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The Mandarins
In her most famous novel, Simone de Beauvoir does not flinch in her look at Parisian intellectual society at the end of the Second World War. Drawing on those who surrounded her—Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler—and her passionate love affair with Nelson Algren, 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 desire and her public life.
The Mandarins won France's highest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.
The Mandarins won France's highest literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.
752 pages, Paperback
First published October 21, 1954
About the author
Simone de Beauvoir
309 books9,255 followersSimone de Beauvoir was a French author and philosopher. She wrote novels, monographs on philosophy, political and social issues, essays, biographies, and an autobiography. She is now best known for her metaphysical novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins, and for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism.
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Simone de Beauvoir est née à Paris le 9 janvier 1908. Elle fit ses études jusqu'au baccalauréat dans le très catholique cours Désir. Agrégée de philosophie en 1929, elle enseigna à Marseille, à Rouen et à Paris jusqu'en 1943. C'est L'Invitée (1943) qu'on doit considérer comme son véritable début littéraire. Viennent ensuite Le sang des autres (1945), Tous les hommes sont mortels (1946), Les Mandarins (prix Goncourt 1954), Les Belles Images (1966) et La Femme rompue (1968).
Simone de Beauvoir a écrit des mémoires où elle nous donne elle-même à connaître sa vie, son œuvre. L'ampleur de l'entreprise autobiographique trouve sa justification, son sens, dans une contradiction essentielle à l'écrivain : choisir lui fut toujours impossible entre le bonheur de vivre et la nécessité d'écrire ; d'une part la splendeur contingente, de l'autre la rigueur salvatrice. Faire de sa propre existence l'objet de son écriture, c'était en partie sortir de ce dilemme.
Outre le célèbre Deuxième sexe (1949) devenu l'ouvrage de référence du mouvement féministe mondial, l'œuvre théorique de Simone de Beauvoir comprend de nombreux essais philosophiques ou polémiques.
Après la mort de Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir a publié La Cérémonie des adieux (1981) et les Lettres au Castor (1983) qui rassemblent une partie de l'abondante correspondance qu'elle reçut de lui. Jusqu'au jour de sa mort, le 14 avril 1986, elle a collaboré activement à la revue fondée par Sartre et elle-même, Les Temps Modernes, et manifesté sous des formes diverses et innombrables sa solidarité avec le féminisme.
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Simone de Beauvoir est née à Paris le 9 janvier 1908. Elle fit ses études jusqu'au baccalauréat dans le très catholique cours Désir. Agrégée de philosophie en 1929, elle enseigna à Marseille, à Rouen et à Paris jusqu'en 1943. C'est L'Invitée (1943) qu'on doit considérer comme son véritable début littéraire. Viennent ensuite Le sang des autres (1945), Tous les hommes sont mortels (1946), Les Mandarins (prix Goncourt 1954), Les Belles Images (1966) et La Femme rompue (1968).
Simone de Beauvoir a écrit des mémoires où elle nous donne elle-même à connaître sa vie, son œuvre. L'ampleur de l'entreprise autobiographique trouve sa justification, son sens, dans une contradiction essentielle à l'écrivain : choisir lui fut toujours impossible entre le bonheur de vivre et la nécessité d'écrire ; d'une part la splendeur contingente, de l'autre la rigueur salvatrice. Faire de sa propre existence l'objet de son écriture, c'était en partie sortir de ce dilemme.
Outre le célèbre Deuxième sexe (1949) devenu l'ouvrage de référence du mouvement féministe mondial, l'œuvre théorique de Simone de Beauvoir comprend de nombreux essais philosophiques ou polémiques.
Après la mort de Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir a publié La Cérémonie des adieux (1981) et les Lettres au Castor (1983) qui rassemblent une partie de l'abondante correspondance qu'elle reçut de lui. Jusqu'au jour de sa mort, le 14 avril 1986, elle a collaboré activement à la revue fondée par Sartre et elle-même, Les Temps Modernes, et manifesté sous des formes diverses et innombrables sa solidarité avec le féminisme.
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January 24, 2009
I learned that Simone de Beauvoir was one smart cookie. I learned about existentialism for the first time and absuridty and the French resistance and Paris bars. I took this book to Paris and read it there. I went to the bars and cafes and read it there. I was on a late and horrible honeymoon and still have the book but the husband.....non
May 28, 2021
Les Mandarins = The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir
The Mandarins is a 1954 roman written by Simone de Beauvoir, for which she won the Prix Goncourt, awarded to the best and most imaginative prose work of the year, in 1954. The Mandarins was first published in English in 1956.
The book follows the personal lives of a close-knit group of French intellectuals from the end of World War II to the mid-1950's.
The title refers to the scholar-bureaucrats of imperial China.
The characters at times see themselves as ineffectual "mandarins" as they attempt to discern what role, if any, intellectuals will have in influencing the political landscape of the world after World War II.
As in de Beauvoir's other works, themes of feminism, existentialism, and personal morality are explored as the characters navigate not only the intellectual and political landscape but also their shifting relationships with each other.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «ماندارن»؛ «ماندارنها؛ نویسنده: سیمون دو بوار؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 1975میلادی
عنوان: ماندارن؛ نویسنده: سیمون دو بوار؛ مترجم: ایرج پورباقر؛ تهران: کانون معرفت، 1336؛ در دو جلد 901ص؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسوی - سده 20م
عنوان: ماندارنها؛ نویسنده: سیمون دو بووار؛ مترجم: پرویز شهدی؛ تهران: دنیای نو، 1382؛ در دو جلد، شابک دوره دوجلدی: 9646564860؛
ماندارینها را «سیمون دو بووار» در سال 1954میلادی بنگاشته اند؛ این رمان یکی از نامدارترین رمانهای «سیمون دو بووار» است، که در همانسال جایزه ی «گنکور» را، از آن ایشان کرد؛ برابری این واژه در فارسى «پایوران»، «برگزیدگان»، و یا «نخبگان» است؛ البته «ماندارنها»، مفهوم ویژه ای نیز در زبان «فرانسه» دارد، که مورد نظر نویسنده بوده - چون این واژه گاه با مفهوم کنایه آمیز «گل سرسبد» نیز، کاربرد دارد؛ نظر نویسنده هم، بیشتر جنبه ی طنز و انتقاد است؛ این واژه به روشنفکران سرگردان «فرانسوى»، پس از جنگ جهانى دوم اشاره میکند؛ کسانیکه هنوز راه خویش را پیدا نکرده اند، و هنوز نمیدانند به درستی خواهان چه هستند؛ در این رمان «سیمون دوبوار» گونه هایی از اندیشه ی گروهی از روشنفکران «فرانسوی» را، که خودش نیز زمانی در میان آنان بوده اند، پس از جنگ جهانی دوم، و آغاز جنگ سرد، و جنگ «الجزایر»، با واژه های خویش به نمایش میکشند، و برهانهای برگزینش راه سیاسی آنان را، بازگو میکنند؛ بخشی از این کتاب، در باره ی روابط ویژه ی «سیمون دو بووار» و «نلسون آلگرن» است، این کتاب در فهرست روزنامه ی «گاردین» (یکهزار رمان که هر شخص باید بخواند) قرار دارد؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 06/03/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
The Mandarins is a 1954 roman written by Simone de Beauvoir, for which she won the Prix Goncourt, awarded to the best and most imaginative prose work of the year, in 1954. The Mandarins was first published in English in 1956.
The book follows the personal lives of a close-knit group of French intellectuals from the end of World War II to the mid-1950's.
The title refers to the scholar-bureaucrats of imperial China.
The characters at times see themselves as ineffectual "mandarins" as they attempt to discern what role, if any, intellectuals will have in influencing the political landscape of the world after World War II.
As in de Beauvoir's other works, themes of feminism, existentialism, and personal morality are explored as the characters navigate not only the intellectual and political landscape but also their shifting relationships with each other.
عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «ماندارن»؛ «ماندارنها؛ نویسنده: سیمون دو بوار؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 1975میلادی
عنوان: ماندارن؛ نویسنده: سیمون دو بوار؛ مترجم: ایرج پورباقر؛ تهران: کانون معرفت، 1336؛ در دو جلد 901ص؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسوی - سده 20م
عنوان: ماندارنها؛ نویسنده: سیمون دو بووار؛ مترجم: پرویز شهدی؛ تهران: دنیای نو، 1382؛ در دو جلد، شابک دوره دوجلدی: 9646564860؛
ماندارینها را «سیمون دو بووار» در سال 1954میلادی بنگاشته اند؛ این رمان یکی از نامدارترین رمانهای «سیمون دو بووار» است، که در همانسال جایزه ی «گنکور» را، از آن ایشان کرد؛ برابری این واژه در فارسى «پایوران»، «برگزیدگان»، و یا «نخبگان» است؛ البته «ماندارنها»، مفهوم ویژه ای نیز در زبان «فرانسه» دارد، که مورد نظر نویسنده بوده - چون این واژه گاه با مفهوم کنایه آمیز «گل سرسبد» نیز، کاربرد دارد؛ نظر نویسنده هم، بیشتر جنبه ی طنز و انتقاد است؛ این واژه به روشنفکران سرگردان «فرانسوى»، پس از جنگ جهانى دوم اشاره میکند؛ کسانیکه هنوز راه خویش را پیدا نکرده اند، و هنوز نمیدانند به درستی خواهان چه هستند؛ در این رمان «سیمون دوبوار» گونه هایی از اندیشه ی گروهی از روشنفکران «فرانسوی» را، که خودش نیز زمانی در میان آنان بوده اند، پس از جنگ جهانی دوم، و آغاز جنگ سرد، و جنگ «الجزایر»، با واژه های خویش به نمایش میکشند، و برهانهای برگزینش راه سیاسی آنان را، بازگو میکنند؛ بخشی از این کتاب، در باره ی روابط ویژه ی «سیمون دو بووار» و «نلسون آلگرن» است، این کتاب در فهرست روزنامه ی «گاردین» (یکهزار رمان که هر شخص باید بخواند) قرار دارد؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 06/03/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
September 24, 2014
A lot of people appear to dislike Les Mandarins, which I think is a pretty excellent novel, so let me try and explain what I think is good about it. To me, it's basically about what happens to people (particularly to women) when they realize that they are no longer young. This has several consequences. To start off with, not being young means that you're no longer as physically attractive as you were. Of course, you can go into denial, and say that as long as you eat healthily, exercise, and think positive thoughts, you're going to stay young and tasty for ever. But let's be realistic.
The rest of this review is available elsewhere (the location cannot be given for Goodreads policy reasons)
The rest of this review is available elsewhere (the location cannot be given for Goodreads policy reasons)
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January 4, 2020There is more than one way to peel the Mandarins, this is my second attempt.
The Mandarins were a scholarly elite in Imperial China, word of them was brought, if I remember correctly, by the Jesuits to France during the reign of Louis XIV (or maybe the XVth, then abouts anyhow) and it was a notion that seemed to have taken possession of the minds of the French Philosophes by the Enlightenment - one can see the attraction to literary men (and the occasional literary women) of wise, or at least witty, literary types dominating not simply public discourse but deciding public policy and shaping the future of the country. France is in this novel contrasted with the USA, so while on a visit to the USA Anne says to her hosts at one point: "I had once been told that here intellectuals could live in security because they knew they were completely powerless" (p.394) which I felt crystallised the mentalite - the belief that to be a public intellectual in France was a position of power, but a dangerous one while for her in the USA an intellectual could say anything safely because nobody would pay attention - in the novel things don't turn out to be so simple and innocent but that is perilously close to being a spoiler .
Simone de Beauvoir's 1954 prize winning novel follows the lives of several would be Mandarins (based on de Beauvoir and her cronies) as they hope to guide France into the future avoiding the Scylla and Charybdis of the USA and the USSR, can they find a third way of integrity, honour and decency, or are they fated to understand not only their own powerlessness but contingency and lack of free will, have they been fatally compromised by their wartime experiences?
I expected it to be an effete, arty-farty novel perhaps served up with some poncey pontificating, but instead I found it a substantial stew, rich and slow cooked. Perhaps de Beauvoir won me over through that substance, a book of 736 pages (in this edition) is either going to show it's faults and fall apart or slowly overwhelm all resistance - steamrollering the reader like a hapless villain in a cartoon. Certainly it was not what I was expecting after reading The Woman Destroyed and Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.
The last chapter alone is a sustained stream of consciousness, otherwise the novel proceeds mostly through conversations from the winter of 1944 through to 1950 or perhaps a year or two later, chapter by chapter alternating between either taking Henri (Albert Camus), here appearing as a newspaper editor and literary man, or Anne Dubreuilh (Simone de Beauvoir) - a successful Freudian psychoanalyst encouraging her patients as advised in Civilisation and its Discontents to adapt themselves to their conditions (which is naturally the problem that all the characters and French post-war society as a whole face, as point of view characters. The novel draws strongly on their actual lives about which I knew nothing and so cleverly avoided spoilers through ignorance.
