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Manny's Reviews > La Force de l'âge
La Force de l'âge
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In the second volume of her memoirs, Simone de Beauvoir tells you what it was like to be a young woman living with Sartre. There were many interesting surprises. I hadn't realized what a natural gift for languages he had - there was an incident when someone thought he might be a spy, because his German accent was just too damn good. I hadn't realized either what a lot of fun he was (really! I'm not being ironic!), or that he was so mentally unstable. He had some rather startling delusions about, if I recall correctly, a giant squid...
And that love triangle/ménage à trois with Olga. Was there ever a relationship quite so exhaustively described in literature? You can read about it here, then in fictionalized form in her novel ³¢'±õ²Ô±¹¾±³Ùé±ð, and then in a different fictionalized form in Sartre's novel L'Age de Raison. Some incidents, e.g. the one where he hurts his hand trying to impress her at the nightclub, turn up in all three.
And I still don't properly understand what happened. In fact, if you're the sort of person who buys autobiographies to get the low-down on the author's sex life, I'll warn you now that you aren't going to find out a damn thing. I'm not quite sure why she made that decision.
And that love triangle/ménage à trois with Olga. Was there ever a relationship quite so exhaustively described in literature? You can read about it here, then in fictionalized form in her novel ³¢'±õ²Ô±¹¾±³Ùé±ð, and then in a different fictionalized form in Sartre's novel L'Age de Raison. Some incidents, e.g. the one where he hurts his hand trying to impress her at the nightclub, turn up in all three.
And I still don't properly understand what happened. In fact, if you're the sort of person who buys autobiographies to get the low-down on the author's sex life, I'll warn you now that you aren't going to find out a damn thing. I'm not quite sure why she made that decision.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
May 1, 1999
–
Finished Reading
December 23, 2008
– Shelved
December 23, 2008
– Shelved as:
french
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Manny
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rated it 4 stars
Jun 28, 2009 08:24AM
But she never really talks about her sexual experiences with anyone else either. At least not in her memoirs. In her novels, there are some quite graphic scenes which, at least according to tradition, are taken pretty much from life. Plausible deniability?
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It seems strange to me that you'd read this book and see her as an accessory in Sartre's life. The whole reason why their relationship worked is mainly because they both respected the fact that they were fully accomplished human beings and writers. And I don't see it as a book about being part of Sartre's life, it's a book about being Simone de Beauvoir. She didn't write it to tell tales about Sartre, and I think one of the reasons why there isn't any hints at her sexual life is because it's besides the point; this is entirely and completely a book about her. I'm not looking for trouble of course, your review seemed very simplistic.
