Thursday 10 January 2008
When I first read Simone de Beauvoir
I only found out late last night that yesterday was the centenary of Simone de Beauvoir’s birth. Of the rash of media coverage caught up with today, I particularly enjoyed the series of personal appreciations by intellectuals, writers and feminists in the online Guardian, especially Lynne Segal's (though the level of readers' comments is pretty damn depressing - ugh!). Hard to believe she was born 100 years ago, since she was still very much alive and active when I first read her.
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Jean: thanks for this lovely glimpse into a period of your past. And present. I admit to having been a bit clobbered by the pounding rhetoric of Le deuxième sexe and irritated by its circuitousness, but I'm sure I'd have more patience with it now.
I used to have shelves full of white shiny Folio editions too. Few survived my many moves. But libraries are good for this.
If Beth and I ever get a commentary section of qarrtsiluni launched, this is exactly the sort of essay we will be looking to publish. Very moving. Thanks.
Yes, very moving and personal, Jean, thank you!
Oh Jean, I can relate ... since I went through much the same experiences reading Simone de Beauvoir, including my own reenactment of a life with Sartre in the form of a brilliant Irish/English boyfriend who managed to bring out the best in me when it came to academics and theory, but whose relationships with other women drove me to strange behaviors of my own.
How I miss those times, though -- the clarity of thinking and the muddle of feelings....
Thank you for this post!
Hmmm... I ws hoping that TypeKey would have my right name when I used it just now to leave a comment for you ... "balatron' is Maria of "small change" over at smallchangeblog.com.
Maria
What a wonderful post! I, too, lived and taught in France for a year and fell in love with Beauvoir whilst there (L'Invitee, did it for me). And although I didn't find a Sartrean soulmate, I certainly would have done if I could!
Jean, you write so vividly that I can almost enter your 20-year old mind and space. I was similarly excited by Simone when I first read her and remember writing in my diary that I wanted to have the kind of relationship she had with Sartre. Of course, when it came to it, I too found it hard to cope with the constitutionally incapable of fidelity man. I tried the tit-for-tat retaliation but alas, love gets in the way. I think the same thing may have applied to Madame de B. especially when Jean-Paul didn't tell her about some of the affairs he was having, contrary to their 'opennness' rule.
I loved this, how vividly you call it back, and how exceptional and courageous you were and are.(Employing sensitive 20 year olds as lycee assistantes seems to be a particularly crass form of sadism in the educational system, they can't get them now and I'm not surprised.)
I'm never sure about revisiting the authors that have seemed so powerful in one's youth, it often seems disappointing.
Wasn't there a tale of Sartre saying to someone that the secret of successful relationships with women was never to tell them the truth. "Even the Beaver?" they asked, "Especially the Beaver!" he replied. The glamour of such 'open' (and why is it always in inverted commas?) relationships was perhaps not all it was cooked up to be.
I've been away from blogging too much because of book - editorial revisions etc. Am thrilled to read more about you, Jean, and especially about De Beauvoir. I have been thinking about reading some of her stuff now that the book is on its way ... this has convinced me.
Smiles.
Tamar, I would most recommend any of her several volumes of memoirs or her book about old age, or A Very Easy Death, about her mother, or, if you want fiction, L'Invitee (She Came to Stay). The Second Sex, is one of her earliest works, very rambling and perhaps not as engaging as much of her work, unless you are particularly interested in what she was the first to say about a specific aspect of feminist analysis.
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