Beauvoir, Simone De

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good book
the treaty on feminism
The Second Sex Transcends Time
NOT GOOD
exceptional achievement

The Second Sex
Simone De Beauvoir
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679724516
Release Date: 1989-12-17

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

The classic manifesto of the liberated woman, this book explores every facet of a woman's life.

Customer Reviews:

good book.......2007-06-08

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

the treaty on feminism.......2007-01-28

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 a bilogical, historical ,psychological and philosophical persective of so called feminie condition across the centuries and outlines it 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 message still seems shockingly revolutionary. No wonder that its publication almost 60 years ago caused so much fear and hatred.

The Second Sex Transcends Time.......2006-09-21

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.

NOT GOOD.......2006-09-07

after seeing The Guru on TV i got into the whole sex book thing i read all the best sellers from Mars and Venus in The Bedroom by John Gray to How To Get Any Girl Any Time by The Guru

these books changed my Life but in Particular this book was not so great because i and my fiance read it and found that it really was not too helpful and out dated

exceptional achievement.......2006-01-21

Simone de Beauvoir basically explains the sexual initiation of the female, her relations with the opposite gender, and her place in society, in the style of her classic manifesto of the liberated woman.
As a book published in 1949, Beauvoir's achievement for a woman at her time is really exceptional...

Average customer rating:

the Realm of Existentialism
A Short Philosophical Work...That is Brilliant
Great Teaching Text for Existentialism
Great Teaching Text for Existentialism.
Concise Existential Account

The Ethics Of Ambiguity
Simone de Beauvoir
Manufacturer: Citadel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 080650160X

Customer Reviews:

the Realm of Existentialism.......2006-11-12

"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

A Short Philosophical Work...That is Brilliant.......2005-12-16

I am in the group of people who has read this book, and has understood it completely. It is probably my favorite philosophy text, and I have read my share of philosophy texts. Unlike the worldview in other existencial writers, there is a large degree of hope and connectiveness in de Beauvoir's works. If you have seen the movie I heart Huckabees, you are probably familiar with a simplified version of de Beauvoir's ideas in this book, through the existencial detectives.

Also ignore the one star review, it is a pretty easy book to read and understand. It may take a couple of reads to comprehend all of what she is talking about, but most philosophy works are this way.

A wonderful exploration into the nature of humanity, and a wonderful introduction to de Beauvoir.

Great Teaching Text for Existentialism.......2003-12-27

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........2003-12-27

Concise Existential Account.......2003-06-09

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.

Average customer rating:

Lots of information but - yawn - hard work to get to it.
Comprehensive and Detailed - an Existensialist Must Read.
Bad book!
Complete
Too repetitive, lacks analysis of her works and her ideology

Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography
Deirdre Bair
Manufacturer: Touchstone
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0671741802

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.

Customer Reviews:

Lots of information but - yawn - hard work to get to it........2002-01-03

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........2001-01-12

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!.......1999-07-30

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.......1999-07-12

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 to de Beauvoir's autobiographical series and was particularly grateful to Bair for pointing out incidents in which de Beauvoir "guilded the lily" when she recounted her own life. De Beauvoir's autobiography and this make perfect companions for a study on auto/biography and its subjectivication. (Also see Silent Woman by Janet Malcom.)

I had read previous biographical material on de Beauvoir, but none I ever felt was so complete, and helped me to know her so well. I strongly recommend this as history, literary criticism, psychology and philosophy.

Too repetitive, lacks analysis of her works and her ideology.......1999-07-07

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.

