Customer Reviews (3)

A very economical and simple to operate utility oriented product
As phones go, this is one of the best for the family to enjoy operating, cut tel costs, and simplify your communications network.Its clarity is outstanding and its simple to operate for the entire family.

are old people real people? that is de Beauvoir's question.
are old people real people? that is de Beauvoir's question.
When I first read this book 30 years ago, I thought it was so great I assigned it to my students in a course on gerontology. Now that I am older than the author was when she wrote it, I realize how little she really knew about old people.
de Beauvoir is not a sociologist or a gerontologist, but a professor of philosophy and leftist French writer. She (and her partner Jean Paul Sartre) often took official positions on certain topics as a matter of principle, but with little understanding coming from the heart. She has a clear philosopher's gaze and is utterly pitiless. She doesn't cut people any slack.
Her great contribution here is that she brings a wider attention to what it's like being old in terms of how societies conceptualize old age and in terms of old age as a subjective experience by quoting from the lives and works of famous authors and artists who lived to a ripe old age, defined as anything over 60!How times have changed.Currently the average life expectancy in the US is over 75! (It's over 83 in Kansas).
I now live in a town of 15000 whose founding mayor was elected over the age of 80 (he died in office, suddenly, at 86 in the middle of a development planning project).
Many of my neighbors are pushing 90 or 100 (and over) and keep active walking for miles and swimming for hours daily.Are they real people? You bet!Are some of my neighbors with canes, walkers, hearing aids, cataract surgery and nurse's aides or companions real people? You bet!
The amazing thing about old age is people just want to keep on doing what they are used to doing for as long as they can.
Many of the peculiarities of age that de Beauvoir describes are nowknown to be due to physical medical problems which are treatable.However, her work is still valid for those last few weeks or months of severe impairment before death.
You just won't feel good after reading this book.

Understanding our older loved ones
I read this book by when my grandmother was living her last days in a nursing home. There was so much I didn't know about older people -- what is important to them, how they think, what their needs are, how they approach death. Simone de Beauvoir, the celebrated French thinker and writer offers an in-depth study of older people as individuals and older people in society. She also looks at the treatment and psychology of older people across time in western civilization. Anyone who is a caretaker of an older family member or friend, or cares about understanding older people will find this book remarkable and thoughtful. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

the best of Simone de Beauvoir's novels
This novel is far better than any of her other novels.It has a gripping plot (in spite of being a European novel and a "literary" novel).It dramatizes some of the essential themes of Sartrean existentialism and throws the reader into the world in a vivid way.

It has not received the promotion of her other novels, probably because it has a plot.Unless you share the prejudice against compelling fiction, do not let this preconception make you miss one of the best novels of the twentieth century.

Thought provoking and beautiful
Through the study of the social ethics of France under German occupation, Simone de Beauvoir describes the true question at the heart of existentialism - 'How much responsibility can one truly have for other peoples' lives?' - and the ethical and moral questions that are raised as a consequence. That said, the book is lively and weaves the philosophical theme into the story seamlessly. Profound and uplifting. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Simone de Beauvoir met Nelson Algren in Chicago in February 1947, when a mutual friend arranged for him to serve as her tour guide for two days. The attraction was immediate, and within two months they were in love. Because Algren was so alien to de Beauvoir's world, she spent time describing events and people to him she might otherwise have taken for granted. The result is that de Beauvoir's 300 surviving letters to Algren are unusually rich in detail--love letters with a conscious undercurrent of French social history. Translated and annotated by Kate Leblanc, they offer amusing insights into postwar Parisian life and characters, delivered with the charm of the nonnative writer.

