Product Description

In her most famous novel, The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir takes an unflinching look at Parisian intellectual society at the end of World War II. In fictionally relating the stories of those around her --Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, Nelson Algren --de Beauvoir dissects the emotional and philosophical currents of her time. At once an engrossing drama and an intriguing political tale, The Mandarins is the emotional odyssey of a woman torn between her inner desires and her public life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172395 in Books
• Published on: 1999-07-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 610 pages

San Francisco Chronicle
Salty, frank, and realistic.

New York Times
Much more than a roman clef . . . a moving and engrossing novel.

About the Author
Simone de Beauvoir is the author of the landmark feminist work The Second Sex, as well as numerous other fiction and nonfiction books.

Customer Reviews

A discussion stimulator by Ms.de Beauvoir
The Mandarins was the book of the month for an expat book club based in Moscow, Russia. We chose the book for the following reasons: life and values in post-war France, politics torn between Soviet Russia and communism on the left and the US and capitalism on the right, feminism, intellectualism. What we got was a lively discussion about idealism, returning to life after a war, trying to make sense of values and priorities. Most of us felt a sense of accomplishment by actually finishing the book. It is a formidable read, but worth the effort, less as a novel, but more as a snapshot of a time in which we did not live, but with elements of our current life in post-Soviet Russia still as relevant today as they were 60 years ago.

A book that still has validity and truth in today's world
The quality of writing was doubtless a little undermined by its English translation (probably through no fault of the translator), and so in my opinion deserves little comment - the style can be a little dry at times, though not exactly boring. There are some wonderful descriptions, and neither did I find them overly dramatised, but again I found myself questioning them as to their pros and cons, wondering what they had lost or gained going through the translation process.
I knew nothing about de Beauvoir's relationships to the characters she wrote about, and their connections to the people she knew (mine being an archaic charity shop edition with an extremely non-commital and uninformative blurb). In all events, I was happily surprised by the scope and emotion she conveyed with the book, despite its aforementioned dry tone. Somewhat like Lessing's Shikasta, I felt it to be one of those massively long pieces which led quite slowly to the finale, and yet at the same time the slowness was important to lay the seed of thought in my head of what she was trying to tell the reader.
This review is probably a bit of a turn-off to prospective readers, but in actuality the book is a stunning achievement, and well worth reading for those ignorant people like me who know nothing about post-WWII France, the intellectuals, etc. Simone gives us all of this information, but in a truly poetic and retrospective manner, portraying the uncertanties, political, moral and emotional dilemmas that these intelligent people had to justify to themselves, with realistic exactitude.
Additionally, she not only gives us these clever trains of thought, but portrays accurately the treacherous uncertainty of involving oneself in politics, faced with a world of high society idiots who clasp the strings of power, being from the viewpoint of intelligent, but innefectual revolutionaries. This chilling message she conveyed, to me resonated icily with the present day; a double echo from what it was then, and what it still is today - perhaps a comment on the human condition in a big world?

A life-affirming work of genius.
This novel is the work of a brilliant mind wrestling with big thoughts during Europe's darkest hour, and it is easy to understand why it won France's highest honor, the Prix Goncourt. Set amidst the ruins of post-World War II Paris, THE MANDARINS (1954) provides a fictional portrait of Simone de Beauvoir's existential, intellectual circle of friends, which included her lifelong partner, Jean-Paul Sarte, Albert Camus, Aurthur Koestler, and her lover, Nelson Algren. (In her fiction, de Beauvoir drew heavily from her own life and the people in it. As a result, many readers of THE MANDARINS have drawn comparisons between her character Anne to de Beauvoir, Henri to Camus, Anne's husband to Sartre, and Anne's daughter to de Beauvoir's lover, and just as many readers have approached her novel primarily as an thinly fictionalized account of de Beauvoir's passionate affair with Algren.) Certainly, THE MANDARINS may be read as a love story examining the complex dilemmas posed by love and marriage (i.e., existential relationships are easier in theory than in reality). However it also succeeds on a more profound level.

In the confusing aftermath of a world war, when oppression and fascism threatened personal freedom, de Beauvoir insightfully struggles with the question, "where do we go from here?" in THE MANDARINS. Her fascinating circle of intellectual characters demonstrate that life is difficult and confusing, and to live a meaningful life, we must accept the responsibilities that come with freedom. In the end, one must decide to either founder in apathy--things "are never as important as they seem; they change, they end, and above all, when all is said and done, everyone dies. That settles everything" (p. 359)--or one may listen instead to the life-affirming beat of the heart--as the heart continues to beat, and it beats "for something, for someone" (p. 610).


THE MANDARINS is truly a masterpiece and a life-affirming work of genius. And when oppressive governments continue to threaten our personal liberties, the philosophical questions that haunted de Beauvoir when her novel was published fifty years ago remain just as relevant today.

G. Merritt