This is a drab Parisian world, vigilantes still pursue collaborators, collaborators seek to rehabilitate themselves, the effects of the war and occupation weigh on the characters negatively and positively (in the sense of their faith in their ability to shape a better world).
I am now curious about de Beauvoir's 1949 book The Second Sex as all the women in this novel are seen and see themselves in relation to men (generally this works out badly for them) the most extreme case is the daughter of a woman who is being blackmailed on account of the facilities that she provided to German army officers during the war, the daughter happened to fall in love with a German Captain and during the mother's narration the sub-text seemed to me to be 'stupid girl! If only he had been at least a Major'. Anne has an affair with an American writer (this based on de Beauvoir's affair with Nelson Algren) I noticed eventually that she waits for a word from him, she is permanently in reaction to what he says - what she feels and wants is always suppressed, I can't help feeling that while the affair represents a much needed letting down of the hair after the war it is also a brutal representation of the realities of an Atlanticist political position - can the land of Liberté, égalité, fraternité come together with the land of the all-mighty dollar and will it be a match made in Heaven or doomed to failure ? Late in the book Anne attends a literary party and observes the other women - in her eyes they are all hags and ogresses, their ancient flesh oozing out round strained corsets these women it turns out are all in their 40s, no doubt living through the first half of the 20th century took a physical toil, but I do wonder about the savagery of her opinion. Arthur Koestler turns up as a fantastically sinister and predatory character - the Anti-Soviet activist Scriassine - and allegations of his bad behaviour towards women, on the basis of this novel are confirmed.
If I was to give it a star rating I would say Four star, not 3 1/2, not 4.267843, but Four precise and shining stars (maybe more for the harden Camus, Sartre or de Beauvoir fans, less if you like Koestler).
The Mandarins were a scholarly elite in Imperial China, word of them was brought, if I remember correctly, by the Jesuits to France during the reign of Louis XIV (or maybe the XVth, then abouts anyhow) and it was a notion that seemed to have taken possession of the minds of the French Philosophes by the Enlightenment - one can see the attraction to literary men (and the occasional literary women) of wise, or at least witty, literary types dominating not simply public discourse but deciding public policy and shaping the future of the country. France is in this novel contrasted with the USA, so while on a visit to the USA Anne says to her hosts at one point: "I had once been told that here intellectuals could live in security because they knew they were completely powerless" (p.394) which I felt crystallised the mentalite - the belief that to be a public intellectual in France was a position of power, but a dangerous one while for her in the USA an intellectual could say anything safely because nobody would pay attention - in the novel things don't turn out to be so simple and innocent but that is perilously close to being a spoiler .
Simone de Beauvoir's 1954 prize winning novel follows the lives of several would be Mandarins (based on de Beauvoir and her cronies) as they hope to guide France into the future avoiding the Scylla and Charybdis of the USA and the USSR, can they find a third way of integrity, honour and decency, or are they fated to understand not only their own powerlessness but contingency and lack of free will, have they been fatally compromised by their wartime experiences?
I expected it to be an effete, arty-farty novel perhaps served up with some poncey pontificating, but instead I found it a substantial stew, rich and slow cooked. Perhaps de Beauvoir won me over through that substance, a book of 736 pages (in this edition) is either going to show it's faults and fall apart or slowly overwhelm all resistance - steamrollering the reader like a hapless villain in a cartoon. Certainly it was not what I was expecting after reading The Woman Destroyed and Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.
The last chapter alone is a sustained stream of consciousness, otherwise the novel proceeds mostly through conversations from the winter of 1944 through to 1950 or perhaps a year or two later, chapter by chapter alternating between either taking Henri (Albert Camus), here appearing as a newspaper editor and literary man, or Anne Dubreuilh (Simone de Beauvoir) - a successful Freudian psychoanalyst encouraging her patients as advised in Civilisation and its Discontents to adapt themselves to their conditions (which is naturally the problem that all the characters and French post-war society as a whole face, as point of view characters. The novel draws strongly on their actual lives about which I knew nothing and so cleverly avoided spoilers through ignorance.
This is a drab Parisian world, vigilantes still pursue collaborators, collaborators seek to rehabilitate themselves, the effects of the war and occupation weigh on the characters negatively and positively (in the sense of their faith in their ability to shape a better world).
I am now curious about de Beauvoir's 1949 book The Second Sex as all the women in this novel are seen and see themselves in relation to men (generally this works out badly for them) the most extreme case is the daughter of a woman who is being blackmailed on account of the facilities that she provided to German army officers during the war, the daughter happened to fall in love with a German Captain and during the mother's narration the sub-text seemed to me to be 'stupid girl! If only he had been at least a Major'. Anne has an affair with an American writer (this based on de Beauvoir's affair with Nelson Algren) I noticed eventually that she waits for a word from him, she is permanently in reaction to what he says - what she feels and wants is always suppressed, I can't help feeling that while the affair represents a much needed letting down of the hair after the war it is also a brutal representation of the realities of an Atlanticist political position - can the land of Liberté, égalité, fraternité come together with the land of the all-mighty dollar and will it be a match made in Heaven or doomed to failure ? Late in the book Anne attends a literary party and observes the other women - in her eyes they are all hags and ogresses, their ancient flesh oozing out round strained corsets these women it turns out are all in their 40s, no doubt living through the first half of the 20th century took a physical toil, but I do wonder about the savagery of her opinion. Arthur Koestler turns up as a fantastically sinister and predatory character - the Anti-Soviet activist Scriassine - and allegations of his bad behaviour towards women, on the basis of this novel are confirmed.
If I was to give it a star rating I would say Four star, not 3 1/2, not 4.267843, but Four precise and shining stars (maybe more for the harden Camus, Sartre or de Beauvoir fans, less if you like Koestler).
December 20, 2016
It’s a horrible thing, a woman who labors to lead a man’s hands to her body by appealing to his mind.The irony of the author of The Second Sex having published this five years after the previous kills me, it really does. What's worse is her having won the Prix Goncourt for it, a weighty stamp of approved literature prowess that says nothing less than, yes, this is how you discuss philosophical theories in the midst of love and warfare: trot the men out trigger happy and reduce the women to self-hating despair. I can imagine a younger self of mine picking this up before TSS; imagining what would have inevitably resulted makes me sick.
Beauvoir did not publicly declare herself a feminist till 1972. I don't envy the life that made her forbear from such a declaration until TSS was nearly a quarter of a century old. I don't envy what ignorant bliss the characters in this book must have been in until WWII rolled around and the world transformed into a geography of atomic bombs and concentration camps. I don't envy the balancing act they all had to maintain, bandying political agendas and philosophical jargon and standing up for the oppressed via paper, all the while dehumanizing every female within reach and then some. Women and men alike, self-contempt for one and indulgent solipsism for the other, a mutilation that cannot help but be inextricably mixed with any and all of their good intentions. If Beauvoir's portraits of her fellow thinkers are as keen as some say they are, their crises of existentialism and absurdism don't surprise me. It's hard to live with yourself when your definition of freedom is sadism.
“If others don’t count, it’s meaningless to write. But if they do count, it’s wonderful to gain their friendship and their confidence; it’s magnificent to hear your own thoughts echoed in them.”However. Those up there are only a few of many of the wonderful things Beauvoir pens in regards to education, literature, the intersection of humanity with the written word. A few years ago, for the sake of these pearls, I might have excused her atrocious double standards when it came to characterizing both shell and core of the gendered dichotomy. I even gave her the benefit of the doubt until the last page was turned, hoping this all too rigorous misogyny would be flipped over, left wriggling and wailing on its thickened carapace with its soft and sickening underbelly all too clearly exposed. There are instances, perfectly gorgeous instances where the author could have stepped forward and outfitted phrases like these:
"All that writing about the melancholy of the Portuguese and how mysterious it is. Actually it's ridiculously simple: of seven million Portuguese, there are only seventy thousand who have enough to eat."
When I was a child, a teacher seemed to me a much greater person than a duchess or a millionaire, and through the years that hierarchy had not changed appreciably.
To maintain that I alone hold our affair in my hands is to substitute a puppet for Lewis, to transform myself into a ghost and our past into anemic memories. Our love isn’t a story I can pull out of the context of my life in order to tell it to myself. It exists outside myself; Lewis and I bear it together. Closing one’s eyes isn’t enough to do away with the sun; disavowing that love is only blinding myself. No, I rejected cautious thinking, and false solitude, and sordid consolations.with the sharp and incisive insight I knew in TSS that they so rightfully deserve. Instead, the malaise extends to all reaches of the third person man and the first person woman, generating a plot with girlfriends in a refrigerator, male characters with not a physical description or unsubstantiated denigration in sight, and the good old colonialist mindset. Practice reducing those around you to ciphers long enough, and something's gotta give.
“You throw men into a war and then, at the first rape, you hang them!”
"I don't want to think about myself any more," she said violently. "I've had enough of thinking about myself. Don't give me bad advice."You can't think yourself out of feeling alienated. You can think yourself into it right quick if you insist on dressing it up in the word "freedom", treating your interpersonal relationships like trash, and pretending your work and your money will see fit to care when you're lost and alone and thinking of ending it all. You'll be free when you're dead, not only dead but forgotten, not only forgotten but negligible in the impact you made on the reality of others through your ideologies, your habitus, how you lived and what you learned and the whys and wherefores of the things you said. You'll be free when what you did in the name of what you held dear is so warped by the ones who come after you that no one will believe the origin of it all was you, and you alone.
"The freedom of a writer—it would be interesting to know what that means,"Beauvoir wasn't free, and so I don't blame her. I don't blame any woman who views thought as equivalent to self-immolation and conducted/conducts/will conduct herself as such. What I will do is remember my introduction to feminism, when it first became clear that it was not and had never been just me. What I will do is not sacrifice my political ideals just because I can't sway millions in a day. What I will do is better myself with the ideas and live for the humans, for at the end of the day and the triumphs and the horrors and the same old same old, it is awfully nice to sit down and reaffirm one's existence with someone who cares.
February 23, 2018
I believe this to be her best work. It's long, probably too long, but that's a small niggle compared to all that's so good about it. 'The Mandarins' gives us a brilliant survey of the post-war French intellectual. It's accuracy and its objectivity combine to present a dazzling panorama of the men and women caught up in ever-changing times. As a fan of the existentialist movement this was no-brainer for me to read, it's an expression of her unique style, represented with such vibrancy, that differs from the likes of Sartre. There are a whole host of extremely memorable wise and life-enchanting characters, that were easily likeable, and a crisp and clean translation (before my French was any good) was an added benefit. This was compulsive reading of the highest order. A grand work, from one of the 20th century's great female writers.
May 12, 2023
Вначале роман мне показался слегка пустоватым, сконцентрировавшемся на вопросах свободной любви, когда муж и жена открыто любят кого-то еще, спят с ними и не скрывают этого ни от друг друга, ни от окружающих, с фоном, посвященным деятельности французских коммунистов, в коим относилась и сама Симона де Бовуар. Для меня вообще было откровением, что идеи коммунизма так сильно привились в Европе. Коммунистические идеи вызывают у меня настороженность. Но из этого романа, я хотя бы узнала, что Сталинские лагеря для европейцев были неизвестны по крайне мере до окончания Второй мировой войны. Чувствуется потрясение, которое вызвало знание об этих лагерях, об ужасающем положении заключенных в них и обилии среди них политических. Моему поколению Сталинские лагеря стали более-менее известны с наступлением перестройки и гласности. Вообще, тема романа – политика, мандаринами, называли французскую интеллигенцию, и роман посвящен эволюции взглядов на политические процессы.
С развитием конфликтов, мне открылась глубина произведения, во всяком случае, психологическая. Персонажи сложные, какие-то черты имеют автобиографический характер, но нельзя полностью отождествлять Робера с Сартром, а Анри с Камю, и соответственно, Анну с самой Симоной. В романе два рассказчика – Анна и Анри, соответственно, два взгляда на проблемы.
Самое негативное впечатление у меня оставил Анри. Да, он прославленный писатель, уважаемый журналист, редактор газеты, дополнительно, он участник Сопротивления, а это очень много значило тогда. Но в человеческом отношении, Анри – безусловный эгоист, предатель и жестокий человек. Мне было безумно жаль Поль, которую он бросил ради пустоголовой актрисочки, во время оккупации спавшей с немецкими офицерами. Поль была самоотверженна, она прошла с ним весь путь, поддерживала его, но, самое главное, она его любила, любила так сильно, что сначала занималась самообманом, а затем осознав происходящее, помутилась рассудком после его ухода. Зачем так любить мужчин, которые бросают Вас? Видно, что де Бовуар волнует душевный мир брошенной женщины, Что же наш Анри? Жозетт, якобы может наложить на себя руки из-за обвинений в коллаборационизме. Обвинений пока нет, но она истерит. По совету своей умной матери, они обе просят Анри дать ложные показания, что предатель, предоставлявший фашистам сведения о евреях, борцах Сопротивления, был якобы двойным агентом, и в указанный день был с Анри. Ради этой дешевки, Анри дал такие показания. Но он с ней не остался, в конце он женится на Надин, дочери Анны и Робера. Он, получается, свое сексуальное желание ставит выше дела, выше памяти жертв, кого предали, выше даже самоуважения, поскольку он действительно был в рядах Сопротивления. Этого мне никогда не понять.