Witness to My Life: The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone De Beauvoir, 1926-1939

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Witness to My Life: The Letters of Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone De Beauvoir, 1926-1939
Jean-Paul Sartre
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Second Sex

ASIN: 0684193388

Tete-a-Tete: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre

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Vivid and engaging portrait of a relationship -- but philosophically unenlightening
Corps au corps
Tete-a-Tete : Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre
Success despite erotomania
The human side of genius

Tete-a-Tete: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre
Hazel Rowley
Manufacturer: HarperCollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060520590
Release Date: 2005-10-04

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.<BR>We witness Beauvoir and Sartre with their circle, holding court in Paris cafes. We learn the details of their infamous romantic entanglements with the young Olga Kosakiewicz and others; of their efforts to protest the wars in Algeria and Vietnam; and of Beauvoir's tempestuous love affair with Nelson Algren. We follow along on their many travels, involving meetings with dignitaries such as Roosevelt, Khrushchev, and Castro. We listen in on the couple's conversations about Sartre's Nausea, Being and Nothingness, and Words, and Beauvoir's The Second Sex, The Mandarins, and her memoirs. And we hear the anguished discussions that led Sartre to refuse the Nobel Prize.<BR>The impact of their writings on modern thought cannot be overestimated, but Beauvoir and Sartre are remembered just as much for the lives they led. They were brilliant, courageous, profoundly innovative individuals, and Tete-a-Tete shows the passion, energy, daring, humor, and contradictions of their remarkable, unorthodox relationship. Theirs is a great story -- and a great story is precisely what Beauvoir and Sartre most wanted their lives to be.

Customer Reviews:

Vivid and engaging portrait of a relationship -- but philosophically unenlightening.......2006-12-22

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 would have liked to see a bit more reflection in the book about the relation between their lives and their more focused philosophical reflections. First and foremost, Sartre and Beavoir are engaged thinkers and a biography that rarely engages with their deepest thinking except at the superficial level of brief summary, seems to me to be lacking. Having said that, I should reiterate that apart from such misgivings I found the book to be very well written and thoroughly enjoyable and could hardly put it down.

Corps au corps.......2006-09-12

This book is a factual chronology of the relationship between Beauvoir and Sartre, particularly as it relates to their extracurricular sexual relations. It is not an in-depth commentary or analysis on how they influenced each other's thinking and writings. I found this aspect of the book disappointing.

Attention should have been paid to how Sartre's way of life runs counter to his existential philosophy- freedom in action is paramount to JPS's existential man and yet he succumbs to addictions to drugs and alcohol in his mid-to-later life. Why does Beauvoir give Sartre her uncritical approval to his meaningless, manipulative and lecherous courtships? And how does such compliance reflect on her nascent feminism?

I expect biographies of two seminal philosophers to raise such questions and provide some level of explication. Despite these reservations, I recommend this book as it is well-researched and well-written.

Tete-a-Tete : Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre .......2006-03-21

I felt part of that tangled and emotionally complex world that Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sarte wove around themselves while reading this book. It balanced the passion of their creativity with the very calculating anti-passion of their emotional lives. Never judging, just describing how one phase played into the next and the work that was born out of all that was inspiring enough. All the people who were caught up or made certain to be caught up in those two lives never really made a difference in the final out come. Their work was all that really mattered.

Success despite erotomania.......2006-02-26

De Beauvoir and Sartre, without any doubt, are among the most talented writers of the twentieth century. I have enjoyed de Beauvoir's novels over the years, even when I could never quite get connected with the turgid texts of Sartre; and Sartre could be a perfect idiot on matters political, while de Beauvoir always retained more than her share of good sense. But no matter. Both of these "intellectuals," as they are called in this book, wrote thoughtful books that deeply affected the thinking of the last century.

Now comes a book that conclusively shows one of this duo to have been, well, a sick character. A technical term might be erotomania, the insatiable drive for sexual gratification. Even when Sartre was close to death, blind, incontinent, suffering from dementia, his friends would provide him with young women that he would then proceed to grope. It was the culmination of a lifetime's obsession.

Hazel Rowley, in this scrupulously documented study, has shown us a deeply flawed human being achieve success, despite these considerable odds, at being outstandingly creative.

The human side of genius.......2006-01-15

This book vividly sets genuis in a human perspective. It is a sad story. Genine love requires fidelity and the human heart knows this even if philosophical genius doesn't. Certainly worth reading as an insight for any time. Besides, it provides a magnificent and totally unexpected view of Simone's marvelous behind.