In one letter, de Beauvoir sums up Albert Camus as "an interesting but difficult guy. When he was not pleased with the book he was writing, he was very arrogant; now, he has got a rather great success and he has become very modest and sincere." She coolly describes a dinner party where she witnessed the separation of the apexes of mind and body: "Sartre was alone in a corner, eating sadly some corned-beef, and I sat in front of Rita Hayworth, trying to speak to her, and looking at her beautiful shoulders and breasts which could have made so many men crazy but which were so useless for me." This is essential reading for devotees of the Paris literary scene and other literary romantics. --Regina MarlerBook Description
Now in paperback, the "amazing" (Los Angeles Times) and "engrossing" (Publishers Weekly) love letters of Simone de Beauvoir to Nelson Algren. Called "intimate, intelligent, and sincere" by The New Yorker, the more than three hundred love letters written by Simone de Beauvoir to Nelson Algren after their love-at-first-sight meeting in 1947 are collected for the first time in A Transatlantic Love Affair. A unique cross between a personal memoir and an insider's intellectual history of Left Bank life in post-war Paris, this "tender and intimate" (Booklist) collection chronicles their passionate affair, spanning twenty years and four continents. Penned as she was writing The Mandarins, America Day by Day, and The Second Sex, the letters provide a new backdrop for those now classic works. Frank, tender, and often humorous, they are praised by The Nation as "fascinating" and by the Los Angeles Times Book Review as "reveal[ing] a lighter, funnier, and more physically sensuous de Beauvoir than we are used to." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Fantastic book with insights into de Beauvoir's character
To correct the reader from Brookline, this book is exactly the same as "Beloved Chicago Man"- it's the same book with different titles in the US and the UK.As the reviewers below state, this is a great window into the relationship between Algren & de Beauvoir, and shows the truth feelings of de Beauvoir.

Tiresome, Repetitive, Naive
Having read all of De Beauvoir's autobiographies, this book was disappointing. The content can only be described as a mere extension of 'Beloved Chicago Man' (again relating to her relationship with Nelson Algren). In the latter, the letters to Algren are immediatly captivating, but quickly become repetitive rather than developed and by the end seem embarrassingly girlish and naive leaving a strong feeling of voyeuristic intrusion. This latest publication is an unnecessary extension of Beloved Chicago Man.

Exceptional Characters, Universal Human Conditions
This tome unites fascinating, ethereal elements of time and place with the more mundane features of long-distance love.

First, the unique bits of which only Simone de Beauvoir can honestly write:The intellectual sceneof post-WWII Paris, firsthand knowledge of Camus and Sartre, a complexnetwork of friendships mixing the communities of European intelligentsia,fascists, existentialists, writers, and actors.Then, of course, there isthe head-over-heels love in which she found herself with Nelson Algren,noted American author, immediately upon making his acquaintance.All ofthese interesting facets add spice to this book.

Surprisingly, what trulymakes this book unforgettable, impossible to put down, at timesembarrassing in its candor and recognizable to the reader are its themes ofcommonality to everyone else on the planet.Anyone who has ever fallen inlove, suffered instant infatuation for another, missed the touch of afar-away lover, or slogged through a long-distance relationship willrelate/commiserate/understand/anticipate both the words and the feelingsbehind them.

Simone de Beauvoir wrote all of these letters to NelsonAlgren in English (not her native French); happily, the misspellings andgrammatical errors are preserved without correction.The reader will noteprogressive improvement in her English abilities as the correspondencelengthens and her relationship matures.

I believe all readers will findthese pages touching, satisfying, and intriguing.Those of you who haveexperienced long-distance passion will enjoy the letters as well, but withthe distinct pain of knowing the inevitable conclusion in advance.

Amazing insights in de Beauvoir
This book gives a real insight into de Beauvoir's character- after reading these letters, one will never again look upon her as a cold intellectual.If anything, they show that the passion she felt with Algren could notcompare to whatever sort of relationship she had with Sartre.Reveals deBeauvoir's true self more than any of her autobiographies. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Simone de Beauvoir was a philosopher and writer of notable range and influence whose work is central to feminist theory, French existentialism, and contemporary moral and social philosophy. The essays in this volume examine the major aspects of her thought.They explore her views on the role of biology, sexuality and sexual difference, and evil; the influence on her work of Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, and others; and the philosophical significance of her memoirs and fiction.Download Description
Simone de Beauvoir was a philosopher and writer of notable range and influence whose work is central to feminist theory, French existentialism, and contemporary moral and social philosophy. The essays in this volume examine all the major aspects of her thought, including her views on issues such as the role of biology, sexuality and sexual difference, and evil, the influence on her work of Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, and others, and the philosophical significance of her memoirs and fiction. New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Beauvoir currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Beauvoir. ... Read more

