoir forces the reader to come face to face with the absolute absurdity of the human condition, and then, proceeds to develop a dialectic of ambiguity that will enable the reader not to master the chaos, but to create with it.This book will probably alter many well-rooted philosophical perceptions -- so, reader beware!I could have done without the dramatic image of how the Nazi's conditioned themselves to become insensitive to human suffering (de Beauvoir used as an extreme example), but oh well... This book is a keeper, and very quotable! Highly recommended, especially for those diving into the Realm of Existentialism! --Katharena Eiermann, 2006

Great Teaching Text for Existentialism
This is an excellent and original work of philosophy, closely related to the contemporary ideas of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, but quite unique and not reducible to their work.I find it to be one of the best books (indeed one of the few books) to use to teach existentialism in introductory classes.I recommend skipping the first chapter, because it is self-consciously "literary," (in an obscure way), and contributes nothing essential to the book.Chapter 2 is the core of the book, and it is an incredible and compelling piece of writing that brilliantly discusses the distinctive nature of childhood experience, and then develops a dialectic of "bad faith" that offers a sort of system for understanding personality types--ways, that is, of embracing (imperfectly) our freedom.The third chapter studies politics in a very thoughtful way, (though I find it is often lost on my intro students because they just don't have enough experience of political realities to appreciate the significance of what she is saying).This text is often wrongly belittled by commentators (and, indeed, de Beauvoir herself wrongly said disparaging things about it), but I think it is one of the classic texts of existential phenomenology and deserves to be widely read.

Great Teaching Text for Existentialism.
This is an excellent and original work of philosophy, closely related to the contemporary ideas of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, but quite unique and not reducible to their work.I find it to be one of the best books (indeed one of the few books) to use to teach existentialism in introductory classes.I recommend skipping the first chapter, because it is self-consciously "literary," (in an obscure way), and contributes nothing essential to the book.Chapter 2 is the core of the book, and it is an incredible and compelling piece of writing that brilliantly discusses the distinctive nature of childhood experience, and then develops a dialectic of "bad faith" that offers a sort of system for understanding personality types--ways, that is, of embracing (imperfectly) our freedom.The third chapter studies politics in a very thoughtful way, (though I find it is often lost on my intro students because they just don't have enough experience of political realities to appreciate the significance of what she is saying).This text is often wrongly belittled by commentators (and, indeed, de Beauvoir herself wrongly said disparaging things about it), but I think it is one of the classic texts of existential phenomenology and deserves to be widely read.

Concise Existential Account
By exploring the meaning of "existence before essence" and the fundamental reality of choice, Beauvoir presents the reader with a livable program for life in the modern and multiplicit world; namely existentialism. Ethics is both concise and poetic, maintaining a clarity that Being and Nothingness lacks. The Second Sex is essentially an entailment of the ideas explored in this book. Few other philosophers of the 20th century were able to combine practical philosophy and rigorous metaphysics with such eloquence.

This book changed my life.
This book changed my life.In precise, but understandable terms, this book offered a compelling view of existentialism, devoid of the terminological wilderness of other books on the subject (e.g. Being and Nothingness). ... Read more

Book Description
This definitive biography is based on five years of interviews with de Beauvoir, and is written with her full cooperation. Bair penetrates the mystique of this brilliant and often paradoxical woman, who has been called one of the great minds of the 20th century, and surely, one of the most famously unconventional figures of her generation. "As a reference work . . . Simone de Beauvoir can be considered definitive".--The Atlantic. 16-page photographic insert. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Lots of information but - yawn - hard work to get to it.
Turgid.There is no question this book is based on genuine and scholarly research. But the ordinary but informed reader is better leaving this one to the academicians.

Comprehensive and Detailed - an Existensialist Must Read.
Bair works really hard at making it clear that Sartre and De Beauvoir were two sides of the same coin. Larger than life as always but deeply and painfully human too. Despite the eventual demise of their "professional" relationship, and the eventual move of Sartre to study Flaubert and De Beauvior to her feminist crusade, the two are inextricably linked. Did she really have as much control (specially in the end) over Sartre and his life? We will never know. What Bair does though is succeed in making her human more than all of De Beauvior's work ever could. Despite the fact that De Beauvior and Sartre are larger than life, and they always will be, Bair makes her subject - human, vulnerable and understandable. It is comprehensive and exhaustive journey (despite whatever errors there might be), one worth taking at any junction in the readers Existential journey.