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (Perennial Classics)

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I read this 20 years ago

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (Perennial Classics)
Simone de Beauvoir
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060825197
Release Date: 2005-08-02

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.</p>

She vividly evokes her friendships, love interests, mentors, and the early days of the most important relationship of her life, with fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre, against the backdrop of a turbulent political time.</p>

Customer Reviews:

I read this 20 years ago.......2006-05-30

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.

A Very Easy Death (Pantheon Modern Writers Series)

Average customer rating:

the Realm of Existentialism
Simone,Simone,Simone
Forget Sartre; De Beauvoir by way of Camus
Death Comes Not So Easily
I LOVE MY MOMMY!

A Very Easy Death (Pantheon Modern Writers Series)
Simone De Beauvoir
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0394728998
Release Date: 1985-02-12

Book Description

A poignant account of her mother's death from cancer.

Customer Reviews:

the Realm of Existentialism.......2006-12-30

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.......2005-01-31

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 dad for putting Simone's books in his library so that I could discover it.

Forget Sartre; De Beauvoir by way of Camus.......2002-08-13

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.......2002-03-13

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 point in the consideration of assisted death vs. assisted living. Read this book, it will enhance your life.

I LOVE MY MOMMY!.......2001-03-14

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.

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A work of real meaning, despite,..
Never thought that Sartre could make you cry?
A Beaver's Tale

Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre
Simone De Beauvoir
Manufacturer: Pantheon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 039472898X
Release Date: 1985-02-12

Customer Reviews:

A work of real meaning, despite,.........2005-03-21

I could not quite make out how to perceive this book. On the one hand it is a testament of a lifelong friendship and love. On the other hand it seems to me it is an indictment of the beloved when they are no longer around to answer. And here the indictment comes not necessarily out of a desire to injure, but simply through stating the facts about certain aspects of Sartre's life. His capacity for multiple loyalty was very great especially when this had to do with young women. And according to other sources de Beauvoir's role in these relationships was not necessarily a very good one.
Still we are talking about two very significant 'minds' who fertilized each other- two great friends who helped and inspired each other- and if one , Sartre, was the senior partner, and the other deBeauvoir the survivor who has the last say still their dialogue and their life, and this work of farewell have real meaning.

Never thought that Sartre could make you cry?.......2002-11-24

Then you need to read this book. It is Simone de Beauvoir's first-person account of the last ten years of Sartre's life, and it is heartbreaking to read in several places. Her descriptions in particular of his final few days are wrenching, and I did actually cry as she described Sartre's death. The prose is characteristic of de Beauvoir: deeply and intimately detailed, meticulous, and dense in some places. But the reading is ultimately rewarding as it gives the reader an even more thorough understanding of the devoted side of de Beauvoir--and the very human and mortal side of the great philosopher Sartre.

A Beaver's Tale.......2001-06-18

Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre were *the* couple of the 20th century. For all the immense history they created, it may be beyond our ability to imagine just how and why they were first drawn together, or more why they *stayed* together right up until Sartre's death in 1980. This two-part memoir is remarkable for its poignant intimacy, first as an historical record from 1970-1980, and then as a transcription of de Beauvoir's own interviews with Sartre during that same period of time. These two were a rough mix, as though that was a revelation. And, ironically, it's perhaps de Beauvior's own deep emotional commitment that comes through most clearly in these pages. On the other hand, we're also offered a fascinating view of their long public life together. From the times of divided German-occupied France, to the political activism of the 60s and beyond...and, above all, the writings they produced! If anything, this book reveals how moot is the point of Sartre's caustic personality, and to what extent he may have "used" her. (As if a woman of this caliber *could* be used!) Their focus was always on the change they hoped to produce in the world. Well, and for de Beauvoir, at least, there was also the issue of their own personal relationship. Therein lies the charm of this book. You won't be disappointed.