Book Description
In this intimate memoir, Bianca Lamblin tells the story of her menage a trois with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, and their abandonment of her, a Jew, at the onset of World War II. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Tangled up with Sartre and Simone.
Although I'm not usually interested in other people's sexual affairs, reading this telling memoir of the unconventional relationship shared by French existentialists, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and her protege, Bianca Bienenfeld, was intriguing. Lamblin was a sixteen-year-old student at the Lycee Moliere when she was seduced by her professor, de Beauvoir ("the Beaver"), who was twenty-nine.Their menage a trois began the following year, in 1938, when de Beauvoir introduced Lamblin to her partner/lover, Sartre, who was thirty-three (p. 170), and ended in 1940 when, at de Beauvoir's instigation, Sartre abandoned Lamblin.Lamblin was a Jewish teenager at the time, and the breakup occurred on the eve of WWII. However, it was only after she was later humiliated by the 1990 posthumous publication of de Beauvoir's LETTERS TO SARTRE, in which de Beauvoir ridiculed Lamblin and her "pathetic nature" (p. 7), and exposed their intimate relationship to the world, that Lamblin wrote this account of "the threesome." As the saying goes, "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," and this is a work of "bitter memories" (p. 102), written by a woman dismissed by the two lovers who nearly destroyed her life.

De Beauvoir acknowledged to Sartre that their liason with Lamblin filled her with remorse for the suffering it caused her protege."She's the only person to whom we've really done harm, but we have harmed her," she wrote, "she weeps all the time--she wept three times during dinner, and she weeps at home when she has to read a book or go to the kitchen to eat . . . She's terribly unhappy" (p. 133).At one time Lamblin also admitted to de Beauvoir that despite the fact that she "suffered greatly" because of her liason with de Beauvoir and Sartre, they nevertheless gave her philosophy and "a broader view of the world" (p. 173).However, with time, Lamblin's perspective shifted, and sadly she concludes her memoir noting that, in the end, "Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir did me only wrong" (p. 173).Stated differently, Lamblin's memoir is a testament that her mentors taught her the cruelty of love.

Lamblin's memoir also offers a fascinating, first-hand glimpse into the infamous "morganatic marriage" (p. 27) or "essential" relationship between de Beauvoir and Sartre: no marriage (too boring), no children (too demanding), and freedom to live their own lives and pursue their own sentimental and sexual adventures.Their only promise was to tell each other everything without lies (p. 23). She contrasts this unconventional relationship against her own subsequent marriage to Bernard Lamblin.Although, on a personal level, Lamblin may succeed in exposing her former lovers in a very different light than what they probably would have preferred, her memoir fails in the end to diminish the intellectual stature of de Beauvoir and Sartre.

G. Merritt

Andre Breton's Justification?
SdB attacked Andre Breton for having made love and dumped Nadja, a prostitute.In this book it is revealed that while SdB was attacking Breton she was committing statutory rape with a teenage student.This book puts SdB's many calumnies (she wanted power, and would use any lie or innuendo or sleep with anyone that mattered to get it) into a deeply troubling perspective.It's no wonder that her hero was Chairman Mao.

Castor's castoff
A tragically desperate attempt of Bianca Lamblin, the "contingent" by-product of the Simone de Beauvoir/Jean-Paul Sartre "essential" relationship, to retrospectively appropriate her life after Journal de guerre and Letters to Sartre revealed all the chilling detachment with which Simone de Beauvoir adroitly manipulated her as the unsuspecting victim of the "threesome." Despite her claim to have finally regained the status of a subject of her own story, Lamblin's final stance as a victim undermines her narrative. One almost wishes she would have stopped a couple of paragraphs short of the end. Her final decision to reject the experience as "having done her only wrong" leaves her with all the pain she tried to alleviate by writing.

She started the book with a purpose of making her life cohere in the face of betrayal. Her naive loyalty and guilelessness help her "cling instinctively to life," as she seems to find consolation in her simple moral choices and unselfish devotion. Despite her plain, predictable, unengaging style, I sympathized with Lamblin in her struggle to maintain a precarious balance between objectivity and self-vindication. She tries to distance herself from Simone de Beauvoir, stressing their differences and disengaging herself from her famous lover's philosophical influence by reclaiming her own war-time experience as a Jew and choosing to have a family and children. And yet she continues to be constantly tormented by her inferiority to the existential duo - her attacks on Sartre's "revolutionary" ideas, for instance, remain purely emotional. She is profoundly not at peace with herself, irritated, angry, and oftentimes behaves like a hurt child, throwing the same words back at her offenders ("Truly, I would call THEIR intelligence monstrous and at the same time downright feeble").

And yet her innate grace and her perhaps never completely squelched attachment to "the Beaver" make her stop short from launching an open smearing campaign. Because she is keenly aware that the reader will be perceiving her book as an attempt at "retributive justice," she makes an effort to stay as objective as possible, which, in my opinion, is exactly what prevents her from venting her hurt feelings. Despite a simplified Lacanian explanation of her life Lamblin offers at the very end of the book, her story is a tragic example of an unresolved conflict.