Любовная внебрачная линия Анна – Льюис также довольно странна, хотя она автобиографична (прототипом был Нелсон Олгрен). Ежегодно, Анна ездит к своему любовнику в США. В первые годы была любовная идиллия, но с годами стали нарастать противоречия, в частности, Льюис заявляет о своей готовности жениться на Анне. Но Анна не может решить, что же ей нужно. Она понимает, что она не сможет покинуть Францию, а Льюис понимает, что тоже не готов переезжать. Так они мучают друг друга много лет. Для Бовуар очень важно препарировать крах любви, когда с какого момента или действия, любовь начала разрушаться.
С развитием конфликтов, мне открылась глубина произведения, во всяком случае, психологическая. Персонажи сложные, какие-то черты имеют автобиографический характер, но нельзя полностью отождествлять Робера с Сартром, а Анри с Камю, и соответственно, Анну с самой Симоной. В романе два рассказчика – Анна и Анри, соответственно, два взгляда на проблемы.
Самое негативное впечатление у меня оставил Анри. Да, он прославленный писатель, уважаемый журналист, редактор газеты, дополнительно, он участник Сопротивления, а это очень много значило тогда. Но в человеческом отношении, Анри – безусловный эгоист, предатель и жестокий человек. Мне было безумно жаль Поль, которую он бросил ради пустоголовой актрисочки, во время оккупации спавшей с немецкими офицерами. Поль была самоотверженна, она прошла с ним весь путь, поддерживала его, но, самое главное, она его любила, любила так сильно, что сначала занималась самообманом, а затем осознав происходящее, помутилась рассудком после его ухода. Зачем так любить мужчин, которые бросают Вас? Видно, что де Бовуар волнует душевный мир брошенной женщины, Что же наш Анри? Жозетт, якобы может наложить на себя руки из-за обвинений в коллаборационизме. Обвинений пока нет, но она истерит. По совету своей умной матери, они обе просят Анри дать ложные показания, что предатель, предоставлявший фашистам сведения о евреях, борцах Сопротивления, был якобы двойным агентом, и в указанный день был с Анри. Ради этой дешевки, Анри дал такие показания. Но он с ней не остался, в конце он женится на Надин, дочери Анны и Робера. Он, получается, свое сексуальное желание ставит выше дела, выше памяти жертв, кого предали, выше даже самоуважения, поскольку он действительно был в рядах Сопротивления. Этого мне никогда не понять.
Любовная внебрачная линия Анна – Льюис также довольно странна, хотя она автобиографична (прототипом был Нелсон Олгрен). Ежегодно, Анна ездит к своему любовнику в США. В первые годы была любовная идиллия, но с годами стали нарастать противоречия, в частности, Льюис заявляет о своей готовности жениться на Анне. Но Анна не может решить, что же ей нужно. Она понимает, что она не сможет покинуть Францию, а Льюис понимает, что тоже не готов переезжать. Так они мучают друг друга много лет. Для Бовуар очень важно препарировать крах любви, когда с какого момента или действия, любовь начала разрушаться.
Currently reading
March 30, 2023Have a long layover on the way to DC next week, might as well start a long book as my Beauvoir obsession rages onward!
November 29, 2009
I might be alone in really loving this book. I'm not sure if I understand what is not to love. This book is a bright light in a period of self-important post-war literature-- our 1984s and Wastelands-- in that it carefully avoids the moral preachiness and overabundant heavy-handed symbolism by which the supposed major works of this period are so weighed down.
The Mandarins is a treatise on life in suspended animation: when the war ends how does life continue? One way to look at it is the book is like a post-war tell all, sort of like a woody allen movie set in post-war paris. Everyone is plaintive, distant, adulterous, self-important and mired in the same incestuous/elitist artistic-literary-politcal social life. Everyone is sort of pathetic, still reeling from the self-righteous throes of the resistance, at once resting on their laurels from the war, but also injured and disrupted by it. Simone de Beavoir is an astute observer of the human condition and she sometimes caricatures these shitty aesthetes and sometimes she glorifies them but at the end of the day her portrayal is fairly compelling.
The book raises some pretty significant questions about how to proceed in the task of finding meaning in a world which has fallen into such destructive violence and depravity. How do we raise a family? How do we fall in love? How do we engage politically? This book really has a lot to offer but its really long and sometimes sort of boring. But aren't most of the great novels (i.e. man without qualities, remembrance of things past)?
I think this book qualifies as a real diamond in the rough. Compared to all the heavy hitters from its time, it might seem sort of like a light-weight. And if you judge it by its cover its basically just a liberalized frenchy An Raynd. But if you dig a little deeper this is a book that examines the origins of 20th Century liberalism and the collapse of post-war morality without a hint of the prejudice and preachiness of its contemporaries. The book accomplishes this through the traditional novelistic tools: characters, scenes, dialogue, description. I can't guarentee you will love this book. It might be too tame for you. I have to admit, its pretty vanilla. But the issues are dealt with thoughtfully and the characters are memorable. Just like any great novel.
A kick-ass book that is brutally under-rated.
The Mandarins is a treatise on life in suspended animation: when the war ends how does life continue? One way to look at it is the book is like a post-war tell all, sort of like a woody allen movie set in post-war paris. Everyone is plaintive, distant, adulterous, self-important and mired in the same incestuous/elitist artistic-literary-politcal social life. Everyone is sort of pathetic, still reeling from the self-righteous throes of the resistance, at once resting on their laurels from the war, but also injured and disrupted by it. Simone de Beavoir is an astute observer of the human condition and she sometimes caricatures these shitty aesthetes and sometimes she glorifies them but at the end of the day her portrayal is fairly compelling.
The book raises some pretty significant questions about how to proceed in the task of finding meaning in a world which has fallen into such destructive violence and depravity. How do we raise a family? How do we fall in love? How do we engage politically? This book really has a lot to offer but its really long and sometimes sort of boring. But aren't most of the great novels (i.e. man without qualities, remembrance of things past)?
I think this book qualifies as a real diamond in the rough. Compared to all the heavy hitters from its time, it might seem sort of like a light-weight. And if you judge it by its cover its basically just a liberalized frenchy An Raynd. But if you dig a little deeper this is a book that examines the origins of 20th Century liberalism and the collapse of post-war morality without a hint of the prejudice and preachiness of its contemporaries. The book accomplishes this through the traditional novelistic tools: characters, scenes, dialogue, description. I can't guarentee you will love this book. It might be too tame for you. I have to admit, its pretty vanilla. But the issues are dealt with thoughtfully and the characters are memorable. Just like any great novel.
A kick-ass book that is brutally under-rated.
July 25, 2021
"- Nuestros generales no economizan en material humano...
- Cuestión de prestigio -dijo-. Si todavía queremos jugar a la gran potencia, necesitamos un número correcto de muertos."
Nunca me habia parado a pensar lo que debe ser reconstruir los ideales de un pais devastado después de una ocupación traumática, de una guerra… , un país que había sido zarandeado, ocupado, humillado y finalmente quedó completamente asolado no solo físicamente sino en la cuestión de sus ideales. En esta novela, Simone de Beauvoir se ocupa precisamente de eso, de narrarnos el difícil proceso en el que se vió se sumergida Francia durante la posguerra: había que recoger los pedazos y centrarse en encontrar un camino para no volver al totalitarismo y a otra guerra.
Esta novela cubre la etapa entre 1944, con el fin de la ocupación alemana hasta mediados de los años 50, cuando medio planeta andaba ya sumergido en la Guerra Fría, y usa como excusa para ello la vida de varios personajes pertenecientes a la izquierda intelectual francesa que durante la guerra habían luchado en la resistencia, escritores, periodistas, filósofos…, Los que habían sobrevivido a los campos de concentración o a ser aniquilados, se unen de alguna manera para darle una consistencia intelectual a un país en ruínas. Simone de Beauvoir usa para ello dos personajes guía para contarnos los acontecimientos: por una parte Henri Perron, escritor, periodista, uno de los personajes claves de la Resistencia, y una de las figuras emblemáticas a la hora de este nuevo resurgimiento, ya que al ser el fundador de un periódico de izquierdas L’Espoir, tendrá una enorme influencia sobre el resto. El otro personaje guía es el de Ana Dubreuilh, una psiquiatra muy prestigiosa, que además es la esposa de otra de las figuras emblemáticas de la intelectualidad: Robert Dubreuilh, uno de estos escritores que ahora llamaríamos influencers por la forma en que sus ideas influirían en el pueblo.
Desde el primer momento es una novela que me enganchó porque Simone de Beauvoir demuestra un gran talento a la hora de que el lector se adentre en la historia de sus personajes, y psicologícamente hablando los delinea muy bien, te hace conectar con ellos y nos resultan perfectamente comprensibles. Aunque es una novela donde hay muchos párrafos con reflexiones politicas, filosóficas, y dilemas morales donde sus personajes debaten temas que quizás ahora le resulte lejano al lector, el estilo de Simone de Beauvoir es cercano, perfectamente transparente. Me fascina el tema de unos personajes que durante la guerra han estado perfectamente vivos, activos, resistiendo, y algunos pensaríamos que lo más difíficil y doloroso ya estaría pasado que es la etapa de la guerra, y sin embargo, la autora explica perfectamente como lo más complejo está todavía por llegar porque todos estos personajes que han estado unidos durante la ocupación alemana, resistiendo y jugándose el pellejo tras la fachada alemana, cuando ya por fin son libres, viene esa otra etapa en la que tienen que permanecer unidos para construir un país, y aquí comienza lo complicado. La intelectualidad de izquierdas comienza a dividirse, y ahora todos quieren una parte del pastel. Anne Dubreuilh como esposa de uno de los personajes clave es una observadora siempre atenta a estos cambios, y va siendo testigo de este desencanto que progresivamente los va ensombreciendo y Henri Perron, un eterno idealista, pronto comprende que el idealismo sirve para poco cuando la realidad, la corrupción y los intereses políticos están a la orden del dia.
"Un aliado no es necesariamente un amigo. Además ¿qué es un amigo? (...) Amigos: ¿hasta qué punto? Si no cedo, ¿qué será de esta amistad?"
Al mismo tiempo que los mandarines fueron ese sector de la élite del imperio chino con poder e influencia, especialmente en los círculos literarios e intelectuales, aquí Simone de Beauvoir está estableciendo esta comparación con este grupo de personas de su entorno. Es bien sabido que esta novela es una especie de narración ficticia (un roman a clef) del propio entorno de Simone de Beauvoir durante la posguerra y aunque ella de alguna forma lo ha negado, el personaje de Ana podría ser ella misma, Robert Dubreuilh es Jean Paul Sartre y Henri Perron podría ser el mismo Albert Camus. La novela está dedicada a Nelson Algren, uno de los hombres más importantes en la vida de Simone de Beauvoir, y una importante sección de la novela está dedicada precisamente a narrarnos la historia de Ana con Lewis Brogan, escritor de izquierdas americano, fiel reflejo de la que fue su historia de amor con Algren.
Es una novela que he disfrutado muchísimo porque ya digo que me ha hecho entender una época de la historia que no se suele debatir demasiado, casi siempre es el periodo concreto de la guerra la que se lleva todo el protagonismo, y sobre todo la he disfrutado porque he entendido a sus personajes: desde el colaboracionista que se vió obligado a colaborar para sobrevivir, hasta esos personajes desesperados por conservar el alma de lo que fue la resistencia, y ya en la posguerra usando unos métodos que ya no eran lícitos. Es una novela de casi 800 páginas pero creo que estas páginas son necesarias para ir entendiendo todo el proceso de hasta qué punto todo ha cambiado y ya no son los mismos, y porque es la única forma de que el lector pueda entender al mismo tiempo que sus personajes, que no se puede continuar donde se quedaron antes de la guerra. Todos han cambiado y aquí hay ahora una enorme gama de matices que no tiene nada que ver con lo que fue en el pasado; ahora hay una delgada linea que separa al colaboracionista del héroe y ambos acaban camuflándose, por poner un ejemplo. Simone de Beauvoir se encarga de ponernos en situación y por supuesto de no idealizar nada. Las relaciones entre ellos, las rencillas, las historias de amor, los desencuentros… todo está aquí perfectamente narrado y poco a poco la autora va haciendo al lector complice de su historia. Una novela que me ha parecido magnífica y cuyo final le da el auténtico significado al conjunto total.