Miguel Llora

Bad book!
According to Claude Lanzmann there are several major errors which do occur in Bairs book, and basically it's gives a rotten and unworthy presentation of de Beauvoirs life and work.

/Leah Greber

Complete
Really, this book was a page-turner, a book of facts so well-written it made one want to know more, more, more, even when the knowing was almost painful out of de Beauvoir empathy. I wanted to read it as a companion tode Beauvoir's autobiographical series and was particularly grateful to Bairfor pointing out incidents in which de Beauvoir "guilded thelily" when she recounted her own life. De Beauvoir's autobiography andthis make perfect companions for a study on auto/biography and itssubjectivication. (Also see Silent Woman by Janet Malcom.)

I had readprevious biographical material on de Beauvoir, but none I ever felt was socomplete, and helped me to know her so well. I strongly recommend this ashistory, literary criticism, psychology and philosophy.

Too repetitive, lacks analysis of her works and her ideology
The value of this biography is that it adds new facts andcorrects some of SdB's own mis- representations of her life.But it'stoo repetitive, often concentrating on insignficant chronologies of her trips, etc.Lacks sufficient explanation of the stultifying catholic education she rejected early in her life (was it guilt-inducing jansenistic sexophobia, the doctrine of a caring God, etc) or of the basic existentialist tenets which guided her life, such as the self-creating life project, absolute responsiblity for choices, etc.Badly in need of a final summing up chapter listing and analyzing the very disparate opinions about the contradictions and import of this amazing woman, eg was it unfathomable tenderness or simply self-delusion that enabled her to transform the ecstasy she felt with Nelson Algren into the sublimest and most poignant love affair?In many aspects of her life SdB could be a example for many women, but after reading this book one is still left wondering how and why. ... Read more

Book Description
In 1983 de Beauvoir published Sartre's letters, maintaining that her own letters to him had been lost. They were found by de Beauvoir's adopted daughter, and published to a storm of controversy in France. Tracing the emotional and triangular complications of her life with Sartre, the letters reveal her not only as manipulative and dependent, but also as vulnerable, passionate, jealous and committed. ... Read more

Book Description
The autobiography of literary doyenne Simone de Beauvoir. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

MEMOIRS OF A DUTIFUL GIRL FEMINIST MUST READ
Simone de Beauvoir was one of the rare women writers who overcame the odds against her sex in the early 20th century and got her work published. You can imagine how much focus and hard work it took her to be heard among the heady intellectuals on the Existential scene at the time. She had to be a tough woman with enormous self confidence to command the respect and admiration of intellectual giants like Sartre.
When I first read MEMOIR OF A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER, I was drawn to the title and intriqued by de Beauvoir's interesting life story. And of course she is French.
Simone de Beauvoir was a woman of extraordinary intellect and beauty. Her legendary love affair with philosopher Jean Paul Sartre was the inspiration for the personal story at the center of the famous Existentialist's ROADS TO FREEDOM. This riveting trilogy, which begins with the phenomenal AGE OF REASON was my favorite reading experience at Wellesley. The only other reading marathon that comes close to that memorable read is the months I spent immersed reading Japan and reincarnation in Mishima's tetralogy SEA OF FERTILITY a few years later.
The French novel love affair started with a class at Wellesley in 1971 or 1972 with the late great writer George Stambolian where we read 19th century novels in the original French partnered with a history seminar where we studied the same period in France through history texts and novels. The pioneer scholar and advocate for gay writers and photographers M. Stambolian was exceedingly handsome and charming as well as brilliant. I fell in love with reading the French texts and kept going up into the 20th century on my own long after I left Wellesley.

MEMOIR OF A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER is an important read for young women yearning to understand the meaning of their existence. De Beauvoir's complex contemplation of her life from girlhood to womanhood and her observations of how the political and religious institutions of her time affected women make this book basic reading for feminists and women's history scholars. That de Beauvoir's voice was ever heard is testament to her genius. That millions of women worldwide can read words she penned nearly a century ago is testimony to how far we have come.

Have a look into the mind of a genius
An intriguing and fascinating look into the first years of and intellectual and a woman of genius. By reading this book you
will be taken on a tour of young Simone's wishes, hopes, illusions, disappontments, strength and weaknesses. You will also get a living potrait of French society in the first part of the XX century. Are you curious about who were the friends
of this great artist and philosopher, how she formed her character, what shaped her life and destiny? You will find it all here. Beware that Simone's mind had a strong tendency for
abstraction so you won't find here lots of juicy details, or a sequence of emotional adventures like in Rousseau's Confessions.
Principles, abstract thinking and reflexion had a great weight
in Simone's life and this book is principally the biography of her mind. The force of Simone's drive to be someone, to find something important and meaningful to do, her stubborn desire to find a sense for her existence, her need to "tell to everyone what she felt she had to say" glows throughout the book and is probably its principal beauty.

