Product Description

Set in Paris on the eve of World War II and sizzling with love, anger, and revenge, She Came to Stay explores the changes wrought in the soul of a woman and a city soon to fall. Although Franoise considers her relationship with Pierre an open one, she falls prey to jealousy when the gamine Xavire catches his attention. The moody young woman from the countryside pries her way between Franoise and Pierre, playing up to each one and deviously pulling them apart, until the only way out of the triangle is destruction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74225 in Books
• Published on: 1999-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 408 pages

Review
"One of the most acute and thoughtful achievements of French fiction at mid-century. -- >>

Behind the sympathy there is curiosity. . . . A writer whose tears for her characters freeze as they drop. -- Sunday London Times

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

Existential relationships are never easy.
Relationships are never easy, even for intellectuals like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Set in pre-World War II Paris, de Beauvoir's first novel, SHE CAME TO STAY (1954) provides a fictional portrait of her unconventional relationship with her lifelong partner, Sartre, and her protege, Bianca Bienenfeld. Their menage a trois began in 1938, when de Beauvoir introduced Bienenfeld (aka Bianca Lamblin) to her partner/lover, Sartre, who was thirty-three, and ended in 1940 when, at de Beauvoir's encouragement, Sartre abandoned Lamblin on the eve of WWII. Although SHE CAME TO STAY may be read as a love story examining the complex dilemmas posed by love (demonstrating existential relationships are perhaps easier in theory than in reality) and the destructive powers of relationships, it also succeeds on a more philosphical level.

SHE CAME TO STAY tells the story of Francoise, her lover, Pierre, and Xaviere, an emotionally unstable young woman from Rouen who comes between them. The novel demonstrates that a relationship can lead not only to ecstasy, but also to a personal, life-changing crisis. The romantic threesome de Beauvoir creates for Francoise sears her protagonist "like a sharp burn" (p. 207). Francoise becomes angry, insanely jealous, and then disillusioned with her dream of "one life, one work, one love" (p. 233) with Pierre. Eventually, her relationship leads her to experience life without meaning: an existential "abyss of nothingness" (p. 291). "It was like death," de Beauvior writes, "a total negation, an eternal absence . . . the entire universe was was engulfed in it, and Francoise, forever excluded from the world, was herself dissolved in this void" (p. 291). By the end of the novel, Xaviere is destroyed by an act of revenge, and Francoise is alone and estranged from Pierre.

While SHE CAME TO STAY may not measure up to the writing standards de Beauvoir later set with THE MANDARINS and THE SECOND SEX, it is nevertheless a powerful novel. Readers interested in reading more about de Beauvoir's real-life triangle with Sartre and Lamblin may consider reading Lamblin's memoir, A DISGRACEFUL AFFAIR, in which Lamblin offers her first-hand account of her unconventional relationship with the two French existentialists.

G. Merritt

So Real!
This book made me sad, happy, angry, interested...pretty much everything. I was going from ''kick her out'' to ''kick him out'', to ''get real'' even if aware of existentialist ideas behind it and what I am 'supposed' to think about it.

A great read even if some were disappointed by De Beauvoir for preaching one thing an living the other. Hey, we are all just human and this book is so honest it is almost painful!

a serious study of emotion and reason
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.