Lo que sí tengo que decir es que la traducción de Silvina Bullrich me ha parecido un horror, un atentado en toda regla; porque no hay otra edición y porque no domino el francés, si no, otro gallo hubiera cantado pero el caso es que una vez empezada, el contexto histórico y el acercamiento de Simone de Beauvoir a sus personajes, me engancharon. Un sacrilegio que a estas alturas ninguna editorial haya editado y traducido decentemente esta magnífica novela al castellano.
"Heme aquí claramente catalogada, y aceptando que así sea, adaptada a mi marido, a mi oficio, a la vida; a la muerte, al mundo, a sus horrores. Soy yo, apenas yo, es decir, nadie."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021...
- Cuestión de prestigio -dijo-. Si todavía queremos jugar a la gran potencia, necesitamos un número correcto de muertos."
Nunca me habia parado a pensar lo que debe ser reconstruir los ideales de un pais devastado después de una ocupación traumática, de una guerra… , un país que había sido zarandeado, ocupado, humillado y finalmente quedó completamente asolado no solo físicamente sino en la cuestión de sus ideales. En esta novela, Simone de Beauvoir se ocupa precisamente de eso, de narrarnos el difícil proceso en el que se vió se sumergida Francia durante la posguerra: había que recoger los pedazos y centrarse en encontrar un camino para no volver al totalitarismo y a otra guerra.
Esta novela cubre la etapa entre 1944, con el fin de la ocupación alemana hasta mediados de los años 50, cuando medio planeta andaba ya sumergido en la Guerra Fría, y usa como excusa para ello la vida de varios personajes pertenecientes a la izquierda intelectual francesa que durante la guerra habían luchado en la resistencia, escritores, periodistas, filósofos…, Los que habían sobrevivido a los campos de concentración o a ser aniquilados, se unen de alguna manera para darle una consistencia intelectual a un país en ruínas. Simone de Beauvoir usa para ello dos personajes guía para contarnos los acontecimientos: por una parte Henri Perron, escritor, periodista, uno de los personajes claves de la Resistencia, y una de las figuras emblemáticas a la hora de este nuevo resurgimiento, ya que al ser el fundador de un periódico de izquierdas L’Espoir, tendrá una enorme influencia sobre el resto. El otro personaje guía es el de Ana Dubreuilh, una psiquiatra muy prestigiosa, que además es la esposa de otra de las figuras emblemáticas de la intelectualidad: Robert Dubreuilh, uno de estos escritores que ahora llamaríamos influencers por la forma en que sus ideas influirían en el pueblo.
Desde el primer momento es una novela que me enganchó porque Simone de Beauvoir demuestra un gran talento a la hora de que el lector se adentre en la historia de sus personajes, y psicologícamente hablando los delinea muy bien, te hace conectar con ellos y nos resultan perfectamente comprensibles. Aunque es una novela donde hay muchos párrafos con reflexiones politicas, filosóficas, y dilemas morales donde sus personajes debaten temas que quizás ahora le resulte lejano al lector, el estilo de Simone de Beauvoir es cercano, perfectamente transparente. Me fascina el tema de unos personajes que durante la guerra han estado perfectamente vivos, activos, resistiendo, y algunos pensaríamos que lo más difíficil y doloroso ya estaría pasado que es la etapa de la guerra, y sin embargo, la autora explica perfectamente como lo más complejo está todavía por llegar porque todos estos personajes que han estado unidos durante la ocupación alemana, resistiendo y jugándose el pellejo tras la fachada alemana, cuando ya por fin son libres, viene esa otra etapa en la que tienen que permanecer unidos para construir un país, y aquí comienza lo complicado. La intelectualidad de izquierdas comienza a dividirse, y ahora todos quieren una parte del pastel. Anne Dubreuilh como esposa de uno de los personajes clave es una observadora siempre atenta a estos cambios, y va siendo testigo de este desencanto que progresivamente los va ensombreciendo y Henri Perron, un eterno idealista, pronto comprende que el idealismo sirve para poco cuando la realidad, la corrupción y los intereses políticos están a la orden del dia.
"Un aliado no es necesariamente un amigo. Además ¿qué es un amigo? (...) Amigos: ¿hasta qué punto? Si no cedo, ¿qué será de esta amistad?"
Al mismo tiempo que los mandarines fueron ese sector de la élite del imperio chino con poder e influencia, especialmente en los círculos literarios e intelectuales, aquí Simone de Beauvoir está estableciendo esta comparación con este grupo de personas de su entorno. Es bien sabido que esta novela es una especie de narración ficticia (un roman a clef) del propio entorno de Simone de Beauvoir durante la posguerra y aunque ella de alguna forma lo ha negado, el personaje de Ana podría ser ella misma, Robert Dubreuilh es Jean Paul Sartre y Henri Perron podría ser el mismo Albert Camus. La novela está dedicada a Nelson Algren, uno de los hombres más importantes en la vida de Simone de Beauvoir, y una importante sección de la novela está dedicada precisamente a narrarnos la historia de Ana con Lewis Brogan, escritor de izquierdas americano, fiel reflejo de la que fue su historia de amor con Algren.
Es una novela que he disfrutado muchísimo porque ya digo que me ha hecho entender una época de la historia que no se suele debatir demasiado, casi siempre es el periodo concreto de la guerra la que se lleva todo el protagonismo, y sobre todo la he disfrutado porque he entendido a sus personajes: desde el colaboracionista que se vió obligado a colaborar para sobrevivir, hasta esos personajes desesperados por conservar el alma de lo que fue la resistencia, y ya en la posguerra usando unos métodos que ya no eran lícitos. Es una novela de casi 800 páginas pero creo que estas páginas son necesarias para ir entendiendo todo el proceso de hasta qué punto todo ha cambiado y ya no son los mismos, y porque es la única forma de que el lector pueda entender al mismo tiempo que sus personajes, que no se puede continuar donde se quedaron antes de la guerra. Todos han cambiado y aquí hay ahora una enorme gama de matices que no tiene nada que ver con lo que fue en el pasado; ahora hay una delgada linea que separa al colaboracionista del héroe y ambos acaban camuflándose, por poner un ejemplo. Simone de Beauvoir se encarga de ponernos en situación y por supuesto de no idealizar nada. Las relaciones entre ellos, las rencillas, las historias de amor, los desencuentros… todo está aquí perfectamente narrado y poco a poco la autora va haciendo al lector complice de su historia. Una novela que me ha parecido magnífica y cuyo final le da el auténtico significado al conjunto total.
Lo que sí tengo que decir es que la traducción de Silvina Bullrich me ha parecido un horror, un atentado en toda regla; porque no hay otra edición y porque no domino el francés, si no, otro gallo hubiera cantado pero el caso es que una vez empezada, el contexto histórico y el acercamiento de Simone de Beauvoir a sus personajes, me engancharon. Un sacrilegio que a estas alturas ninguna editorial haya editado y traducido decentemente esta magnífica novela al castellano.
"Heme aquí claramente catalogada, y aceptando que así sea, adaptada a mi marido, a mi oficio, a la vida; a la muerte, al mundo, a sus horrores. Soy yo, apenas yo, es decir, nadie."
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2021...
March 27, 2020
Volume 1:
This is the first volume of de Beauvoir's huge and compelling depiction of the left-wing French intelligentsia in the last years of the second world war. Opening at Christmas 1944, the first Christmas after the liberation, this follows our main characters through the last year of the war and into the aftermath as they struggle to deal with the fall-out of the Occupation, the reckoning of collaboration, and the uneasy negotiations between the socialist left and the communist party.
This doesn't skim over any of the detail and is a rich source of history rendered on the page by de Beauvoir's acute and telling narrative. Her two main male characters are both writers, deeply concerned with the role of the intellectual in society, and this book depicts the politics of the period excellently - from the jubilation of the liberation to the increasing despondency, even despair, as they witness Hiroshima, and the revelation of the gulag system in Russia.
But the book isn't all party politics - it's also profoundly interested in gender politics. From Paule, who refuses to accept that her long-term lover no longer cares for her, to Anne who cannot step outside of her comfort zone, to Anne's daughter, Nadine, who is only 17 but has already lost loved ones to the war - this deals with themes which recur in de Beauvoir's writing: the psychological relationships between women and their bodies, the dynamics of power between men and women, the dreadful malaise which can inhabit love relationships.
This book is sometimes dismissed as a roman à clef but it's far more than that, and de Beauvoir is too good a writer to simply recreate either herself or her friends on the page. Certainly there are elements of Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir herself in this book but they don't easily map onto fixed characters - and there's a bit of de Beauvoir in all the characters, the men as well as the women.
Written in crisp and clean prose, beautifully direct and uncluttered by extravagant similes and metaphors, reading this book isn't so much like reading as taking part in a myriad simultaneous conversations as the characters argue, debate, fall in and out of love, drink champagne in cellar bars, and go dancing till the early hours of the Paris morning.
Volume 2:
This second volume of de Beauvoir's massive novel of Parisian intellectual life in the last years of, and just after, the second world war, picks up immediately from volume one.
On the personal level we have the story of Anne Dubreuilh's transatlantic love affair which draws on de Beauvoir's own affair with Nelson Algren, as well as the dreadful breakdown of lovely, desperate, fatally needy Paule who goes literally mad for love.
On the political level we have acute depictions of the increasingly fraught relationships between the French Leftist factions and the Communist Party; and the continuing reckoning with Nazi collaborators and former Gestapo spies.
At the heart of the book are a series of profound engagements with philosophical questions of how should we live in the face of an uncaring universe and the certainty of death - and characters are allowed to find their own ways of negotiating what it means to live a good life and to find a form of happiness.
This is a deep, rich and completely absorbing read written in de Beauvoir's clean and uncluttered prose. Because it refuses any kind of genre alignment, there's nothing neatly patterned, contrived, or expected about it and characters continue to surprise us right to the end.
I love this book so much that I just want to slip between the covers and live inside it!
This is the first volume of de Beauvoir's huge and compelling depiction of the left-wing French intelligentsia in the last years of the second world war. Opening at Christmas 1944, the first Christmas after the liberation, this follows our main characters through the last year of the war and into the aftermath as they struggle to deal with the fall-out of the Occupation, the reckoning of collaboration, and the uneasy negotiations between the socialist left and the communist party.
This doesn't skim over any of the detail and is a rich source of history rendered on the page by de Beauvoir's acute and telling narrative. Her two main male characters are both writers, deeply concerned with the role of the intellectual in society, and this book depicts the politics of the period excellently - from the jubilation of the liberation to the increasing despondency, even despair, as they witness Hiroshima, and the revelation of the gulag system in Russia.
But the book isn't all party politics - it's also profoundly interested in gender politics. From Paule, who refuses to accept that her long-term lover no longer cares for her, to Anne who cannot step outside of her comfort zone, to Anne's daughter, Nadine, who is only 17 but has already lost loved ones to the war - this deals with themes which recur in de Beauvoir's writing: the psychological relationships between women and their bodies, the dynamics of power between men and women, the dreadful malaise which can inhabit love relationships.
This book is sometimes dismissed as a roman à clef but it's far more than that, and de Beauvoir is too good a writer to simply recreate either herself or her friends on the page. Certainly there are elements of Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir herself in this book but they don't easily map onto fixed characters - and there's a bit of de Beauvoir in all the characters, the men as well as the women.
Written in crisp and clean prose, beautifully direct and uncluttered by extravagant similes and metaphors, reading this book isn't so much like reading as taking part in a myriad simultaneous conversations as the characters argue, debate, fall in and out of love, drink champagne in cellar bars, and go dancing till the early hours of the Paris morning.
Volume 2:
This second volume of de Beauvoir's massive novel of Parisian intellectual life in the last years of, and just after, the second world war, picks up immediately from volume one.
On the personal level we have the story of Anne Dubreuilh's transatlantic love affair which draws on de Beauvoir's own affair with Nelson Algren, as well as the dreadful breakdown of lovely, desperate, fatally needy Paule who goes literally mad for love.
On the political level we have acute depictions of the increasingly fraught relationships between the French Leftist factions and the Communist Party; and the continuing reckoning with Nazi collaborators and former Gestapo spies.
At the heart of the book are a series of profound engagements with philosophical questions of how should we live in the face of an uncaring universe and the certainty of death - and characters are allowed to find their own ways of negotiating what it means to live a good life and to find a form of happiness.
This is a deep, rich and completely absorbing read written in de Beauvoir's clean and uncluttered prose. Because it refuses any kind of genre alignment, there's nothing neatly patterned, contrived, or expected about it and characters continue to surprise us right to the end.
I love this book so much that I just want to slip between the covers and live inside it!