The Formation of A Philosopher
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter is the first in a series of autobiographies by Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir tells the reader of her early days as a child and she concludes while she is a young women with the loss of her beloved friend Zaza. The memoir is at times a bit dry, and dull, but I dont think it was the intent of Beauvoir to write an exciting tale of her childhood. Instead I believe that the book was written more to show the path Beauvoir took in being an intellectual and why. Many times in the book French bourgeios soceity is criticized by Beauvoir because there was a double standard that exisited. For instance as Beauvoir writes about her mother"Convention obliged her to excuse certain [sexual] indescretions in men; she concentrated her disapproval on women; she divided women into those who were 'respectable' and those who were 'lose" (38). All throughout the book the reader is presented with a double standard-- men do what they want have carrers, jobs etc. while women must be pure and stay at home to have children. Not only is bourgeois society criticized, so too is the Catholic church in its regards to French private and public education. Besides the main themes Beauvoir talks about her childhood recolections-- her visiting relatives, her love of books, and her friends which culminates in the death of her life long friend Zaza. Beauvoir sees Zaza death as the fault of the French bourgeois system becuase Zaza died died of a broken heart at not being able to marry her love.The book is full of criticisms, and odinary tales. The best atribute of the book is that it presents the reader to the world of early 20th century French bourgeois society.

PORTRAIT OF THE PHILOSOPHER ASA YOUNG WOMAN
It is interesting that a previous reviewer at the site called this the most accessible volume of Simone's memoirs while another wrote that this is not the best place to start with Simone.I agree with the latter.I havecome to the conclusion that Simone's own diligence sometimes brought her toher knees. This was a woman capable of working for hours on end. . .anddrinking just as hard. Clearly, she was ambivalent about herself:she knewshe was of superior intelligence -- she finished her aggregation at the ageof 21 -- yet she maintained a position that she was second to Sartre.Shesaid that she never felt handicapped as a woman and yet she suffered frommany of woman's woes -- crying and jealousy.I started with Simone'swar-time memoirs -- Force of Circumstance -- which are so riveting thatthey draw you immediately into them.I expected the same sort of lush andwonderful writing here.I may have approached this volume with myhopes too high. A word of warning: Catholicism obviously made quite animpact on the young Simone.Readers who are not Catholic maybe mystifiedby this book.

A blueprint of one woman's genius
This is the first (and, admittedly, the easiest to read) of Beauvoir's multi-volume journals. It is an amazing account of the philosopher's beginnings, and I press it on young women in high school and college whenthey talk to me about their struggles to understand their place in ourworld. ... Read more

Book Description
Set in Paris on the eve of World War II and sizzling with love, anger, and revenge, She Came to Stay explores the changes wrought in the soul of a woman and a city soon to fall. Although Franoise considers her relationship with Pierre an open one, she falls prey to jealousy when the gamine Xavire catches his attention. The moody young woman from the countryside pries her way between Franoise and Pierre, playing up to each one and deviously pulling them apart, until the only way out of the triangle is destruction. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Existential relationships are never easy.
Relationships are never easy, even for intellectuals like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.Set in pre-World War II Paris, de Beauvoir's first novel, SHE CAME TO STAY (1954) provides a fictional portrait of her unconventional relationship with her lifelong partner, Sartre, and her protege, Bianca Bienenfeld.Their menage a trois began in 1938, when de Beauvoir introduced Bienenfeld (aka Bianca Lamblin) to her partner/lover, Sartre, who was thirty-three, and ended in 1940 when, at de Beauvoir's encouragement, Sartre abandoned Lamblin on the eve of WWII.Although SHE CAME TO STAY may be read as a love story examining the complex dilemmas posed by love (demonstrating existential relationships are perhaps easier in theory than in reality) and the destructive powers of relationships, it also succeeds on a more philosphical level.