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All Men Are Mortal
Useful for courses in Existentialism
This book changed me. Powerful.
Being immortal is a curse
An Existentially Beautiful Look at Humanity

All Men Are Mortal
Simone de Beauvoir
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

All Men Are Mortal.......2006-08-21

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.......2005-11-12

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........2005-09-04

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.......2004-10-31

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

An Existentially Beautiful Look at Humanity.......2003-04-13

Simone de Beauvoir's incredible novel kicks off with Regina, an up-and-coming actress, who meets Raymond Fosca, a mysterious stranger. She brings Fosca to Paris with her, and he confides in her that he is immortal. Things change for Regina; her outlook takes on a different perspective. But this is only a small factor of the book--the majority (and the strongest part) is Fosca's retelling of his immortal life.

This book is amazing on so many levels. It gives a historical recounting, one which will interest anyone with a liking for history. It shows how history truly does repeat itself, and how some seemingly informed descisions can bring hundreds of people to their knees.

But more interesting is the philisophical aspect of the story. There are times when Fosca is down and disheartened, when he is disconnected from the world--a shadow. And then there are times when he is almost like ordinary people--capable of thought and feeling and hope. It is through this immortal life that de Beauvoir explores what it means to be human, what it means to exist, and if one can ever really, truly be immortal. It also asks that if human life is so short and fragile, is it really meaningfull?

The greatest thing about this book is that you will be thinking about it long after you put it down. And that though only adds to the sheer greatness of the book. All Men Are Mortal clings to your heart--your emotions rise and fall with Fosca's, proof that he is a great character. And it will seep into your brain, making you dig deeper into both the book and your own feelings.

Book Description

Here is the ultimate American road book, one with a perspective unlike that of any other. In January 1947 Simone de Beauvoir landed at La Guardia airport and began a four-month journey that took her from one coast of the United States to the other, and back again. Embraced by the Condé Nast set in a swirl of cocktail parties in New York, where she was hailed as the "prettiest existentialist" by Janet Flanner in The New Yorker, de Beauvoir traveled west by car, train, and Greyhound, immersing herself in the nation's culture, customs, people, and landscape. The detailed diary she kept of her trip became America Day by Day, published in France in 1948 and offered here in a completely new translation. It is one of the most intimate, warm, and compulsively readable texts from the great writer's pen.
Fascinating passages are devoted to Hollywood, the Grand Canyon, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and San Antonio. We see de Beauvoir gambling in a Reno casino, smoking her first marijuana cigarette in the Plaza Hotel, donning raingear to view Niagara Falls, lecturing at Vassar College, and learning firsthand about the Chicago underworld of morphine addicts and petty thieves with her lover Nelson Algren as her guide. This fresh, faithful translation superbly captures the essence of Simone de Beauvoir's distinctive voice. It demonstrates once again why she is one of the most profound, original, and influential writers and thinkers of the twentieth century.
On New York:"I walk between the steep cliffs at the bottom of a canyon where no sun penetrates: it's permeated by a salt smell. Human history is not inscribed on these carefully calibrated buildings: They are closer to prehistoric caves than to the houses of Paris or Rome."
On Los Angeles:"I watch the Mexican dances and eat chili con carne, which takes the roof off my mouth, I drink the tequila and I'm utterly dazed with pleasure."

Customer Reviews:

genius.......2007-05-25

One of the most accessible books by this great author. It has been a gateway to her other works including the Mandarins. Plus it is a joyous and interesting journey through an America rarely heard about. I realize now that so few Americans were really travelling in the fourties, we had wrapped up the war and wanted to stay home. Excellent book.