January 31, 2022
Simone de Beauvoir’ın İkinci Dünya Savaşı ile başlayıp; ABD’nin Vietnam müdahalesi, Kore Savaşı, Fransız kolonisinin dağılması, Gulag’ın ortaya çıkışı ve solun Avrupa’daki bölünmesi gibi olaylarla, bir dönemin siyasi ve entellektüel yapısına ışık tutan kitabı. Bütün bu olayları da entellektüel kesimin alması gereken konumu, yazı ile siyaset arasındaki bağı sorgulayarak aktarıyor. Tabii aynı dönemde yaşadıkları iki büyük aşkı ve yıkımını; patolojik bağlanmayı ve de savaşın bir toplum psikolojisi üzerindeki etkilerini de es geçmiyor. Kitap Simone de Beauvoir’ın hayatından gerçek izler taşıyor hatta Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, Hélène de Beauvoir, Nelson Algren, Lionel de Roulet gibi isimler de kitapta yer alıyor. Ancak bu kişileri tek tek karakterler halinde vermek yerine kişiliklerini/olaylarını farklı farklı karakterlere dağıtarak yapmış sevgili Simone. O yüzden tavsiyem yazarla tanışmanız bu kitapla olmasın. En azından kendisinin diğer kitaplarını okumanız; Birinci Dünya Savaşı’nın ebeveynleri üzerindeki etkisi ve bunun kardeşiyle ilişkisini yapılandırmasını, Zaza’yı, Les Mains Sales’in yazım ve sahnelenme sürecini, o dönem Fransasında kadının konumunu, Dolores’in yarattığı sorgulamayı, Olga’yı, Wanda’yı, Combat, Le Figaro, Les Temps Modernes’i ve Victor Kravchenko olayı gibi süreç ve kişileri bilerek okumaya başladığınızda kitap sizin için bambaşka bir şeye dönüşecektir. Simone de Beauvoir’ın en iyi kitabı ve kesinlikle en son okunması gerekeni bence.
Read
September 9, 2019This was my first time reading Beauvoir's fiction, and I'm rather ashamed I'd waited this long. Having proven herself in The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity to be one of the smartest, nimblest thinkers of the 20th Century as well as one who made her ideas perfectly clear all of the time, without any of the usual French obfuscation, it's only natural that her fiction should follow suit. And what I loved about The Mandarins was its take-no-prisoners approach. Not a single character was above mockery and derision, and yet another prisoner that was not taken was cynicism itself, as each of those character is also worthy of love, affection, and respect, even at their most fucked up. Similarly, their salon conversations, as silly as they are at times, are often scintillating.
December 22, 2017
کتاب های بلند را دوست دارم. نه از این نظر که متن طولانیی دارند. بخاطر این که زمان زیادی با هم در تماسیم. شخصیت ها کم کم واقعی میشن. عادتها ، فرهنگ حرف زدن ها و ... روز مره میشن. چند روزی توی کتاب زندگی میکنم . اولین بار تجربه ی این غرق شدن در فضای کتاب را با دن آرام داشتم و اینم دومین بار.
اعتثراف میکنم کتاب را با بی انگزگی شرو کردم . توی دویست سیصد صفحه ی اول حوصلم سر رفت جوری که چند بار کتاب را تصمیم گرفتم رها کنم ولی خوب شد که نکردم. کتاب از نظر زمانی اواخر و پس از جنگ جهانی دوم اتفاق می افته . در پاریس ازاد شده به وسلیه ی امریکایی ها روشنفکر ها گیج اند. هنوز کمونیسم روی زشت خودشو نشون نداده و خیلی ها طرفدارش اند. این وسط احساسات دو زن باعث از خشکی در اومدن کتاب و جریان انرژی توی کتاب میشه.... . کتابی نیست که روزی به دوستی معرفیش کنم برای خوندن ولی از خوندنش ام پشیمون نیستم.
اعتثراف میکنم کتاب را با بی انگزگی شرو کردم . توی دویست سیصد صفحه ی اول حوصلم سر رفت جوری که چند بار کتاب را تصمیم گرفتم رها کنم ولی خوب شد که نکردم. کتاب از نظر زمانی اواخر و پس از جنگ جهانی دوم اتفاق می افته . در پاریس ازاد شده به وسلیه ی امریکایی ها روشنفکر ها گیج اند. هنوز کمونیسم روی زشت خودشو نشون نداده و خیلی ها طرفدارش اند. این وسط احساسات دو زن باعث از خشکی در اومدن کتاب و جریان انرژی توی کتاب میشه.... . کتابی نیست که روزی به دوستی معرفیش کنم برای خوندن ولی از خوندنش ام پشیمون نیستم.
March 3, 2016
Pour l'anglais "mind-blowing", une amie avait proposé la traduction "qui souffle la tête". Simone de Beauvoir m'a soufflé la tête.
Les Mandarins, roman somme, roman phare, décrit le cercle des intellectuels de gauche parisiens dans la tourmente de la période post seconde guerre mondiale, à travers deux narrations alternées : une narration omnisciente qui suit tour à tour le parcours et les pensées de certains personnages, et une narration à la première personne, depuis le personnage d'Anne, psychanalyste, alter ego supposé mais non-assumé de de Beauvoir elle-même, qui vit avec un Dubreuilh, copie de Sartre, et qui fréquente un Henri qui ressemble pas mal à Albert Camus. Aussi, elle va partir en Amérique et rencontrer un bonhomme qui est le sosie de Nelson Algren ; mais bien sûr, toute ressemblance avec des personnes existantes ou ayant existé serait parfaitement fortuite.
Sur le quatrième de couverture, l'auteure précise : "J'aurais souhaité qu'on prenne ce livre pour ce qu'il est ; ni une autobiographie, ni un reportage : une évocation." C'est bien joli tout ça, mais c'est quand même difficile de ne pas être tentée par l'interprétation autobiographique, d'autant que certains développements comportent de vrais morceaux (comme les yaourts) de philosophie sartrienne ou camusienne dedans.
Ainsi, Henri et Dubreuilh développent sur la nécessité de l'engagement de l'homme. Et le livre se clôt sur un passage, plutôt artificiel, concernant le suicide : oui, la seule grande question philosophique pour Camus, qui va contre le principe sartrien d'engagement dans le monde, etc... D'ailleurs, j'ai lu de nombreuses reviews des Mandarins par les lecteurs ici, et je dois dire que (fait rare), je ne suis tombée parfaitement d'accord avec aucune d'elles (rien que ça, ça devrait vous dire que le roman est intéressant : il est si riche que chacun y met ce qui lui semble être juste). Cependant, certains mentionnent que cette fin semble d'autant plus artificielle qu'elle n'est pas justifiée par le caractère du personnage, et là, je suis. Mais je veux bien pardonner à de Beauvoir : une évocation de 200 pages, après tout, ça doit être difficile à conclure.
Je papote, et j'oublie de raconter l'essentiel. Les Mandarins, qu'en penser ?
- Un document extrêmement intéressant sur l'histoire de l'époque.
- Un livre qui rend passionnants des événements politiques qui ressemblent parfois à notre politique de tous les jours au JT. C'est comme un épisode de House of cards mais... au ralenti. Petit à petit, on en arrive à s'intéresser extrêmement à ce qui ressemble aux grands titres de nos journaux. L'URSS a mis en place des camps de travail ? Oh my, mais comment réagira le Parti Communiste Français ? ... La suite au prochain épisode (damn)
- Un roman d'amour et de voyages. Des fois. On nous emmène, sur les traces lointaines de Simone et de Nelson, à Chicago, au bord du Mississipi, et puis au Mexique, au Guatemala, au Portugal, en Italie... mais aussi dans les petites rues de Paris et près du boulevard Saint Germain.
- Et des réflexions philosophiques. Et la vie, et l'alcool, et la cigarette. Et oui.
Tout ce beau monde est emmené par un style précis, minutieux, fouillé ; et même si précis et si minutieux et si fouillé que je comprends qu'il puisse sembler froid, distant, à certains lecteurs, mais comment vous dire ? C'est justement ce style qui a fait de cette intrigue un roman puissant pour moi, et qui m'a permis de m'intéresser au moindre rebond de l'intrigue. Je me disais : oui c'est chirurgical, mais c'est irrésistible. Trop parfait, mais parfait tout de même.
Elle a toujours le mot juste, elle décrit des situations simples, des rencontres, des disputes, des amours, avec des termes dans lesquels chacun reconnaîtra ses propres tourments. Sur la vérité de ses descriptions des émotions, j'ai même pensé aux Tropismes de Sarraute.
La narration, comme je l'ai dit, est séparée en deux ; et les périodes temporelles se chevauchent ou se distancent, ce qui a pour conséquence de mener le lecteur à affronter deux fois le même épisode, à travers des perceptions différentes - ou au contraire, de le laisser sans récit précis d'un événement, qu'on devra donc imaginer.
Ici, ça énerve quelques revieweurs, qui disent que : "Mais quand on écrit un livre, on raconte tout". Moi j'ai aimé, d'une part l'originalité, d'autre part la place laissée à l'imagination du lecteur, et aussi ce que ce parti pris entraîne : une véritable dimension du temps, et un sens de la réalité.
Ensuite, beaucoup de chroniqueurs sanctionnent à coups d'étoiles les Mandarins, en se basant sur les personnages féminins. Quoi ? Un roman de l'auteure du Deuxième sexe, et les personnages féminins sont entièrement soumises aux hommes ? Moins intéressantes que les hommes ? Abîmées par les hommes ?
J'aurais aimé vous contredire, tellement j'ai moi-même aimé le roman, mais non : c'est le cas. Les femmes sont soumises dans les Mandarins (d'ailleurs, en Chine, les Mandarins sont forcément des hommes ; et sinon, l'auteure aurait appelé son roman les Mandarines, ce qui aurait fait un jeu de mots un peu ridicule mais joliment provoc'). Je ne me l'explique pas.
Ceci dit, la plupart des lecteurs sont capables de lire des conneries dix fois plus misogynes que ça, et ne pas sanctionner les livres pour autant : je ne vois pas la raison de le faire simplement parce que c'est ce cher Castor qui l'a écrit. C'est une source d'interrogations, d'insatisfaction ; mais les autres qualités du texte l'emportent, en ce qui me concerne.
Lisez les Mandarins. Cette lecture m'a vraiment donné envie d'aller plus loin dans les textes de de Beauvoir, en buvant des whiskys avec mes amis des cercles intellectuels de gauche à Paris. Can't wait.
Les Mandarins, roman somme, roman phare, décrit le cercle des intellectuels de gauche parisiens dans la tourmente de la période post seconde guerre mondiale, à travers deux narrations alternées : une narration omnisciente qui suit tour à tour le parcours et les pensées de certains personnages, et une narration à la première personne, depuis le personnage d'Anne, psychanalyste, alter ego supposé mais non-assumé de de Beauvoir elle-même, qui vit avec un Dubreuilh, copie de Sartre, et qui fréquente un Henri qui ressemble pas mal à Albert Camus. Aussi, elle va partir en Amérique et rencontrer un bonhomme qui est le sosie de Nelson Algren ; mais bien sûr, toute ressemblance avec des personnes existantes ou ayant existé serait parfaitement fortuite.
Sur le quatrième de couverture, l'auteure précise : "J'aurais souhaité qu'on prenne ce livre pour ce qu'il est ; ni une autobiographie, ni un reportage : une évocation." C'est bien joli tout ça, mais c'est quand même difficile de ne pas être tentée par l'interprétation autobiographique, d'autant que certains développements comportent de vrais morceaux (comme les yaourts) de philosophie sartrienne ou camusienne dedans.
Ainsi, Henri et Dubreuilh développent sur la nécessité de l'engagement de l'homme. Et le livre se clôt sur un passage, plutôt artificiel, concernant le suicide : oui, la seule grande question philosophique pour Camus, qui va contre le principe sartrien d'engagement dans le monde, etc... D'ailleurs, j'ai lu de nombreuses reviews des Mandarins par les lecteurs ici, et je dois dire que (fait rare), je ne suis tombée parfaitement d'accord avec aucune d'elles (rien que ça, ça devrait vous dire que le roman est intéressant : il est si riche que chacun y met ce qui lui semble être juste). Cependant, certains mentionnent que cette fin semble d'autant plus artificielle qu'elle n'est pas justifiée par le caractère du personnage, et là, je suis. Mais je veux bien pardonner à de Beauvoir : une évocation de 200 pages, après tout, ça doit être difficile à conclure.
Je papote, et j'oublie de raconter l'essentiel. Les Mandarins, qu'en penser ?
- Un document extrêmement intéressant sur l'histoire de l'époque.
- Un livre qui rend passionnants des événements politiques qui ressemblent parfois à notre politique de tous les jours au JT. C'est comme un épisode de House of cards mais... au ralenti. Petit à petit, on en arrive à s'intéresser extrêmement à ce qui ressemble aux grands titres de nos journaux. L'URSS a mis en place des camps de travail ? Oh my, mais comment réagira le Parti Communiste Français ? ... La suite au prochain épisode (damn)
- Un roman d'amour et de voyages. Des fois. On nous emmène, sur les traces lointaines de Simone et de Nelson, à Chicago, au bord du Mississipi, et puis au Mexique, au Guatemala, au Portugal, en Italie... mais aussi dans les petites rues de Paris et près du boulevard Saint Germain.
