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klaf's review against another edition
2.0
Flaccid piece of work, this. 100 pages in and I cannot bring myself to turn another page. Mind you, philosophy major and post-grad here. Mind myself, I was also warned by one of my professors, "well, it's probably not going to be what you hope." She was correct. Like most philosophy students, we read much of de Beauvoir and Sartre in undergrad.
Treated separate from one another, S&J are probing, inspiring, historic figures of both a bygone era and into today. Immortalized in the frameworks of our minds that they helped construct. I was enamored less with Simone the woman and more with her written thoughts and foundational contributions to feminism as it was originally intended. On a visit to Paris, I made a visit to their gravestones, placed side by side, as countless do to this day to leave a symbol of appreciation for their life's work.
But treated together? Utterly drab. An intellectual's soap opera of passion and flings. I imagine anyone fascinated with tales of their sexual lifestyle and encounters and loves, upending and revolutionary as it may have been then, has experienced little of life themself. In 100 pages, they struck me as...perfectly average folk. Oh, you slept with someone else? Oh, you're confused? Oh, you hurt someone? Oh, someone hurt you? Hell IS other people, after all, my dear J-P.
I'm not sure what makes this so dry, so chafe, in the end. Is it the subjects themselves, is it the mind of the reader turning the pages who fails to see the intrigue or is numb to it, or is it the manner of delivery of the subjects TO the reader by—respectfully—our late author?
Because I avoid taking responsibility when the opportunity presents itself not to, I'll go with the latter. Rowley took two of the most fascinating figures in historic intellectualism and made them boring. Even the cover is ham-fisted: "Simone de Beauvoir AND [it's in italics] Jean-Paul Sartre." As if we the readers need to have it hammered into our pea-brained skulls that, LOOK!, she listed the man AFTER the woman. Because?? Feminism. How positively WiLd! Cutting across the grain, swimming upstream, a horse of a different color, blowing against the wind, ad nauseam.
Maybe I'm just not built for biographies, but I choose to be intrigued by and remember these two for their intellectualism, not their dramas and interpersonal relations.
Treated separate from one another, S&J are probing, inspiring, historic figures of both a bygone era and into today. Immortalized in the frameworks of our minds that they helped construct. I was enamored less with Simone the woman and more with her written thoughts and foundational contributions to feminism as it was originally intended. On a visit to Paris, I made a visit to their gravestones, placed side by side, as countless do to this day to leave a symbol of appreciation for their life's work.
But treated together? Utterly drab. An intellectual's soap opera of passion and flings. I imagine anyone fascinated with tales of their sexual lifestyle and encounters and loves, upending and revolutionary as it may have been then, has experienced little of life themself. In 100 pages, they struck me as...perfectly average folk. Oh, you slept with someone else? Oh, you're confused? Oh, you hurt someone? Oh, someone hurt you? Hell IS other people, after all, my dear J-P.
I'm not sure what makes this so dry, so chafe, in the end. Is it the subjects themselves, is it the mind of the reader turning the pages who fails to see the intrigue or is numb to it, or is it the manner of delivery of the subjects TO the reader by—respectfully—our late author?
Because I avoid taking responsibility when the opportunity presents itself not to, I'll go with the latter. Rowley took two of the most fascinating figures in historic intellectualism and made them boring. Even the cover is ham-fisted: "Simone de Beauvoir AND [it's in italics] Jean-Paul Sartre." As if we the readers need to have it hammered into our pea-brained skulls that, LOOK!, she listed the man AFTER the woman. Because?? Feminism. How positively WiLd! Cutting across the grain, swimming upstream, a horse of a different color, blowing against the wind, ad nauseam.
Maybe I'm just not built for biographies, but I choose to be intrigued by and remember these two for their intellectualism, not their dramas and interpersonal relations.
ivostarr's review
5.0
Beauvoir and Sartre have always been fascinating to me--as individuals and as a couple of sorts. They chose a rather complex model for a relationship and created something unique. Somewhere in this book, I believe Rowley recounts either Beauvoir or Sartre writing to the other and explaining that in their relationship that they discovered their other self. And, as an outsider who combs through some of their history, this appears to be true.
Michael Dirda from The Washington Post Book World wrote a review of this book. I took a couple of classes from Dirda at the University of Central Florida where I was studying for Master's degree in Creative Writing before taking off for California. It really was an honor to take his classes. His love and appreciation for books is absolutely contagious. He has a few remarkable books of his own that are well worth. He makes mental maps where he takes the roads of all the books he has read and shows how they might intersect, merge, detour, etc. The journey is always a blast.
I did describe this book to more than one person as US Weekly featuring French intellectuals, so I had to giggle when he arrived at a similar conclusion!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301640.html
Michael Dirda from The Washington Post Book World wrote a review of this book. I took a couple of classes from Dirda at the University of Central Florida where I was studying for Master's degree in Creative Writing before taking off for California. It really was an honor to take his classes. His love and appreciation for books is absolutely contagious. He has a few remarkable books of his own that are well worth. He makes mental maps where he takes the roads of all the books he has read and shows how they might intersect, merge, detour, etc. The journey is always a blast.
I did describe this book to more than one person as US Weekly featuring French intellectuals, so I had to giggle when he arrived at a similar conclusion!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/AR2005101301640.html
kelswid's review
4.0
really enjoyed this but still don't really know how to pronounce 'Sartre,' which was inconvenient as I spent a lot of time while reading this ranting to my roommate about all the bullshit Sartre was up to
foundeasily's review
5.0
Adored this. Fascinating and complicated. Somehow manages to pull no punches and yet still really endear you to the subjects. I probably disagree with the writer on several accounts, and her choices occasionally show these places of disagreement but the text remains terrific in spite of it.