SHE CAME TO STAY tells the story of Francoise, her lover, Pierre, and Xaviere, an emotionally unstable young woman from Rouen who comes between them.The novel demonstrates that a relationship can lead not only to ecstasy, but also to a personal, life-changing crisis. The romantic threesome de Beauvoir creates for Francoise sears her protagonist "like a sharp burn" (p. 207).Francoise becomes angry, insanely jealous, and then disillusioned with her dream of "one life, one work, one love" (p. 233) with Pierre.Eventually, her relationship leads her to experience life without meaning:an existential "abyss of nothingness" (p. 291)."It was like death," de Beauvior writes, "a total negation, an eternal absence . . . the entire universe was was engulfed in it, and Francoise, forever excluded from the world, was herself dissolved in this void" (p. 291). By the end of the novel, Xaviere is destroyed by an act of revenge, and Francoise is alone and estranged from Pierre.

While SHE CAME TO STAY may not measure up to the writing standards de Beauvoir later set with THE MANDARINS and THE SECOND SEX, it is nevertheless a powerful novel. Readers interested in reading more about de Beauvoir's real-life triangle with Sartre and Lamblin may consider reading Lamblin's memoir, A DISGRACEFUL AFFAIR, in which Lamblin offers her first-hand account of her unconventional relationship with the two French existentialists.

G. Merritt

A Proud Emotional Creature
Francoise and Pierre Labrousse are a couple.Xaviere is a student from Rouen.Xaviere's real life has yet to begin.Pierre suggests that perhaps he and Francoise can help Xaviere manage to live in Paris.

When Xaviere comes to live in the same hotel as Francoise, she spends much of her time alone in her room.After the rehearsal of Pierre's play, Pierre and Francoise go to a bar by habit.When Pierre becomes interested in a person he is able to carry on a conversation for hours with angelic ferocity.This is part of his generosity.Francoise persuades Xaviere to accompany her to the bar.

An example of Xaviere's thinking is Xaviere holds that concerts are a ridiculous convention since it is silly to arrange to hear music at a certain time.Pierre speaks of his confounded mania for making a conquest.While Pierre is acting Francoise is able to work on her novel.After Xaviere moves to Paris Francoise finds that she has little free time.

At a party Francoise and Pierre's sister Elisabeth view the actresses as having an embalmed youth to their appearances.Francoise believes that the life of Pierre and hers that is perfect as to form is beginning to lose its substance.Shebecomes ill and has to move to a nursing home for care.The night of the New Year's Eve party Pierre had offered to give up Xaviere and now it seems to Francoise that Xaviere and Pierre are in love.

When Francoise and Pierre are in the presence of Xaviere she becomes upset because she, Xaviere, feels her feelings are being dissected.Since Pierre and Francoise are supposed to have a perfect love, she, Francoise,becomes annoyed when Pierre and Xaviere bring their love to her attention.Francoise endeavors to focus on everyone as part of a trio.Elisabeth thinks that Xaviere is a sly fickle girl.Francoise comes to the realization that watching Xaviere so closely is squalid.

Both Pierre and Francoise seek to influence Xaviere and she suffers from their attention.In the end Francoise chooses to be alone, Pierre is in the service, (it is 1940 or so and the war is going on), and Xaviere is estranged.(Alternatively Francoise and Xaviere end up dead.)

This is the novel, I have read, in which the author worked out her ideas about freedom, existentialism, and in turn transmitted them to Jean Paul Sartre for philosophical exposition.I have also read that situations such as the one described here gave rise to ethical complaints from parents causing De Beauvoir to lose her license to teach. The book has always been too schematic for my tastes as fiction qua fiction, but one cannot help being intrigued by the historical notoriety of the book.

A riveting study of jealousy
This is Simone's first published novel and writing this book removed her own writer's block and enabled her to go on to win the Prix Goncourt and, of course, write "The Second Sex." While it is hardly"feminist," after all, the main woman character has anintellectually intimate but apparently sexless relationship with a man whorules her life, it is a woman's book.How many women, involved in atriangle, have wanted to eliminate their rival?While Simone left her reallife rival unharmed, her alter ego Francoise murders her rival.Based onthe trio well-known to readers of Simone's memoirs, this is a flawed butstill enjoyable work.First of all, it is a little too quotidian.We knowthat Simone was a work-a-holic who parceled out her day into writing andconfering with J-P, but that sort of lifestyle is too accurately portrayedin this novel.Second, there seems to be a basic flaw in the"plot," that arises from the basic situation of the Sartre-deBeauvoir shared life and that is while both Francoise and Pierre can excusetheir own sexual explorations, when their protege Xaviere exercises her ownFREEDOM OF CHOICE (remember that slogan from the 60s? Not to choose is tochoose?That was Sartre.), her elders discipline her.Why does Simone, awoman with impeccable philosophical credentials, contradict her ownontology?At the same time, this book accurately portrays some very realhuman emotions.

