Product 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #925530 in Books
• Published on: 1991-08-15
• Released on: 2002-04-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 718 pages

From Publishers Weekly
De Beauvoir's extraordinary, long relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre is the focus of this portrait, which combines literary biography, intellectual and oral history and feminist theory. PW called pk the work "impressively researched. . . . Bair adds much to our knowledge of every aspect of de Beauvoir's life," commenting also that pk unfortunately she often overburdens readers with detail.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Bair, author of Samuel Beckett (a 1979 National Book Award winner), met with de Beauvoir for six years to compile this detailed biography of the writer best known for The Second Sex . She includes generous details about de Beauvoir's less attractive personal attributes (her slovenliness and self-centered behavior) and her questionable record during World War II. The book is an objective recording of events that shaped the life of a woman who, willingly, played down her own significant contributions to contemporary philosophical and political thought so as to remain Sartre's intellectual alter ego. Generous annotations document every chapter and provide material suggesting further research. An interesting, thought-provoking work that should dispel many myths, but Bair might well have given us a greater feel for the woman and emphasized her feminist stance.
- Danielle Mihram, Univ. of Southern California Lib.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Complete
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
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.

A imformative story of an interesting life.
This biography adds to the memoirs de Beauboir has already written. It tells her complete life story and provides new information and viewpoints. It sometimes feels too long, but is usually clear and engaging.