- Et des réflexions philosophiques. Et la vie, et l'alcool, et la cigarette. Et oui.
Tout ce beau monde est emmené par un style précis, minutieux, fouillé ; et même si précis et si minutieux et si fouillé que je comprends qu'il puisse sembler froid, distant, à certains lecteurs, mais comment vous dire ? C'est justement ce style qui a fait de cette intrigue un roman puissant pour moi, et qui m'a permis de m'intéresser au moindre rebond de l'intrigue. Je me disais : oui c'est chirurgical, mais c'est irrésistible. Trop parfait, mais parfait tout de même.
Elle a toujours le mot juste, elle décrit des situations simples, des rencontres, des disputes, des amours, avec des termes dans lesquels chacun reconnaîtra ses propres tourments. Sur la vérité de ses descriptions des émotions, j'ai même pensé aux Tropismes de Sarraute.
La narration, comme je l'ai dit, est séparée en deux ; et les périodes temporelles se chevauchent ou se distancent, ce qui a pour conséquence de mener le lecteur à affronter deux fois le même épisode, à travers des perceptions différentes - ou au contraire, de le laisser sans récit précis d'un événement, qu'on devra donc imaginer.
Ici, ça énerve quelques revieweurs, qui disent que : "Mais quand on écrit un livre, on raconte tout". Moi j'ai aimé, d'une part l'originalité, d'autre part la place laissée à l'imagination du lecteur, et aussi ce que ce parti pris entraîne : une véritable dimension du temps, et un sens de la réalité.
Ensuite, beaucoup de chroniqueurs sanctionnent à coups d'étoiles les Mandarins, en se basant sur les personnages féminins. Quoi ? Un roman de l'auteure du Deuxième sexe, et les personnages féminins sont entièrement soumises aux hommes ? Moins intéressantes que les hommes ? Abîmées par les hommes ?
J'aurais aimé vous contredire, tellement j'ai moi-même aimé le roman, mais non : c'est le cas. Les femmes sont soumises dans les Mandarins (d'ailleurs, en Chine, les Mandarins sont forcément des hommes ; et sinon, l'auteure aurait appelé son roman les Mandarines, ce qui aurait fait un jeu de mots un peu ridicule mais joliment provoc'). Je ne me l'explique pas.
Ceci dit, la plupart des lecteurs sont capables de lire des conneries dix fois plus misogynes que ça, et ne pas sanctionner les livres pour autant : je ne vois pas la raison de le faire simplement parce que c'est ce cher Castor qui l'a écrit. C'est une source d'interrogations, d'insatisfaction ; mais les autres qualités du texte l'emportent, en ce qui me concerne.
Lisez les Mandarins. Cette lecture m'a vraiment donné envie d'aller plus loin dans les textes de de Beauvoir, en buvant des whiskys avec mes amis des cercles intellectuels de gauche à Paris. Can't wait.
July 18, 2016
یک رمان دو جلدی با بیش از هزار صفحه که به وقایع جامعه روشنفکران فرانسه بعد جنگ جهانی دوم می پردازد، علیرغم حجم بالا، رمان از شیوه ی روایتی جذابی برخوردار است که در کنار وقایع داستان به حقایق تاریخی زیادی نیز اشاره می کند، سیمون دوبووار نویسنده ی رمان را بنیانگذار موج دوم فمینیست بعد جنگ جهانی دوم می دانند که در این رمان نیز زنانی با افکار متفاوت و از نسلهای مختلف وجود دارند که بنا به گفته ی منتقدین از افکار نویسنده و فلسفه ی خود وی در این زنان دیده میشود. آن، نادین و پل، سه زنی که هرکدام روش و افکار متفاوتی در برابر مردان دوروبر خود داشتند و هرکدام نماینده ی اندیشه ی متفاوتی در بین زنان هستند، در نهایت نیز سرنوشتهای متفاوتی دارند. این رمان نه تنها از نظر فمینیستی بلکه از نظر وقایع تاریخی و اجتماعی نیز قابل توجه بررسی می باشد و البته نثر شیوای روایت نیز بسیار لذت بخش است.
October 7, 2017
Una delle letture liceali che più mi appassionarono, all'epoca argomento di temi, interrogazioni ed elucubrazioni varie.
Testimonianza straordinaria di quelle che sono state le mobilitazioni e le diverse prese di posizione da parte della "casta" intellettuale parigina nel secondo dopoguerra, in relazione ai vari avvenimenti sulla scena mondiale. Sullo sfondo di una città che a poco a poco riprende a vivere dopo le vicende belliche, l'engagement trova piena realizzazione.
E quale definizione migliore di engagement, se non quella data dalla stessa autrice che così scriveva: "l'engagement non è altro, in fondo, che la presenza totale dello scrittore alla scrittura". Una lezione ancora valida per tanti intellettuali a distanza di oltre mezzo secolo.
Testimonianza straordinaria di quelle che sono state le mobilitazioni e le diverse prese di posizione da parte della "casta" intellettuale parigina nel secondo dopoguerra, in relazione ai vari avvenimenti sulla scena mondiale. Sullo sfondo di una città che a poco a poco riprende a vivere dopo le vicende belliche, l'engagement trova piena realizzazione.
E quale definizione migliore di engagement, se non quella data dalla stessa autrice che così scriveva: "l'engagement non è altro, in fondo, che la presenza totale dello scrittore alla scrittura". Una lezione ancora valida per tanti intellettuali a distanza di oltre mezzo secolo.
January 13, 2016
This book was absolutely amazing. It was written by one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. The author was a great philosopher and phemonist of her era. I suggest all read this book and any others you can find by her.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond
June 9, 2021
پایان سفر طولانی💔📚
عالی عالی بااینکه نصف داستان سیاسی بود.نتونستم کنار بذارمش بخش های رومانتیکش بینظیر بودن.
عالی عالی بااینکه نصف داستان سیاسی بود.نتونستم کنار بذارمش بخش های رومانتیکش بینظیر بودن.
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March 13, 2022Kapağı açıyorsunuz. İlk sayfa. Paris’tesiniz. Paris Nazi işgalinden henüz kurtarılmış. Dönemin Parizyen yazar-çizer-teorisyen takımı ile özgürlüğü kutluyorsunuz. Bugün çok beklendi. Herkes çok heyecanlı. Herkes gelecekten ümitli.
Öyle mi?
Savaş devam ederken işler ne derece boktan olursa olsun, sizin dışınızda ve sizi kısıtlayan bir faktörün varlığı, üzerinizdeki kişisel sorumlulukların bir ölçüde rafa kaldırılmasına da yarıyor. Kimse sizden pek bir şey yapmanızı beklemiyor. Savaş var nihayetinde. Fakat savaş bittiğinde artık “dışarı çıkmanız” ve “hayatınıza devam etmeniz” gerekiyor. Bu savaş sonrası bunalımı, kitabın ana temalarından biri olmamakla beraber, kendim de dahil olmak üzere pek çok kişide gözlemlediğim “korona-sonrası-bunalımı” ile kurduğum bağdaşım sebebiyle benim için merkezi idi.
Ana karakterleri hepimiz tanıyoruz. Merkezdeki çiftimiz Anne ile Robert aslında Beauvoir ile Sartre’ın, bir diğer merkezi karakter olan Henri ise Albert Camus’nün izdüşümü. Etraflarındaki diğer eş-dost-aile üyeleri ile birlikte bir sol entelijansiyanın bileşenleri bu ekip. Fakat sol bu, durur mu, bölünmüş elbette. Komünist Parti ile uzlaşım zor. Yeni bir oluşum etrafında, “Sosyalist bir Avrupa ülküsü” için toplanmaya çalışıyorlar. Bir yandan Sovyetler’den gelen haberler sosyalist kalplerini kırıyor, öte yandan Sovyetler’i yermenin onları sağcı kılacağından korkuluyor.
Hiç tökezlemeden akan bu muhteşem kurgu, yazmak-yazmamak, edebiyatın gerekliliği-gereksizliği, politik olarak aktif olmanın ahlaki zorunluluğu ve elbette bu aydınların kendi kişisel alanlarındaki ilişkilenme biçimleri etrafında şekilleniyor. Birbirini takip eden bölümlerden bazıları Henri’nin (Camus’nün) merkeze alındığı tanrı anlatıcı ağzıyla, diğer bölümler Anne (Beauvoir) ağzından ve birinci kişi marifetiyle anlatılıyor. Böylece olayları hem içeriden, hem dışarıdan seyredebiliyoruz.
Son olarak, kitapta hiç mandalina yok diye düşünenler için kaynağı çok güvenilir olmayan bir bilgi kırıntısı: “Mandarinler” ismi, Çince karşılığından yola çıkılarak “aydınlar”ı temsil etmek adına kullanılmış.
924 sayfalık harika bir roman. Bir 924 daha giderdi.
Öyle mi?
Savaş devam ederken işler ne derece boktan olursa olsun, sizin dışınızda ve sizi kısıtlayan bir faktörün varlığı, üzerinizdeki kişisel sorumlulukların bir ölçüde rafa kaldırılmasına da yarıyor. Kimse sizden pek bir şey yapmanızı beklemiyor. Savaş var nihayetinde. Fakat savaş bittiğinde artık “dışarı çıkmanız” ve “hayatınıza devam etmeniz” gerekiyor. Bu savaş sonrası bunalımı, kitabın ana temalarından biri olmamakla beraber, kendim de dahil olmak üzere pek çok kişide gözlemlediğim “korona-sonrası-bunalımı” ile kurduğum bağdaşım sebebiyle benim için merkezi idi.
Ana karakterleri hepimiz tanıyoruz. Merkezdeki çiftimiz Anne ile Robert aslında Beauvoir ile Sartre’ın, bir diğer merkezi karakter olan Henri ise Albert Camus’nün izdüşümü. Etraflarındaki diğer eş-dost-aile üyeleri ile birlikte bir sol entelijansiyanın bileşenleri bu ekip. Fakat sol bu, durur mu, bölünmüş elbette. Komünist Parti ile uzlaşım zor. Yeni bir oluşum etrafında, “Sosyalist bir Avrupa ülküsü” için toplanmaya çalışıyorlar. Bir yandan Sovyetler’den gelen haberler sosyalist kalplerini kırıyor, öte yandan Sovyetler’i yermenin onları sağcı kılacağından korkuluyor.
Hiç tökezlemeden akan bu muhteşem kurgu, yazmak-yazmamak, edebiyatın gerekliliği-gereksizliği, politik olarak aktif olmanın ahlaki zorunluluğu ve elbette bu aydınların kendi kişisel alanlarındaki ilişkilenme biçimleri etrafında şekilleniyor. Birbirini takip eden bölümlerden bazıları Henri’nin (Camus’nün) merkeze alındığı tanrı anlatıcı ağzıyla, diğer bölümler Anne (Beauvoir) ağzından ve birinci kişi marifetiyle anlatılıyor. Böylece olayları hem içeriden, hem dışarıdan seyredebiliyoruz.
Son olarak, kitapta hiç mandalina yok diye düşünenler için kaynağı çok güvenilir olmayan bir bilgi kırıntısı: “Mandarinler” ismi, Çince karşılığından yola çıkılarak “aydınlar”ı temsil etmek adına kullanılmış.
924 sayfalık harika bir roman. Bir 924 daha giderdi.
