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| Plot Summary of Simone De Beauvoir: A Biography |
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"After Samuel Beckett and before Anais Nin, Deirdre Bair tackled the life of the woman Jean-Paul Sartre knew as "Castor" and "the Beaver" -- with the subject's cooperation, if not full agreement. De Beauvoir was a brilliant and creative woman who insisted on subsuming much of her intellect and talents to the man who thought himself painfully ugly, who seduced women right and left with his words and voice (and described them and their bodies in excruciating detail to his close woman friend and sometime lover), and depended on De Beauvoir to shield him from much of the dirty emotional work of life. This is a very personal biography; Bair is not a great source for literary or philosophical analysis of her subject's writings. At 700-plus pages, the book does go on and is somewhat repetitive, but it's quite readable and there are lots of memorable bits, from her passionate affair with Nelson Algren to the image of her imitating the voice of their beloved John Wayne for Sartre's amusement, and his manic practicing of yo-yo tricks."
David Loftus, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Simone De Beauvoir: A Biography |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Romance
Yes
Kind of romance:
- love triangle/polygon
- seduction (yum!)
- discovery about a lover
- trying to decide who really love
Political/social rights fight
Yes
Plotlet:
- women fighting for rights
- fights between different pol/social groups
job/profession:
- writer
Gender/Class story?
- woman's story
Job/profession/poverty story
Yes
Ethnic/regional/gender
Yes
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Female
Profession/status:
- writer
Biography of famous person?
Yes
Ethnicity
- White
Nationality
- French
How sensitive is this person?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other people
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 2 (a little)
Europe
Yes
European country:
- France
Misc setting
- resort/hotel
Century:
- 1930's-1950's
Style
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- no torture/death
Book makes you feel?
- thoughtful
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- vague references
Writer's slant towards subject:
- favorable
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of nearly entire life
How much dialogue in bio?
- little dialog
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life?
- 51%-75% of book
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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