But perhaps what vindicates her is a sense the reader gets of a fundamental private turmoil and instability on which Simone de Beauvoir's seemingly "philosophically justified" world was based. It comes as a nice reprieve for someone who was tempted to make her ideas from The Second Sex into life principles.

Professeurs Dearest!
On the surface, A Disgraceful Affair is Bianca Lamblin's account of her brief triangular relationship with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre and how that affair affected her life long after Sartre's, then Beauvoir's,romantic interest waned. Its carefully guarded sentences reveal a woman whohas been deepley hurt by her mentors but who is being painstakingly carefulin her effort to be fair as she sets the record straight. Readers lookingfor juicy tidbits will need to look elsewhere (Lamblin describes Sartre asa charming wooer but an unskilled lover, and does not waste inkelaborating).

If the reader takes the facts as the author presentsthem--and there is nothing implausible or erractic in what Lamblinrelates--what unfolds is a brief, startlingly clear reflection on what itmeans to evolve one's own workable philosophy of life based on the cardsone is dealt and the living examples one has to choose from. After herrejection by her existentalist mentors, Lamblin consciously chose aconventional, slightly leftist, life. Her mentors' narcissism seems to haveturned her away from a life focused on pursuing celebrity and gettingpublished (aside from a few academic philosophy articles, A DisgracefulAffair is Lamblin's only published work, one she didn't begin writing untilshe was in her seventies and all the key figures in the story had died).Unlike her mentors, she chose to marry and have children, decisions thatdisturbed and disgusted Beauvoir.

Those looking for portraits of Sartreand Beauvoir should know that Beauvoir (unfortunately called "theBeaver" throughout the book, a nickname that might have been betterleft untranslated) is the more fully realized. Lamblin renewed herrelationship with Beauvoir after the War and continued to have platonicmeetings with her for the rest of Beauvoir's life. Lamblin's depiction ofBeauvoir's life after Sartre's death is one of profound pathos andemotional disenfranchisement. By that point, Beauvoir's alcoholism wasquite advanced and the reader senses that the great thinker and prolificwriter's death must have been a lonely, troubled, and confusing endindeed.

The reader should be warned that there is a sort of craftlessnessto Lamblin's writing. For me, this added to the sense of authenticity ofwhat she was attempting to communicate. She often tells the reader what sheis going to say--or why she is relating a particular incident--beforelaunching into her account of an event. This tends to pull the reader upshort. As off-putting as this might be, for me it further convinced me ofthe author's essential guilelessness and I ultimately judged this practiceas awkward but not offensive. In addition, I suspect that Julie Plovnick'stranslation of the French original is a little wooden and literal-minded(for instance, she translates "lucide" as "lucid" in acontext where I suspect "perceptive" might have been the intendedmeaning).

Readers interested in the way people, and especially women,make meaning of the troubles life throws their way will enjoy this book.Other books along this line that I have enjoyed are Girl Interrupted bySusanna Kaysen, The Liar's Club by Mary Karr, and A Loving Gentleman: TheLove Story of William Faulkner and Meta Carpenter by Meta Carpenter Wildeand Orin Borsten. ... Read more

Book Description
Much has been written on Simone de Beauvoir, one of France's leading intellectual figures of the 20th century. The sheer volume of her autobiographical writings testifies to her indefatigable questioning of the nature of existence and her personal and public engagement in the world over the best part of a century. This study aims to re-evaluate her extensive autobiographical ouvre, exploring its place in relation to the French autobiographical canon, and in the light of recent theorisations of autobiography. It presents readings which engage critically with existentialism, feminist theory, and autobiography studies generally, in particular focusing on the question of 'autothanatography', a term developed by theorists such as Jacques Derrida and Louis Marin. A new reading of the autobiographies via the lens of thanatos is presented with questions of gender in mind, and the nature of autobiography as genre is also explored more fully with particular attention paid to narrative voice. Close readings of the autobiographical ouvre combine with contextual details, critical overviews and links to recent developments in critiques of Beauvoir's fiction and philosophy. The study would be of particular interest to scholars in the following areas: 20th century French literature and culture; Autobiography studies; Literary theory; existentialism; Women's studies. ... Read more

