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.

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.

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 scene of post-WWII Paris, firsthand knowledge of Camus and Sartre, a complex network of friendships mixing the communities of European intelligentsia, fascists, existentialists, writers, and actors. Then, of course, there is the head-over-heels love in which she found herself with Nelson Algren, noted American author, immediately upon making his acquaintance. All of these interesting facets add spice to this book.

Surprisingly, what truly makes this book unforgettable, impossible to put down, at times embarrassing in its candor and recognizable to the reader are its themes of commonality to everyone else on the planet. Anyone who has ever fallen in love, suffered instant infatuation for another, missed the touch of a far-away lover, or slogged through a long-distance relationship will relate/commiserate/understand/anticipate both the words and the feelings behind them.

Simone de Beauvoir wrote all of these letters to Nelson Algren in English (not her native French); happily, the misspellings and grammatical errors are preserved without correction. The reader will note progressive improvement in her English abilities as the correspondence lengthens and her relationship matures.

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

The statutory rapists Simone de B and JP Sartre neglect to mention the hordes of students they raped in this swan story of their sick love.

To get a glimpse of one of many that get glossed over after having been sexually harassed and raped by this duo one could read A Disgraceful Affair by Bianca Lamblin.

She was seventeen when these two old fogies began to do her.

It's amazing how the communist left sees itself and its heroes as such innocents when they were criminal scumbags from the ground up. Trained in anthropology these creeps would have known better than to see themselves as such perfectly innocent people.

A disgraceful pair whose memory stinks to the heavens and cries out as a warning to young leftists everywhere that you will end up as filthy as these two cochons.

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.

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.

This book is interesting, but superficial. It is the famous writer's travelogue, which reads like a primer for Europeans who are interested in modern China. Well, I do not mean to accuse Beauvoir of Orientalism. In fact, this book is OK. But in many ways Beauvoir only offers very simplified and flat description, which can be offered by many other writers. This book is not outstanding at all. But it has its own historic asset.

Anyone who tries to understand Simone de Beauvoir without reading this book is a damned fool. This book is her masterpiece, and provides the blueprint for the entire future of the women's movement!

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.

I liked this book a lot, and it was fun to see how well the literature related back into the title. The book explored a lot of "beautiful images" which when further inspected are rather empty and unexceptional. I guess in a nutshell this book is about a woman in the upper class of French society who, because of innocent questions from her daughter, has somewhat of a mid-life crisis. She comes to realize that her and her family's wealth has made their lives devoid of pleasure and individuality. Of course, there's other great stuff in the book, but I leave that to you to find out. P.S. This book is in French - make sure you can read it!

A very beautiful book which reveals another Simon de beauvoir: the one in love. She's passionate, sincere, writing with her heart to his "beloved" transatlantic love. They met in America when Simon came to give a cycle of conferences around the States, and they started to write from this moment. We see how their love rises, how they open their hearts letter by letter, and we realize that her love was nothing but authentic. It's also a very interesting reading about life in Paris among the intellectuals of the time, the day by day with Sartre and their travelling together around the world. You really get in touch with this time and this circle of people. Very touching.

I recall, perhaps I was in college, WHEN THINGS OF THE SPIRIT COME FIRST came out in paperback. I'm afraid I've lost track of my copy over the years. It's an early work of De Beauvoir's, three closely interlocked, charming short stories. I found it hard to put down.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 who has been deepley hurt by her mentors but who is being painstakingly careful in her effort to be fair as she sets the record straight. Readers looking for juicy tidbits will need to look elsewhere (Lamblin describes Sartre as a charming wooer but an unskilled lover, and does not waste ink elaborating).

If the reader takes the facts as the author presents them--and there is nothing implausible or erractic in what Lamblin relates--what unfolds is a brief, startlingly clear reflection on what it means to evolve one's own workable philosophy of life based on the cards one is dealt and the living examples one has to choose from. After her rejection by her existentalist mentors, Lamblin consciously chose a conventional, slightly leftist, life. Her mentors' narcissism seems to have turned her away from a life focused on pursuing celebrity and getting published (aside from a few academic philosophy articles, A Disgraceful Affair is Lamblin's only published work, one she didn't begin writing until she 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 that disturbed and disgusted Beauvoir.

Those looking for portraits of Sartre and Beauvoir should know that Beauvoir (unfortunately called "the Beaver" throughout the book, a nickname that might have been better left untranslated) is the more fully realized. Lamblin renewed her relationship with Beauvoir after the War and continued to have platonic meetings with her for the rest of Beauvoir's life. Lamblin's depiction of Beauvoir's life after Sartre's death is one of profound pathos and emotional disenfranchisement. By that point, Beauvoir's alcoholism was quite advanced and the reader senses that the great thinker and prolific writer's death must have been a lonely, troubled, and confusing end indeed.

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

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 by Susanna Kaysen, The Liar's Club by Mary Karr, and A Loving Gentleman: The Love Story of William Faulkner and Meta Carpenter by Meta Carpenter Wilde and Orin Borsten.

This is Simone's first published novel and writing this book removed her own writer's block and enabled her to go on to win the Prix Goncourt and, of course, write "The Second Sex." While it is hardly "feminist," after all, the main woman character has an intellectually intimate but apparently sexless relationship with a man who rules her life, it is a woman's book. How many women, involved in a triangle, have wanted to eliminate their rival? While Simone left her real life rival unharmed, her alter ego Francoise murders her rival. Based on the trio well-known to readers of Simone's memoirs, this is a flawed but still enjoyable work. First of all, it is a little too quotidian. We know that Simone was a work-a-holic who parceled out her day into writing and confering with J-P, but that sort of lifestyle is too accurately portrayed in this novel. Second, there seems to be a basic flaw in the "plot," that arises from the basic situation of the Sartre-de Beauvoir shared life and that is while both Francoise and Pierre can excuse their own sexual explorations, when their protege Xaviere exercises her own FREEDOM OF CHOICE (remember that slogan from the 60s? Not to choose is to choose? That was Sartre.), her elders discipline her. Why does Simone, a woman with impeccable philosophical credentials, contradict her own ontology? At the same time, this book accurately portrays some very real human emotions.

While _The Mandarins_ is her most popular novel, _She Came to Stay_ offers another powerful writing of Simone De Beauvoir. She draws a delicate sketch of relationship between three characters of Francoise, Pierre and Xaviere, and reveals the complicated role of "reason" and "emotion" of an individual in his/her relations with other individuals. The story unfolds as supposedly ideal relationship between Francoise and Pierre based on "reason" is interfered by Xaviere, whose expressive nature both enchants and threatens them. They attempt an ambitious idea of building a "trio" in love, but all three end up experiencing emotional pains and intellectual confusions. It appears in a most dramatic way for Francoise, whose well-controlled jealousy and hatred throughout the book burst out as killing Xaviere in the end. Part I reads rather slow with a little too much details on Francoise's hidden emotions and thoughts and indirect descriptions of the psychological status of two other characters, but in Part II everything tightens up as the story focuses on Francoise's thoughts and actions. This is an impressive piece that makes a serious study of emotion and reason by almost "purely" focusing on human relations.