Simone de Beauvoir General Thread

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Simone de Beauvoir General Thread

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1rebeccanyc
okt 19, 2013, 3:45 pm

Although I'm still planning to read another Duras or two, I'm wondering about de Beauvoir recommendations for this quarter. I've bought the new complete translation of The Second Sex, having read the apparently abridged translation decades ago, but it's quite a tome and I may not get to it. So I'd welcome other suggestions.

2SassyLassy
Redigerat: okt 20, 2013, 4:34 pm

The Mandarins might be a good one. Then there's the autobiographical books starting with Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (Memoires d'une jeune fille rangée) Interesting about The Second Sex. I too read it some time ago, but will have to look for the newer version. All these books still seem to be available.

edited for case errors

3rebeccanyc
okt 20, 2013, 7:56 am

I've had Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, in both English and French (!), on the TBR for years,, so maybe I'll read that.

4Dilara86
okt 20, 2013, 9:23 am

I second Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. And it's such an easy read compared to The Mandarins and The Second Sex... Thoughtful without being ponderous.

5kidzdoc
okt 23, 2013, 6:47 am

I loved her travelogue America Day By Day, in which she described her four month journey from NYC to the West Coast and back to NYC in early 1947. It was insightful, witty and often quite humorous, and it earned 5 stars from me. I've also read A Very Easy Death, which was written just after her mother's passing from cancer, which was good, and a short book at just over 100 pages.

I plan to read The Mandarins, which has sat on my TBR pile for at least two or three years, and She Came to Stay. I'd also like to re-read America Day By Day if I have time to get to it.

6Dilara86
okt 24, 2013, 10:24 am

Here is 50-minute interview with Simone de Beauvoir (with English subtitles). I think it's a good primer on Beauvoir's feminism. Ignore the annoying presenter at the beginning; he only gets to talk for a total of 5-6 minutes. The other links under the video look promising, but I haven't watched them yet.

7rebeccanyc
nov 21, 2013, 4:49 pm

I looked high and low, in all the likely places, for my copy of Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter and it was driving me crazy because I knew I had it somewhere. Then this morning when I was looking for something else I found it!!! I had already moved it to my "Hope to read in the near future" shelf, and it had fallen in back of the other books. So now I look forward to starting it, probably this weekend when I finish one of the other books I'm reading.

8rebeccanyc
dec 2, 2013, 8:35 am

I am sorry to say I am abandoning, at least for now, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. I'm amazed by how much de Beauvoir remembers of her childhood, and she is a lovely writer, but I guess I'm just not that interested in all the details of her feelings, thoughts, etc. Maybe I'm not in the right mood and will pick it up again later; I've read almost 150 pages, but when I find myself checking to see how much more I have to read to get to the end of the chapter I know it's time to find something else to read.

9edwinbcn
dec 2, 2013, 9:06 am

Well, you are not the only one, Rebecca.

De Beauvoir is a new author for me, and I stunned by the amount of biographical work she has produced. It seems there is a fictionalized work for each biographical work, usually each spun out to a size of 600 to 800 pages.

I am more or less stuck in Cahiers de jeunesse, 1926-1930. The writing is excellent, but there is so much of it, over 800+ pages.