April 19, 2016
شروع اثر نان فیکشن بزرگ و اثرگذاری مثل "جنس دوم جلد اول حقایق و اسطورهها" باعث شد تا نسبت به آثار داستانی دوبووار کنجکاو شم . بعد از اثر کوچک مرگ آرام قرعه به نام ماندارن ها افتاد
داستان از اولین لحظات اتمام جنگ جهانی دوم و آزادی فرانسه شروع میشه و تا اواسط دهه ی پنجاه ادامه پیدا می کنه . ماندارن ها اثر بزرگ و پرماجراییه
که تلاش عده ای از روشنفکران پاریس برای اثرگذاری در سیاست رو به تصویر می کشه و در این بین گریزی هم به مسائل عاطفی ، فمینیستی و فلسفی داره. پنج شخصیت اصلی و تعاد زیاد شخصیت های مکمل و پرداخت دقیق نویسنده به زندگی شخصی ، ادبی و سیاسی کاراکترها تا حدودی نشون دهنده ی عظمت اثر هست. " هانری " نویسنده ی موفقیه که رشد ادبی خودش رو مدیون رفیق دیرینش "دوبروی" هست و به تشویق اون ذره ذره وارد امور سیاسی میشه. هانری نزدیک به ده ساله که با "پل" در رابطه ست. رابطه ای که با عشقی طوفانی شروع شد ولی پس از ده سال چیزی جز عذاب براش به همراه نداره . "پل" ادعای عشق واقعی داره. همه امور شخصی رو رها کرده و خودش رو وقف رابطه و وابسته ی هانری کرده و تبدیل به شخصیتی ضعیف و غیر مفید شده که دست کمی از بیمار روان پریش نداره. سه شخصیت زن داستان "پل" پارتنر هانری ، "آن" همسر دوبروی و "نادین " دختر آن و دوبروی هستند. هیچ کدوم از این سه زن کاراکتر قوی و نرمالی به نظرم نیومدند. پل اون قدر به هانری وابسته شده که تصور به هم خوردن رابطه هم اون رو از درون متلاشی می کنه. "آن" زن جوانیه که فاصله سنی زیادی با همسرش داره . با وجودی که روانشناسه ولی به نظر نمیاد چندان توانایی مهار بحران های روحی و مشکلاتش رو داشته باشه . " نادین" ولی دختر سرکشیست که تو بسیاری جاها در خلال مکالماتش عدم پیشرفت و انجام ندادن کارهای بزرگ و موثر در زندگیش رو ناشی از زن بودن می دونه . با وجودی که به هر طریق ممکن خواسته هاش رو عملی می کنه ولی لجبازی شدیدش برای من شخصیت نرمالی رو تداعی نکرد
ماندارن ها هرچند اثری فیکشنه ولی با توجه به اوضاع فرانسه در زمان حیات نویسنده و حلقه های معاشرتی و دوستانش ، تشخیص اثرپذیری حوادث از رخدادهای رئال و تاثرپذیری کاراکترها از آدم های واقعی دور و بری دوبووار - ژان پل سارتر ، آلبر کامو و ....- کار دشواری نیست. ارتباط "آن" با نویسنده ی امریکایی لوییس بروگن هم رابطه ی رمانتیک بین سیمون دوبووار و نلسون آلگرن رو تداعی می کنه به همون اندازه که دوبروی ، "سارتر" و هانری، " کامو" رو برای خواننده تداعی میکنه.
با وجودی که شدت محتوای سیاسی داستان و حزب بازی و جنگ بین کمونیسم و کاپیتالیسم و فاشیسم و تلاش برای محاکمه و انتقام از همکاران نازیسم خیلی جاها بالا می زنه ولی اصلا حوصله مو سر نبرد (برخلاف تصور خودم از خودم ) کشش و جذابیت بالایی داشت که تو جلد دوم حتی دو برابر هم شد. بحث "نسبی بودن اخلاق" و سختی تصمیم گیری های اخلاقی مبحثی بود که در چند جا سیمون در قالب اتفاقات رخ داده برای کاراکترهاش پیش کشید
ماندارن ها برای من اثر خیلی خیلی متفاوتی بود. تصویری که برام از پاریس و زندگی روشنفکران پاریسی در دهه ی چهل و پنجاه ساخت بسیار شفافه. دیدی هم که از بحران ها و مسائل سیاسی غالب بعد از جنگ جهانی دوم میده برای من ارزشمند بود. ماندارن ها هم من رو تشنه ی بیشتر دونستن از حوادث جنگ جهانی دوم کرد و هم حریص بیشتر خوندن از دوبووار. حتی اگه زنانی که در داستان خلق کرد به اندازه ی پیش فرضم قوی و خودساخته نباشند
داستان از اولین لحظات اتمام جنگ جهانی دوم و آزادی فرانسه شروع میشه و تا اواسط دهه ی پنجاه ادامه پیدا می کنه . ماندارن ها اثر بزرگ و پرماجراییه
که تلاش عده ای از روشنفکران پاریس برای اثرگذاری در سیاست رو به تصویر می کشه و در این بین گریزی هم به مسائل عاطفی ، فمینیستی و فلسفی داره. پنج شخصیت اصلی و تعاد زیاد شخصیت های مکمل و پرداخت دقیق نویسنده به زندگی شخصی ، ادبی و سیاسی کاراکترها تا حدودی نشون دهنده ی عظمت اثر هست. " هانری " نویسنده ی موفقیه که رشد ادبی خودش رو مدیون رفیق دیرینش "دوبروی" هست و به تشویق اون ذره ذره وارد امور سیاسی میشه. هانری نزدیک به ده ساله که با "پل" در رابطه ست. رابطه ای که با عشقی طوفانی شروع شد ولی پس از ده سال چیزی جز عذاب براش به همراه نداره . "پل" ادعای عشق واقعی داره. همه امور شخصی رو رها کرده و خودش رو وقف رابطه و وابسته ی هانری کرده و تبدیل به شخصیتی ضعیف و غیر مفید شده که دست کمی از بیمار روان پریش نداره. سه شخصیت زن داستان "پل" پارتنر هانری ، "آن" همسر دوبروی و "نادین " دختر آن و دوبروی هستند. هیچ کدوم از این سه زن کاراکتر قوی و نرمالی به نظرم نیومدند. پل اون قدر به هانری وابسته شده که تصور به هم خوردن رابطه هم اون رو از درون متلاشی می کنه. "آن" زن جوانیه که فاصله سنی زیادی با همسرش داره . با وجودی که روانشناسه ولی به نظر نمیاد چندان توانایی مهار بحران های روحی و مشکلاتش رو داشته باشه . " نادین" ولی دختر سرکشیست که تو بسیاری جاها در خلال مکالماتش عدم پیشرفت و انجام ندادن کارهای بزرگ و موثر در زندگیش رو ناشی از زن بودن می دونه . با وجودی که به هر طریق ممکن خواسته هاش رو عملی می کنه ولی لجبازی شدیدش برای من شخصیت نرمالی رو تداعی نکرد
ماندارن ها هرچند اثری فیکشنه ولی با توجه به اوضاع فرانسه در زمان حیات نویسنده و حلقه های معاشرتی و دوستانش ، تشخیص اثرپذیری حوادث از رخدادهای رئال و تاثرپذیری کاراکترها از آدم های واقعی دور و بری دوبووار - ژان پل سارتر ، آلبر کامو و ....- کار دشواری نیست. ارتباط "آن" با نویسنده ی امریکایی لوییس بروگن هم رابطه ی رمانتیک بین سیمون دوبووار و نلسون آلگرن رو تداعی می کنه به همون اندازه که دوبروی ، "سارتر" و هانری، " کامو" رو برای خواننده تداعی میکنه.
با وجودی که شدت محتوای سیاسی داستان و حزب بازی و جنگ بین کمونیسم و کاپیتالیسم و فاشیسم و تلاش برای محاکمه و انتقام از همکاران نازیسم خیلی جاها بالا می زنه ولی اصلا حوصله مو سر نبرد (برخلاف تصور خودم از خودم ) کشش و جذابیت بالایی داشت که تو جلد دوم حتی دو برابر هم شد. بحث "نسبی بودن اخلاق" و سختی تصمیم گیری های اخلاقی مبحثی بود که در چند جا سیمون در قالب اتفاقات رخ داده برای کاراکترهاش پیش کشید
ماندارن ها برای من اثر خیلی خیلی متفاوتی بود. تصویری که برام از پاریس و زندگی روشنفکران پاریسی در دهه ی چهل و پنجاه ساخت بسیار شفافه. دیدی هم که از بحران ها و مسائل سیاسی غالب بعد از جنگ جهانی دوم میده برای من ارزشمند بود. ماندارن ها هم من رو تشنه ی بیشتر دونستن از حوادث جنگ جهانی دوم کرد و هم حریص بیشتر خوندن از دوبووار. حتی اگه زنانی که در داستان خلق کرد به اندازه ی پیش فرضم قوی و خودساخته نباشند
July 31, 2021
Langsam zu lesen aber nie langweilig. Simone de Beauvoirs Schlüsselroman der Existenzialistenszene liest sich in weiten Teilen wie ein französisches Pendant zu Doris Lessings Goldenem Notizbuch, wobei Simone de Beauvoir persönlicher wird und sich auf einen engeren zeitlichen Korridor beschränkt.
April 1, 2008
This book reads like a French version of an Ayn Rand novel (and this is not compliment). "The Mandarins" is full of flat characters whose voices are scarcely distinguishable, awkward dialogue, insipidly clunky internal monologue, and a surprising lack of atmosphere (how can de Beauvoir make Paris so boring?). The book has pretensions to being philosophical and rich, but it is unfortunately dated and vapid. If this novel represents French intellectual life immediately following WWII, then its most impressive aspects must have been its lethargy and pedantry.
May 9, 2014
Now that's how to write a lightly fictionalized kiss 'n' tell memoir.
December 17, 2009
My reactions to Simone's massive novel about life with J.P. Sartre, Albert Camus, and Nelson Algren are violently mixed. It's fascinating to read about an era where prize-winning novelists were resistance fighters and political organizers, and though they're continually bemoaning their powerlessness, I'm amazed by how much what they do and say matters in their vanished world. On the other hand, it's discouraging the way Simone turns Sartre into a plaster saint, and Camus into a heroic godlike creature every woman desires. The big revelation this novel delivers is how focused on men the author, a feminist icon, was, and how hostile she is to all women other than herself. It wasn't just the era she lived in, because Colette, born a generation before Simone, wrote many warm and appreciative portraits of women, and didn't delude herself about the flaws in the characters of the men she loved.
One of the philosophical preoccupations of the novel is Sartre's idea of "Bad Faith", which as I interpret it, is the creation of a morality or an ideology that protects us from the anxiety of having to make choices about our life. The Camus character in the novel is continually struggling with one anguished choice after the next about freedom, betrayal, life and death, but the choices of the women are limited to choices between one man and another. And even then, the choices about when to end the love affairs are almost always made by the men. Perhaps Simone's bad faith about the inability of women to be happy without being the acolytes of men is what makes her style pedantic and turgid, resembling James Michener far more than her literary predecessor, the clear-eyed and elegant Colette, so that the novel is slow going, relying on the basic vitality of the times and the characters to pull you along.
One of the philosophical preoccupations of the novel is Sartre's idea of "Bad Faith", which as I interpret it, is the creation of a morality or an ideology that protects us from the anxiety of having to make choices about our life. The Camus character in the novel is continually struggling with one anguished choice after the next about freedom, betrayal, life and death, but the choices of the women are limited to choices between one man and another. And even then, the choices about when to end the love affairs are almost always made by the men. Perhaps Simone's bad faith about the inability of women to be happy without being the acolytes of men is what makes her style pedantic and turgid, resembling James Michener far more than her literary predecessor, the clear-eyed and elegant Colette, so that the novel is slow going, relying on the basic vitality of the times and the characters to pull you along.
October 14, 2014
Mandarinler, İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrası Paris'te yaşamakta olan bir grup entelektüel yazarın hayatlarıyla ve birbirleriyle olan ilişkilerini, mücadelelerini konu alıyor. Ve bu yazarlar Simone'nin hayatındaki insanların ta kendisi. Henri karakteri yazar Albert Camus'u, Anne karakteri Simone'nin kendisini, Anne'in kocası Robert ise tabi ki de Jean Paul Sartre'ı canlandırıyor. Olaylar Henri ve Anne'in ağzından aktarılmış. Bu sebeple Simone'nin yaşadıkları dolayısıyla neler hissettiğini çok iyi bir şekilde anlayabiliyoruz.
Nazilerin yenilmesinden sonra Paris entelektüelleri bir ikilemde kalırlar. Stalin'in uyguladığı yöntemlere karşı olsalar da sosyalist bir Avrupa için Sovyetler Birliğine ihtiyaçları olduğunu düşünürler ama o dönemin komünistleriyle beraber çalışmaları imkansızdır. Troçkistlere yapılanlar ve sol kesimdeki kendinden başkasını düşman görme tavırları onları bu ayrışmaya iter. Birleşip sol görüşlü ama komünist olmayan bir hareket kurmaya karar verirler.
Tabi böyle olunca hainlikle suçlanma olasılığıyla karşı karşıya kalırlar.
Daha sonra Sovyetlerin "çalışma" kampları tüm acımasızlığı ve kesinliğiyle karşılarına çıkınca kendi aralarında da kopmalar yaşanır. Tam 9. 800. 000 insan yargılanmadan suçlu bulunarak bu kamplara gönderilmiştir. En ağır koşullarda çalıştırılıp, hastalanınca da ölüme terk edilirler. Gestapo kamplarından farkı nedir peki bunun?
Fark yoktur.
Henri bu kampları kamuoyuna duyurmazsalar aşağılık bir tavır olacağını savunur. Ama Robert duyurmalarına karşı çıkar. Amerikan Emperyalizmine karşı sadece Sovyetlerin şansı olduğunu, bu belgeleri yayınlarlarsa antikomünist damgası yiyeceklerini söyler. Henri onu dinlemez ve belgeleri yayınlatır. Tabi herkes ayağa kalkar. Bu bir nevi o herkesin eşit olacağı muhteşem dünya hayallerinin sonu gibidir.
