"With spring came a great satisfaction: 'The Second Sex' appeared in America with a success unspoiled by any salacious comment. The book has always remained dear to me and every time it has been published in another country, I have been pleased to receive fresh proof that the scandal it aroused in France was the fault of my readers and not myself."
"During that period I read 'Tristes Tropiques' by Levi-Strauss, and one of its merits--among many others--in my eyes was to make me see the whole face of the earth again as if for the first time, not because of the extent of his explorations, but simply because of the point of view he adopted...."
"[C. Wright] Mills' book 'White Collar' had opened the way for all the subsequent studies of American society today....The essays of Wright Mills...described both the causes and the consequences of the conformism that had so disappointed me in 1947....[and] gave an account of the startling ways in which the morals, education, lifestyle, science and feelings of the nation had been transformed...."
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DeBeauvoir was raised a middle-class Roman Catholic, a constraining background she struggled all her life to transcend. She met Jean-Paul Sartre in 1929 at the Sorbonne, where she was studying to be a teacher. She passed the comprehensive exam at the age of 21--the youngest recorded--and came in second only to Sartre (who was taking the exam for the second time). It was at the Sorbonne that she and Sartre began the odd and troubled relationship that would last all their lives: They began as love more...
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01/09/1908 Paris, France, Western Europe,
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i agree with others that the short middle story is less than satisfying. at first you try to understand the character and then realize she's just crazy.
the first and last stories are more compelling.