a serious study of emotion and reason
While _The Mandarins_ is her most popular novel, _She Came to Stay_ offers another powerful writing of Simone De Beauvoir. She draws a delicate sketch of relationship between three characters of Francoise, Pierre and Xaviere, and reveals the complicated role of "reason" and"emotion" of an individual in his/her relations with otherindividuals.The story unfolds as supposedly ideal relationship betweenFrancoise and Pierre based on "reason" is interfered by Xaviere,whose expressive nature both enchants and threatens them. They attempt anambitious idea of building a "trio" in love, but all three end upexperiencing emotional pains and intellectual confusions. It appears in amost dramatic way for Francoise, whose well-controlled jealousy and hatredthroughout the book burst out as killing Xaviere in the end. Part I readsrather slow with a little too much details on Francoise's hidden emotionsand thoughts and indirect descriptions of the psychological status of twoother characters, but in Part II everything tightens up as the storyfocuses on Francoise's thoughts and actions. This is an impressive piecethat makes a serious study of emotion and reason by almost"purely" focusing on human relations. ... Read more

Book Description
A poignant account of her mother's death from cancer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

the Realm of Existentialism
Think: dealing with Death and Dying of loved one

"For indeed, comparatively speaking, her death was an easy one."Don't leave me in the power of the brutes.""

It all boils down to have an operation and perhaps live a bit longer or euthanatize and be done with it.The subject is death and dying is a main theme of Existentialism, as it deals with the individual and reality. Simone de Beauvoir's mother is 78 and lives alone -- by choice.She has broken the main femur (A bone of the leg situated between the pelvis and knee in human beings. It is the largest and strongest bone in the body. Also called thighbone.).While in the hospital, it is discovered that this is the least of her problems, as she has peritonitis, a blockage in her intestine, a tumor, cancer.She will surely die (almost immediately) without an operation.Simone must decide.Very well written, A Very Easy Death takes place over a 4 week period -- that is how long de Beauvoir's mother lived, after the operation -- cramming as much life and reality between the book covers as possible, without being sappy or tedious.

"I thought of all those who have no one to make that appeal:what agony it must be to feel oneself a defenceless thing, utterly at the mercy of indifferent doctors and over-worked nurses.No hand on the forehead when terror seizes them; no sedative as soon as pain begins to tear them; no lying prattle to fill the silence of the void."

This book is about as real as it gets!--Katharena Eiermann, 2006,, the Realm of Existentialism -- Presidential Hopeful

Simone,Simone,Simone
Simone,Simone,Simone.
Whenever someone asked me "did you read Sartre?" ,I usually intend to say "yes,lots of books of him ".but actually other than 1-2 books,I heard Sartre a lot from Simone.Anyway,I read this book 10 years ago probably,and as for the other books of her I enjoyed much.It is about the death of her mother.I remembered that in one part of the book ,her mother wanted to hear that Simone becomes religous,but Simone still defended her believes about being a nonreligous woman,eventhough her mother was dying.I really like that ,because no matter what ,she was always behind her ideas,believes,feelings.She was a strong woman.She was smart.I do not admire people,but if I would, I would admire to her.I remember a saying of her which I want to be :"Being a woman,who thinks like a man,and who feels like a woman".In short,in this book you can see her strength as an independent woman again.Enjoy her ,and start to think independtly.Thanks to my dadfor putting Simone's books in his library so that I could discover it.

Forget Sartre; De Beauvoir by way of Camus
While enjoyable, this isn't a particularly great memoir.I find it to be a bit choppy, and most of the characters (including De Beauvoir herself) come off as exceedingly unlikable.Still, the subject of death is an interesting one, and the novel is short enough that anyone who is interested enough to consider reading it really has nothing to lose.

What I do find most interesting, however, is how De Beauvoir (who consults her over-rated companion Sartre in the memoir) seems to be preaching Albert Camus' concept of the quantitative life, and living life with full consciousness.Ultimately, the memoir is rather tragic because De Beauvoirs' dying, once inauthentic mother realizes this on her death bed, when it's too late.It's an excellent message, and although it's better from Camus' pen, it is interesting hearing it from De Beauvoir as well.

