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A review by whataliciaisreading
A Very Easy Death by Simone de Beauvoir
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
“When someone you love dies you pay for the sin of outliving her with a thousand piercing regrets.”
Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘A Very Easy Death’ recounts, day by day, the final weeks of her mother’s life. Simone de Beauvoir's style is marked by its honesty, a rawness that materialises the most difficult and abstracts of emotions into text.
Most disheartening is her mother’s loss of autonomy and dignity (which, in opposition to her usual character, demonstrates a loss of self in these final days) and the continued suffering facilitated by doctors who believe it is their vocational duty to prioritise even a temporary survival. De Beauvoir shows us, in acute detail, that dying is often a far worse ordeal than death.
Paired in this edition with Ali Smith’s persuasive introduction (which asks the seminal question, 'Can you ever really yoke together with anything other than unease the word ‘easy’ and the word ‘death’?’), it is rewarding when reading to understand the controversy that surrounded this account upon its initial publication. In the 86 pages of this emotive yet unsentimental account of her mother dying, Simone de Beauvoir does not pull any punches. Yet it’s this frankness with which she shares those painful details that makes this a must-read.
Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘A Very Easy Death’ recounts, day by day, the final weeks of her mother’s life. Simone de Beauvoir's style is marked by its honesty, a rawness that materialises the most difficult and abstracts of emotions into text.
Most disheartening is her mother’s loss of autonomy and dignity (which, in opposition to her usual character, demonstrates a loss of self in these final days) and the continued suffering facilitated by doctors who believe it is their vocational duty to prioritise even a temporary survival. De Beauvoir shows us, in acute detail, that dying is often a far worse ordeal than death.
Paired in this edition with Ali Smith’s persuasive introduction (which asks the seminal question, 'Can you ever really yoke together with anything other than unease the word ‘easy’ and the word ‘death’?’), it is rewarding when reading to understand the controversy that surrounded this account upon its initial publication. In the 86 pages of this emotive yet unsentimental account of her mother dying, Simone de Beauvoir does not pull any punches. Yet it’s this frankness with which she shares those painful details that makes this a must-read.