We've finally settled on book three for Blogger's Book Club. We decided to go with Tete-a-Tete: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre by Hazel Rowley. They are one of the world's legendary couples. We can't think of one without thinking of the other. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre -- those passionate, freethinking existentialist philosopher-writers -- had a committed but notoriously open union that generated no end of controversy. With Tête-à-Tête: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, distinguished biographer Hazel Rowley offers the first dual portrait of these two colossal figures and their intense, often embattled relationship. Through original interviews and access to new primary sources, Rowley portrays them up close, in their most intimate moments.
We see Beauvoir and Sartre with their circle, holding court in Paris cafés. We learn the sizzling details of their romantic entanglements. We listen in on their conversations, including the anguished discussions that led Sartre to refuse the Nobel Prize. We witness them as the twentieth century's most controversial public intellectuals.
The impact of their writings on modern thought cannot be overestimated, but Beauvoir and Sartre are remembered just as much for the lives they led. They were brilliant, courageous, experimental, and Tête-à-Tête: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre makes us feel the passion, energy, daring, humor, and contradictions of this remarkable relationship.
Mais oui! I picked up a signed copy at Bluestockings feminist bookstore (www.bluestockings.com) in New York a few months ago, and I'm so delighted to finally have a reason for it to rise to the top of my to-be-read stack! It's going in my travel bag right now... XX, LC
Posted by: Lauren Cerand | July 29, 2006 at 02:36 PM