The Mandarins was my first foray into Simone de Beauvoir's writings - a thwarted foray, as it turned out, because my charity shop copy was already worse for wear, and was worsened yet further by its own forays in a steamy bathroom, which is often the most serene place to devour a book but not an atmosphere much beloved of paper!
Yet, I knew from my meagre sampling of The Mandarins that I wanted to delve further into de Beauvoir's literary contributions. I was to wait some years before the opportunity presented itself... in one of those non-coincidental happenings, I came upon the second volume of her autobiography, and was settling down to learn about her early life with Sartre in Paris, only to then find a copy of The Woman Destroyed some weeks later.
Comprising three short stories, of which the opening and closing ones are the most accessible, The Woman Destroyed opens a dystopic window onto the lives of middle-aged women. That at least seems to be its intention. Certainly, the stories are moving: charting the desperation to cling on to past life, love and vigour, they bring to mind a sympathetic image of fingernails clinging on to a crumbling cliff side that is inexorably falling into the yawning abyss of post-menopausal life.
Goodness, the stories are sad. But "woman destroyed"? No, not really. Ultimately, the significant others of these women come off no better, no less destroyed by the loss of past certainties, the loss of youth. Here then, is a version of how some of us may face advancing age.
And in fact, this tracing of a particular milieu, this fictionalised spotlight on the observed realities of her times - fictionalised ethnography, if you like - is ultimately what makes Simone de Beauvoir so accessible and so very worth reading.
Yet, I knew from my meagre sampling of The Mandarins that I wanted to delve further into de Beauvoir's literary contributions. I was to wait some years before the opportunity presented itself... in one of those non-coincidental happenings, I came upon the second volume of her autobiography, and was settling down to learn about her early life with Sartre in Paris, only to then find a copy of The Woman Destroyed some weeks later.
Comprising three short stories, of which the opening and closing ones are the most accessible, The Woman Destroyed opens a dystopic window onto the lives of middle-aged women. That at least seems to be its intention. Certainly, the stories are moving: charting the desperation to cling on to past life, love and vigour, they bring to mind a sympathetic image of fingernails clinging on to a crumbling cliff side that is inexorably falling into the yawning abyss of post-menopausal life.
Goodness, the stories are sad. But "woman destroyed"? No, not really. Ultimately, the significant others of these women come off no better, no less destroyed by the loss of past certainties, the loss of youth. Here then, is a version of how some of us may face advancing age.
And in fact, this tracing of a particular milieu, this fictionalised spotlight on the observed realities of her times - fictionalised ethnography, if you like - is ultimately what makes Simone de Beauvoir so accessible and so very worth reading.
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