Beauvoir's Bon Voyage to America .......2007-05-05

In Simone de Beauvoir's, America Day by Day, she travels through America in the late 1940's, post WWII. She documents her observations and experiences as she takes a cross-country journey, stopping in popular U.S. locations such as New York, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Hollywood, and San Francisco.
Beauvoir's travels help her to understand the diversity that embodies America. America is considered `the land of opportunity,' a country where the inhabitants are granted certain freedoms. Thus, Beauvoir whole-heartedly embraces her first experience as an American. Intrigued by the American lifestyle, she wanders, looking for her next new experience, her next new adventure. The former Catholic school girl experiences a spectrum of American culture; she dabbles into alcohol and drugs but also incorporates touring museums and lecturing at various, distinguished women's colleges into her travels. Beauvoir almost seems reckless in how she behaves in a country completely foreign to her, but the way in which she free-spiritedly follows her instincts is very much admirable. She is very wide-eyed and excited about America, but she also expresses her irritation as she passionately acknowledges her opinions on topics like racism and segregation, education, American women, democracy, and communism. "Hardly a day has passed that I haven't been dazzled by America; hardly a day that I haven't been disappointed. I don't know if I could be happy living here; I am sure I'll miss it passionately" (382).

A Portrait of America .......2007-04-24

Simone de Beauvoir writes America Day by Day as a daily journal, although she actually wrote it after her return to France. Her casual tone allows the reader to travel along with her journey across America. Beauvoir seems enthusiastic about America and does not focus on stereotypes, despite coming with some preconceived notions from movies and friends. Beauvoir also talks about the variety of people in America, which anti-American authors often overlook. The book portrays America well, while highlighting some social problems of the early 1950's, some of which no longer exist. Through her travels she speaks of the rising problems of the fear of communism, the semi-equality of women, and the segregation of Blacks. Other main themes she contemplates through her experiences are religion and democracy. Beauvoir also mentions her views on the American university system and on American intellectualism in general. Despite her relatively negative themes, Beauvoir's admiration for American friendliness and trust shows through. Her love for America is clearly seen. On the last page she describes her arrival in France and how dull it seems compared to America; she says, "Over there in the night, a vast continent is sparkling" (390). America Day by Day is a beautifully written and interesting book.

Brainy French existentialist explores 1940s America........2004-09-04

French existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86), was both enchanted by and highly critical of life in America. She was comforted by American cemeteries which, she observed, have more personality than some towns, and offer a final escape from the banality of daily life in America (p. 80). Originally published in France as L'AMERIQUE AU JOUR LE JOUR in 1948, AMERICA DAY BY DAY details the four months she spent traveling the United States anonymously (but with a letter of introduction from her companion, Jean-Paul Sartre), from New York to Los Angeles and back, by car, train, and Greyhound bus, while lecturing at colleges and universities along the way. Published in the form of her January 25, 1947 through May 20, 1947 travel journal, AMERICA DAY BY DAY reveals de Beauvoir's fascinating insights into post-war American culture, including its consumerism and "superabundance" ("too much noise, too much perfume, too much heat, too much luxury," p. 118) and obsession with big cars and celebrity, its church services, politics, fashion, movies, and music, and tourist attractions like Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas. "Many things would change among Americans," she writes about American psychoanalysis, "if they were willing to accept that there is unhappiness on earth and that unhappiness is not a priori a crime" (p. 64). Always fiercely independent and intelligent, de Beauvoir also reveals her perspective on American women, black/white relations, intellectuals, education, and college students in her wandering, thought-provoking travel memoir. Highly recommended.

G. Merritt

This time, a frenchWOMAN visits america.......2000-07-18

I never met Simone but the visit to America that resulted in this book ended the day I was born and we knew people in common, including Nelson Algren. This book is fun. We think of Simone as the woman who initiated the second wave of feminism with her book, "The Second Sex;" as the companion of Jean-Paul Sartre, a man plagued by lobsters and his own sense of self; as the globe-trotting political activist. Some may know her as the author of the frightening novel, "She Came To Stay." The Simone who wrote this book was the best part of Simone de Beauvoir. The book is a snapshot of America, entering the center stage of world power, taken by a native of a country whose time of leadership has passed. It is also the story of a middle-aged woman falling in love. This book was unavailable for many years but it is important both as a view of America in mid-century and as an insight into one of the most important women of the 20th century.

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