Book Description
In Simone de Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman Toril Moi shows how Simone de Beauvoir became Simone de Beauvoir, the leading feminist thinker and emblematic intellectual woman of the twentieth century. Blending biography with literary criticism, feminist theory, and historical and social analysis, this book provides a completely original analysis of Beauvoir's education and formation as an intellectual. In The Second Sex, Beauvoir shows that we constantly make something of what the world tries to make of us. By reconstructing the social and political world in which Beauvoir became the author of The Second Sex, and by showing how Beauvoir reacted to the pressures of that world, Moi applies Beauvoir's ideas to Beauvoir's own life. Ranging from an investigation of French educational institutions to reflections on the relationship between freedom and flirtation, this book uncovers the conflicts and difficulties of an intellectual woman in the middle of the twentieth century. Through her analysis of Beauvoir's life and work Moi shows how difficult it was - and still is - for women to be taken seriously as intellectuals. Two major chapters on The Second Sex provide a theoretical and a political analysis of that epochal text. The last chapter turns to Beauvoir's love life, her depressions and her fear of ageing.In a major new introduction, Moi discusses Beauvoir's letters to her lovers Jacques-Laurent Bost and Nelson Algren, as well as her recently published student diaries from 1926/27. ... Read more

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Book Description
Word count: 9088. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

At the end, another fine biography
ýAll Said and Doneý by Simone de Beauvoir is the final of five volumes of de Beauvoirýs autobiography, and is different from those that precede it, which basically progress on a chronological basis. This book is arranged thematically, and de Beauvoir picks up a theme or area of her life, addresses it for the 10 years that the book focuses on, 1962 to 1972. Early in the volume, she addresses books sheýs read, movies, theater productions, etc. A particularly interesting chapter focuses on the deaths of some of the people she has known, including Sartreýs mother and de Beauvoirýs close friend, Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti. While these sections have interesting moments, the brief time she spends on each book, movie, or production and the shortness of the sections isnýt a very engaging read. The discussion is really a gloss, and feels a little obligatory on de Beauvoirýs part.
The book really picks up in pace and interest when de Beauvoir moves on to address the travels sheýs taken in these ten years toward the end of her life (she died in 1986). She first goes through trips she made for fun, with Sartre or onher own. Then she addresses trips they took for primarily political reasons, to Egypt, to Israel, to Russia, Estonia, etc. Sheýs always a very engaging travel writer as she has a deep knowledge of the places sheýs traveling, and, often ý especially on the political trips ý she and Sartre are given guides and access to things one might not be able to see on oneýs own.
Toward the end of the book, she writes about her feelings about the Vietnam War, going into some detail about two tribunals that worldwide intelligentsia held to try the United States for war crimes in Vietnam, particularly for genocide (the United States was found guilty). De Beauvoir was very against Franceýs actions in Algeria, and she now turned her attention toward what she felt was a violation of the rights of the Vietnamese for self-determination to make a statement with her colleagues on their political situation.
This book was illuminating of de Beauvoirýs character in a rather new way. Toward the end, she emerged to me as something of an ideologue, rather than a woman who was committed to certain principles that she addressed issue by issue. When the students took over the Sorbonne in the late 1960s, she supported their actions because it was to overthrow the status quo; the students wanted more control of their studies, they wanted to abolish the class system between students and faculty and they didnýt want to have to accept professorsý edicts. She seems, from this book, to believe that any system that is very long held should be overthrown on that point alone. She was disappointed when she and other editors at Les Temps moderne offered the rebellious students an opportunity to write for their political review and the student leaders turned them down because their publication had become an institution (it was too long standing). She does not comment on this.
Also in the late 1960s, de Beauvoir and Sartre officially broke with the Soviet Union, which they had supported as part of the noncommunist left for some time, because of its actions in Czechoslovakia. While de Beauvoir constantly ridiculed the United States for its imperialism, up until this time, even after visiting Estonia and Lithuania after they were controlled by the U.S.S.R., she did not criticize the Soviet government. But after the Prague Spring was crushed, she and Sartre had to admit that they were not pleased with the ýthought-policeý actions of the Soviets and their interpretation of the communist party. She also laments that Marx is so disregarded in the U.S.S.R. by the time of this volume, that there is no longer any one there who can speak with authority on Marxist theory or philosophy.
I really enjoyed this volume, for its differences with its sister volumes, and for what it reveals about de Beauvoir. I recommend it, and think it could certainly stand on its own. ... Read more