Death Comes Not So Easily
This is a book I would put on a must read list. Death has been spirited away behind closed doors, and banished from our thoughts until it forces its way through, as it always will. This is a must read for anyone working in "Health Care" or with the elderly, also anyone counseling families and the dying. I would hope to find it on a required reading list for medical schools as well. de Beauvoir gives an honest, raw account of her thoughts and fears as her Mother dies; it is a bit reassuring to see that not all of those thoughts are pure and idyllic. She gives any ethics committee a firm reference pointin the consideration of assisted death vs. assisted living. Read this book, it will enhance your life.

I LOVE MY MOMMY!
The connection we have with our mothers is sacred.They are what brought us into this world, but the only thing that could separate us tighter is death.Our spirits and memories are ours to keep, but there is no longer any physical connection.In "A Very Easy Death", a relationship with a mother and daughter had gotten closer because of a death.In this death is what bonds the daughter to give full dedication and devotion to be with her mother. Unfortunately, the death that is connecting both daughter and mother is the death of her mother that is about to occur.Cancer is what is taking her mother away from her.While her mother is suffering and fighting against the cancer, the daughter is there by her side.She notices, "a full-blooded, spirited woman lived on inside her, but a stranger to herself, deformed and mutilated (Beauvoir 43)."Simone, the daughter, sees her full-hearted, spirited mother inside, but the cancer is the stranger of her body that is deforming and mutilating her. Although, Simone shows no suffering when she's around her mother, but she is indeed disturb when she's alone.Her mother is leaving her.Simone state "everyday had an irreplaceable value for her.And she was going to die.She did not know it:but I did.In her name, I revolted against it (Beauvoir 83)."Simone is spending precious time with her mother - spending valuable time, but the cancer is what is stopping her mother to notice it.The cancer has taken over her mother's life.This still does not stop Simone from being with her though. There is nowhere in doubt I'll leave my mother while she's miserable and suffering all at once.I cannot bare to think my mother actually leaving me, but it has to happen eventually.In "A Very Easy Death", Simone's mother demonstrates a role model on her own daughter and me.She displays a true role model that is fighting against her death.I enjoyed this novel dearly.It showed me that I should always keep that connection I have with my mother until the day "I" die. ... Read more

Book Description
In her most famous novel, The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir takes an unflinching look at Parisian intellectual society at the end of World War II. In fictionally relating the stories of those around her --Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, Nelson Algren --de Beauvoir dissects the emotional and philosophical currents of her time. At once an engrossing drama and an intriguing political tale, The Mandarins is the emotional odyssey of a woman torn between her inner desires and her public life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

A discussion stimulator by Ms.de Beauvoir
The Mandarins was the book of the month for an expat book club based in Moscow, Russia.We chose the book for the following reasons:life and values in post-war France, politics torn between Soviet Russia and communism on the left and the US and capitalism on the right, feminism, intellectualism.What we got was a lively discussion about idealism, returning to life after a war, trying to make sense of values and priorities.Most of us felt a sense of accomplishment by actually finishing the book.It is a formidable read, but worth the effort, less as a novel, but more as a snapshot of a time in which we did not live, but with elements of our current life in post-Soviet Russia still as relevant today as they were 60 years ago.

A book that still has validity and truth in today's world
The quality of writing was doubtless a little undermined by its English translation (probably through no fault of the translator), and so in my opinion deserves little comment - the style can be a little dry at times, though not exactly boring. There are some wonderful descriptions, and neither did I find them overly dramatised, but again I found myself questioning them as to their pros and cons, wondering what they had lost or gained going through the translation process.
I knew nothing about de Beauvoir's relationships to the characters she wrote about, and their connections to the people she knew (mine being an archaic charity shop edition with an extremely non-commital and uninformative blurb). In all events, I was happily surprised by the scope and emotion she conveyed with the book, despite its aforementioned dry tone. Somewhat like Lessing's Shikasta, I felt it to be one of those massively long pieces which led quite slowly to the finale, and yet at the same time the slowness was important to lay the seed of thought in my head of what she was trying to tell the reader.
This review is probably a bit of a turn-off to prospective readers, but in actuality the book is a stunning achievement, and well worth reading for those ignorant people like me who know nothing about post-WWII France, the intellectuals, etc. Simone gives us all of this information, but in a truly poetic and retrospective manner, portraying the uncertanties, political, moral and emotional dilemmas that these intelligent people had to justify to themselves, with realistic exactitude.
Additionally, she not only gives us these clever trains of thought, but portrays accurately the treacherous uncertainty of involving oneself in politics, faced with a world of high society idiots who clasp the strings of power, being from the viewpoint of intelligent, but innefectual revolutionaries. This chilling message she conveyed, to me resonated icily with the present day; a double echo from what it was then, and what it still is today - perhaps a comment on the human condition in a big world?