Kitapta Henri ve Robert bir süre küs kalsalar da sonra yine barışırlar. Kurdukları oluşumun başarısız oluşu ve Amerika'nın özellikle Hiroşima'ya atom bombası attıktan sonra ki gücü onları büyük umutsuzluğa sürükler. Yine de yazmaktan vazgeçemezler.
Simone o günkü şartlarda insanın değerlerine ihanet etmeden yaşamasının nasıl zor olduğunu çok iyi anlatmış. Örneğin Henri Josette isimli bir kadın yüzünden, Gestapo'ya muhbirlik yapmış biri için sahte tanıklık yapmak zorunda kalır ve adam kurtulur. Bu kendisine sosyalist diyen bir insan için ne alçaltıcı bir harekettir oysa!
Fakat insan kendisiyle yaşar ve bir tuzaktan başka bir tuzağa çekilir. Bu tuzaklar onu hayal bile edemeyeceği yerlere götürebilir.
Anne karakteri okudukça bağlandığım bir karakter oldu. Aklı, zekası, kibarlığı, devrimciliği! Muhteşem bir kadın. Keşke tanıma en azından görme şansım olsaydı. Ama bütün hayran olunacak insanlar geçmişte yaşamış sanki ! Ne talihsiz bir zamana doğmuşuz.
Simone okumadan geçirilen bir yaşam eksik kalmıştır bana göre. İnsanın hayalleri, inançları, hem iyiliği hem kötülüğü o kadar güzel anlatılıyor ki! Ruh bu kadar iyi çözümlenebilirdi ancak diyorsunuz.
Sonsuza kadar yaşayamasa bile yazdıklarıyla zamanın hiç eskitemeyeceği bir kadın Simone de Beauvoir.
Nazilerin yenilmesinden sonra Paris entelektüelleri bir ikilemde kalırlar. Stalin'in uyguladığı yöntemlere karşı olsalar da sosyalist bir Avrupa için Sovyetler Birliğine ihtiyaçları olduğunu düşünürler ama o dönemin komünistleriyle beraber çalışmaları imkansızdır. Troçkistlere yapılanlar ve sol kesimdeki kendinden başkasını düşman görme tavırları onları bu ayrışmaya iter. Birleşip sol görüşlü ama komünist olmayan bir hareket kurmaya karar verirler.
Tabi böyle olunca hainlikle suçlanma olasılığıyla karşı karşıya kalırlar.
Daha sonra Sovyetlerin "çalışma" kampları tüm acımasızlığı ve kesinliğiyle karşılarına çıkınca kendi aralarında da kopmalar yaşanır. Tam 9. 800. 000 insan yargılanmadan suçlu bulunarak bu kamplara gönderilmiştir. En ağır koşullarda çalıştırılıp, hastalanınca da ölüme terk edilirler. Gestapo kamplarından farkı nedir peki bunun?
Fark yoktur.
Henri bu kampları kamuoyuna duyurmazsalar aşağılık bir tavır olacağını savunur. Ama Robert duyurmalarına karşı çıkar. Amerikan Emperyalizmine karşı sadece Sovyetlerin şansı olduğunu, bu belgeleri yayınlarlarsa antikomünist damgası yiyeceklerini söyler. Henri onu dinlemez ve belgeleri yayınlatır. Tabi herkes ayağa kalkar. Bu bir nevi o herkesin eşit olacağı muhteşem dünya hayallerinin sonu gibidir.
Kitapta Henri ve Robert bir süre küs kalsalar da sonra yine barışırlar. Kurdukları oluşumun başarısız oluşu ve Amerika'nın özellikle Hiroşima'ya atom bombası attıktan sonra ki gücü onları büyük umutsuzluğa sürükler. Yine de yazmaktan vazgeçemezler.
Simone o günkü şartlarda insanın değerlerine ihanet etmeden yaşamasının nasıl zor olduğunu çok iyi anlatmış. Örneğin Henri Josette isimli bir kadın yüzünden, Gestapo'ya muhbirlik yapmış biri için sahte tanıklık yapmak zorunda kalır ve adam kurtulur. Bu kendisine sosyalist diyen bir insan için ne alçaltıcı bir harekettir oysa!
Fakat insan kendisiyle yaşar ve bir tuzaktan başka bir tuzağa çekilir. Bu tuzaklar onu hayal bile edemeyeceği yerlere götürebilir.
Anne karakteri okudukça bağlandığım bir karakter oldu. Aklı, zekası, kibarlığı, devrimciliği! Muhteşem bir kadın. Keşke tanıma en azından görme şansım olsaydı. Ama bütün hayran olunacak insanlar geçmişte yaşamış sanki ! Ne talihsiz bir zamana doğmuşuz.
Simone okumadan geçirilen bir yaşam eksik kalmıştır bana göre. İnsanın hayalleri, inançları, hem iyiliği hem kötülüğü o kadar güzel anlatılıyor ki! Ruh bu kadar iyi çözümlenebilirdi ancak diyorsunuz.
Sonsuza kadar yaşayamasa bile yazdıklarıyla zamanın hiç eskitemeyeceği bir kadın Simone de Beauvoir.
April 9, 2010
I read the #9 bestseller of 1956 while vacationing in wintertime Sedona, AZ. Long, wordy, philosophical but with a compelling story, it was just great.
Located in Paris and later in America, the story begins on Christmas Eve, 1944, at a party to celebrate the liberation of France from Germany. The gathering includes the main characters, all leftists, writers, and publishers who were involved to one degree or another in the Resistance against the Germans. They are now dreaming of the possibilities for the future of France.
De Beauvoir does a marvelous job of juxtapositioning the personal with the political to create a novel of love and ideas. She is equally good at portraying the men and the women, all of whom are well-read intellectuals. The book speaks to intelligent readers as all of her books do.
The critical literature about The Mandarins names real life personages as the ones behind its characters. Robert, the philosopher and writer, is Jean Paul Sartre; his wife Anne is de Beauvoir herself; Henri, young novelist and journalist as well as student of Robert, is Albert Camus; and Anne's American lover Lewis is Nelson Algren. All of that is interesting enough but what I enjoyed was the author's ruminations on how much influence intellectuals and writers really have on the course of history and political/societal change. As a reader, that is a question I ponder daily and the underlying purpose of My Big Fat Reading Project. The other conundrum addressed is the role of romantic love and how that differs individual by individual and between men and women.
I doubt The Mandarins would even sell in today's world, let alone become a bestseller. The fact that it did so in the mid 1950s says to me that the decade was not the intellectual dark age that many like to claim it was.
Located in Paris and later in America, the story begins on Christmas Eve, 1944, at a party to celebrate the liberation of France from Germany. The gathering includes the main characters, all leftists, writers, and publishers who were involved to one degree or another in the Resistance against the Germans. They are now dreaming of the possibilities for the future of France.
De Beauvoir does a marvelous job of juxtapositioning the personal with the political to create a novel of love and ideas. She is equally good at portraying the men and the women, all of whom are well-read intellectuals. The book speaks to intelligent readers as all of her books do.
The critical literature about The Mandarins names real life personages as the ones behind its characters. Robert, the philosopher and writer, is Jean Paul Sartre; his wife Anne is de Beauvoir herself; Henri, young novelist and journalist as well as student of Robert, is Albert Camus; and Anne's American lover Lewis is Nelson Algren. All of that is interesting enough but what I enjoyed was the author's ruminations on how much influence intellectuals and writers really have on the course of history and political/societal change. As a reader, that is a question I ponder daily and the underlying purpose of My Big Fat Reading Project. The other conundrum addressed is the role of romantic love and how that differs individual by individual and between men and women.
I doubt The Mandarins would even sell in today's world, let alone become a bestseller. The fact that it did so in the mid 1950s says to me that the decade was not the intellectual dark age that many like to claim it was.
September 15, 2015
يك روز به نادين توضيح داده بود كه از مقايسه كردن خودش با ديگران پرهيز مي كند ولي لحظه هايي هم مي رسد كه آدم مجبور به اين كار مي شود ، ديگران به اين كار مجبورش مي كنند .
نياز به كمك داشتم تا اين روزها را بگذرانم ، روزهايي كه هر ساعت آن بايستي ياد مي گرفتم و عادت مي كردم كه ديگر دوستم ندارد .
من زنده ام و دوستت دارم : اين خودش خيلي چيزهاست .
نياز به كمك داشتم تا اين روزها را بگذرانم ، روزهايي كه هر ساعت آن بايستي ياد مي گرفتم و عادت مي كردم كه ديگر دوستم ندارد .
من زنده ام و دوستت دارم : اين خودش خيلي چيزهاست .
November 22, 2020
Es difícil decir de qué trata este libro. En resumen sería un pantallazo de cómo vivían los intelectuales de izquierda en Paris de posguerra. Qué pensaban, qué hacían, a dónde viajaban, cómo cogían y con quién, etc. En el medio hay unas buenas historias con giros interesantes y sobre todo personajes bien construidos. Medio denso pero bueno.
November 24, 2017
Magnificent! A novel that makes friends with you. De Beauvoir writes in a sense imperfectly, rather like real life. The novel lurches between turgid passages (particularly the anachronistic political discussions and the endless agonizing about the periodicals) and literary flight (in particular the last few passages). Sometimes confusing , at other times clear as crystal The Mandarins is justifiable considered her greatest fictional work.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
Working for her father’s magazine was a strange kind of independence. The truth was that although she worked hard at scorning her parents, almost hating them in fact, she couldn’t have tolerated it if their life had not been her own. She had to defy them at close range. 202
People don’t have their daily ration of horror any more, so they’re beginning to torture themselves again. 228
... I try as much as possible not to be one of those women who doubles a man’s worries by sharing them 274
Through his stories, you got the feeling that he claimed no rights on life and that nevertheless he had always had a passionate desire to live. I liked that mixture of modesty and eagerness. 394
He fell silent for a moment. ‘When I was twenty, I realized that everyone was lying to me, and it made me mad. I think that’s why I started writing and why I’m still writing.‘ 394
... cynicism didn’t help. It was no longer important if I was being more or less ridiculous, worthy of my own approval or deserving of my own blame. I had no control over what was happening; bound hand and foot, I had put myself at the mercy of another. 408
‘If it’s going to last very long, we’d do better to leave,’ I said.
‘We didn’t come so far to leave so soon.’ His voice was harsh... 413
‘I can’t bear staying here any longer.’
‘You wanted to come.’
‘That’s no reason for staying.’
He had already fallen back into his torpor. ‘I’m sleeping,’ I tried to tell myself. ‘It’s a nightmare and I’ll soon wake up.’ 414
Let’s get beyond. Everything passes; ‘all is vanity and vexation of spirit’; we’ll be past all this someday. We’ll have got beyond the camps, and we’ll have got beyond my own existence. 432
‘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.’
‘That’s just a way of escaping problems,’ Robert said.
I cut him off. Unless it’s that problems are a way of escaping the truth. Of course,’ I added, ‘when you’ve decided that it’s life that’s real, the idea of death seems like escape. 433
There was a clamour of voices, the air smelled of perfume and malice; I, too, was going to be happily torn to bits. That’s never a pleasant thing to think about. 439
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
Working for her father’s magazine was a strange kind of independence. The truth was that although she worked hard at scorning her parents, almost hating them in fact, she couldn’t have tolerated it if their life had not been her own. She had to defy them at close range. 202
People don’t have their daily ration of horror any more, so they’re beginning to torture themselves again. 228
... I try as much as possible not to be one of those women who doubles a man’s worries by sharing them 274
Through his stories, you got the feeling that he claimed no rights on life and that nevertheless he had always had a passionate desire to live. I liked that mixture of modesty and eagerness. 394
He fell silent for a moment. ‘When I was twenty, I realized that everyone was lying to me, and it made me mad. I think that’s why I started writing and why I’m still writing.‘ 394
... cynicism didn’t help. It was no longer important if I was being more or less ridiculous, worthy of my own approval or deserving of my own blame. I had no control over what was happening; bound hand and foot, I had put myself at the mercy of another. 408
‘If it’s going to last very long, we’d do better to leave,’ I said.
‘We didn’t come so far to leave so soon.’ His voice was harsh... 413
‘I can’t bear staying here any longer.’
‘You wanted to come.’
‘That’s no reason for staying.’
He had already fallen back into his torpor. ‘I’m sleeping,’ I tried to tell myself. ‘It’s a nightmare and I’ll soon wake up.’ 414
Let’s get beyond. Everything passes; ‘all is vanity and vexation of spirit’; we’ll be past all this someday. We’ll have got beyond the camps, and we’ll have got beyond my own existence. 432
‘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.’
‘That’s just a way of escaping problems,’ Robert said.
I cut him off. Unless it’s that problems are a way of escaping the truth. Of course,’ I added, ‘when you’ve decided that it’s life that’s real, the idea of death seems like escape. 433
There was a clamour of voices, the air smelled of perfume and malice; I, too, was going to be happily torn to bits. That’s never a pleasant thing to think about. 439
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