L'invitata

The subject matter of this novel by Simone De Beauvoir, who was the long-term partner of famed French existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, seems a somewhat odd one for a prominent feminist. The relationship between De Beauvoir and Sartre was not a conventional one- far from it in fact- and is e Leggi tutto

Your guy, whom you are totally smitten with, somehow talks you into agreeing that it's OK for him to extend your relationship into a menage a trois including another, younger woman, that you don't really like very much. You're seething with jealousy, but, because of various abstract principles, you

I read this book for the first time about twenty years ago, when my French was considerably weaker than it is now. My overall evaluation is pretty much the same as in my original review - I'm not sure my improved command of the language has made much difference - but some new thoughts: ○ I kept chang Leggi tutto

Love in theory is not the same as love in practice - you can wrap feelings and principles in beautiful intellectual discourses about freedom, acceptance and bonds that transcend social conventions only to have the values you were brought up with rear their ugly heads and bite you in the ass when you Leggi tutto

I was trembling with anger during the entire book. The characters are intentionally led to the extreme of their emotions. Simone did this to question love and relationships: how tolerant and honest can you get? Francoise couldn't bare to be honest, but she was extremely tolerant. Did she suffer her

A 40s novel in which the open relationship project between Francoise and Pierre is threatened by the arrival of the young Xavier. On one level I am always fascinated with these period novels set in Paris where the characters are found at La Dome on boulevard du Montparnasse at 3 or 4 o’clock in the Leggi tutto

VOLUPTUOUS DOCILITY AND SYLLABISM "Xaviere was watching Pierre with a kind of voluptuous docility..." (page 238) "Her fresh lips slowly plucked off each syllable of the word: vol..up..tu..ous." (page 151) Simone de Beauvoir's novel was first published in French in 1943 and in English in 1949. Nabokov's Leggi tutto

This is billed as the book SDB wrote when one of Sartre's lovers (Olga Kosakievics) entered their lives and threatened to disrupt the famous partnership about which so much has been speculated. This description doesn't do the book justice. It does, nevertheless, need to be admitted from the start tha Leggi tutto

لم يعجبني الكتاب، أقول ذلك الآن بعد أن أنهيته، وطوال الـ 600 صفحة لم أكن قادرة على الانحياز له أو ضده! ورغم أنه كتاب طويل نسبياً، إلا أنه كان من الصعب علي أن اضعه جانبا وأن لا أواصل القراءة، فقد تمت صياغته بمهارة، وهو غني بالحوارات التي جعلت صفحاته الكثيرة تنساب بسلاسة إلى ذاكرتك القرائية، وعنصر الت Leggi tutto