A life-affirming work of genius.
This novel is the work of a brilliant mind wrestling with big thoughts during Europe's darkest hour, and it is easy to understand why it won France's highest honor, the Prix Goncourt.Set amidst the ruins of post-World War II Paris, THE MANDARINS (1954) provides a fictional portrait of Simone de Beauvoir's existential, intellectual circle of friends, which included her lifelong partner, Jean-Paul Sarte, Albert Camus, Aurthur Koestler, and her lover, Nelson Algren.(In her fiction, de Beauvoir drew heavily from her own life and the people in it. As a result, many readers of THE MANDARINS have drawn comparisons between her character Anne to de Beauvoir, Henri to Camus, Anne's husband to Sartre, and Anne's daughter to de Beauvoir's lover, and just as many readers have approached her novel primarily as an thinly fictionalized account of de Beauvoir's passionate affair with Algren.)Certainly, THE MANDARINS may be read as a love story examining the complex dilemmas posed by love and marriage (i.e., existential relationships are easier in theory than in reality).However it also succeeds on a more profound level.

In the confusing aftermath of a world war, when oppression and fascism threatened personal freedom, de Beauvoir insightfully struggles with the question, "where do we go from here?" in THE MANDARINS.Her fascinating circle of intellectual characters demonstrate that life is difficult and confusing, and to live a meaningful life, we must accept the responsibilities that come with freedom.In the end, one must decide to either founder in apathy--things "are never as important as they seem; they change, they end, and above all, when all is said and done, everyone dies.That settles everything" (p. 359)--or one may listen instead to the life-affirming beat of the heart--as the heart continues to beat, and it beats "for something, for someone" (p. 610).


THE MANDARINS is truly a masterpiece and a life-affirming work of genius.And when oppressive governments continue to threaten our personal liberties, the philosophical questions that haunted de Beauvoir when her novel was published fifty years ago remain just as relevant today.

G. Merritt

Memorable record of postwar Paris
There are plenty of great books and films about the squalor of life during wartime, and even more about shellshocked soldiers coming to grips with life during peacetime.But surprisingly few novels deal with civilians faced with the task of rebuilding the devastated world around them.The Mandarins would have to be at the top of that very short list.Most critics, here and elsewhere, have tended to focus on the book as Beauvoir's record of her affair with Nelson Algren, but like all great artists, Beauvoir transforms the raw material of her life into something far more profound and encompassing, especially as it is played out against the grand, ruined backdrop of postwar Paris.The resulting book succeeds on so many levels:as roman a clef (Camus, Sartre, Koestler, and obviously Algren all feature prominently), as novel of ideas (of the "where do we go from here?" variety), as a love story (really two love stories--we can't forget Henri/Camus, whose story takes up half the book!), as a Jamesian exploration of brash New World vs. exhausted Old World culture, and finally as a portrait of an intelligent, civilized woman wrestling with her darkest impulses in the wake of Europe's darkest moment.

Is the book overly long?Probably.Melodramatic?At times.Too cluttered with phrases of the "smiled knowingly" variety?Without a doubt.But it's redeemed time and again by the keen intelligence Beauvoir brings to bear on her characters and herself.For days after I put the book down, I found myself literally pining for the company of Anne, Lewis and Henri.Is there any greater testament to a novel than that?

Finding the Conflicts and Humanity in Existentialism
The reason that I love Simone so much is defined in this book.What happens when you live with atrocities?What happens when you have to see lives terribly torn apart by evil?What can a person do?

DeBeauvior takes these questions and makes them human, and gives hope to our world.But, with any great existentialist thinker, makes the point that living is hard.To exist well we must make choices and be able to live with them.All of the characters in this book show the angst and chaos of war.How they are able to live with each other and themselves is displayed with amazing depth and insight.The complexities of women are shown vividly - especially if you have read The Second Sex.Each of the woman characters are shown struggling with their societial place as Other, yet, show this trancendence that is even more important to her gender.

This is also an incredible demonstration of the power and pain of love.I read this book as a teenager and found that I reread it at least once a year to remind me of the beauty and pain of life.It is a wonderful book about being a woman, and a thinker.I recommend it to anyone who is disturbed about events in this world and how to deal with them. ... Read more

Book Description

They are one of the world's legendary couples. We can't think of one without thinking of the other. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre -- those passionate, freethinking existentialist philosopher-writers -- had a committed but notoriously open union that generated no end of controversy. With Tete-a-Tete, distinguished biographer Hazel Rowley offers the first dual portrait of these two colossal figures and their intense, often embattled relationship. Through original interviews and access to new primary sources, Rowley portrays them up close, in their most intimate moments.

Customer Reviews (9)

Vivid and engaging portrait of a relationship -- but philosophically unenlightening
This well-researched and detailed portrait of a remarkable and unique relationship between two remarkable and unique people is never less than engaging. It is well worth reading for anyone who has even a passing interest in the intellectual climate in France just preceding, during and after WWII, a period that produced an amazing list of artists and philosophers: Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze, Camus, Sartre, Beauvoir, Lanzmann (all of whom figure in this narrative), the nouvelle vague in cinema, and many more. For that matter, it is well worth reading for anyone who is interested in life, and the details of these lives are intrinsically fascinating (which is not always to say admirable). Rowley had an almost unprecedented access to historical materials, and to many of the people involved, and put together a sensitive and coherent picture of Sartre and Beauvoir from roughly the time they met to their deaths. That she is able to paint such an intimate and compassionate portrait that does not shy away from depicting faults and inconsistencies in their lives and thought is a testament to Rowley's skills as a writer and as a historian.

The major weakness of the book is that her talent with philosophy is not equally on display here. In the course of telling her story, Rowley mentions the philosophical works of Sartre and Beauvoir, but says very little to illuminate the connection between their thinking and their lives. Even where she does discuss such connections, the links are fairly superficial. (Or, the connections are of the sort that can be made at the level of pop psychology between an artist and his or her work.) Existentialism comes across in her book in its fairly popular form: that there is no essence of human being and that we define ourselves through our actions. The connection between Sartre's existentialism and phenomenology gets summarized in the claim that Sartre learned from phenomenology that philosophy could be about everyday life. What she doesn't note is that beyond the fact Sartre learned from phenomenology to focus on everyday life, he also engaged in a systematic effort to redescribe life -- to show that our ordinary ways of conceiving everyday life are deeply flawed. Beauvoir's own significant and original philosophical work (apart from "The Second Sex") is hardly discussed -- her "Ethics of Ambiguity," for example, is never even mentioned. What she doesn't note is that Beauvoir had developed a powerful typology of ways in which one might respond to and realize freedom in one's life, in her "Ethics of Ambiguity" -- and it would be interesting to consider where she must have fit on that continuum. Perhaps most egregiously, she fails to emphasize that for both Sartre and Beauvoir, existentialist freedom is not primarily about the rejection of traditional bonds but about the recognition of the ways in which we bind ourselves to others through our projects and commitments -- so that "authenticity" is not just about being oneself but about the discovery that one cannot avoid belonging to others and to deny one's commitments to others is bad faith. If Sartre painted this inevitibility as a kind of hell in "No Exit," Beauvoir especially in the "Ethics of Ambiguity" depicts an acceptance of the ambiguous commitments that emerge from our being with others as the only genuine freedom and the only possible salvation. (In spite of her desire to depict Beauvoir as independent of Sartre, and her emphasis of Sartre's unwavering respect for her as a thinker, Rowley doesn't really give a sense of the independence of Beauvoir as a thinker -- and what comes across for the most part here is the popular but I think misleading picture of Sartre as the philosopher and Beauvoir as the memoirist who occasionally also applied philosophy to subjects like women and aging.) On this reading, then Sartre and Beauvoir come across primarily as writers whose ideas and commitments evolved over time to become more political, who rejected standard morality including and especially the moral prescriptions that reinforce the family, and who shared a unique form of relationship (that involved fidelity to each other in the sense that they would always tell each other the truth, even where they were willing to lie to others with whom they had secondary relationships). One might have wished for a more detailed account of their thinking if only because such an account would help to pose the question how their life must have been conceived by themselves, in accordance with their own thinking. Otherwise, and in spite of the book's other merits as a piece of history and biography that can complement a study of their work (or of the period), the book ends up reading like a soap opera for intellectuals.While I think this point deserves emphasis I don't want to overemphasize this.One of the merits of Rowley's book is that she takes as her model of biography the autobiographical works of Beauvoir -- and to that extent she does employ a similar approach to reflection on their lives that Beauvoir employs in her published works.I just woul