The Mandarins
by Simone de Beauvoir
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Book Summary Information
Author: Simone de BeauvoirEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-07-01
ISBN: 0393318834
Number of pages: 612
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Book Reviews of The Mandarins
Book Review: A PRIZE WINNER?
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Madarins" won the Priz Goncourt, FRance's highest literary award. Can one really give an award to a novel? The winner of a race is usually easy to spot, but how can a novel win an award? In the case of The Mandarins, the merit may have been due to the depiction of the political fragmentation of France immediately after the War. Simone de Beauvoir was bitterly disappointed that France did not emerge as an authentic world power with the coming of peace. The division within the country, however, was more painful to her than France's diminished stature. During the War, some of the factionalism of that country with more than 260 kinds of cheese abated somewhat, but peace meant a return to acrimony. Most of Simone's fiction is based on her life and the people in it. However, no character is ever a one-to-one representation of any individual. To say that the fictional Anne is Simone and Anne's husband is Jean-Paul Sartre is to over-simplify for Simone invested some of her personality traits in both characters. The correspondance between Anne and Simone is greatest when Anne falls in love with the American known as Lewis. (Lcarver of Florida thought this was the weakest part of the novel and I heartily disagree. I knew Nelson Algren. I think Simone wanted to love him but there were many reasons why she never fully allowed herself that luxury.) Once Anne meets Lewis, Simone's writing becomes freer and more relaxed. Simone desperately needed an editor, someone who would have sent the manuscript for the Mandarins back to her with orders to tighten. It may have been that by the time she wrote The Mandarins, she was an embryonic sacred monster. One of my criticism's of Simone as a novelist is her 19th century habit of acting as the omniescent author. It is annoying when Anne smiles knowingly or Lewis nods sleepily. The young Simone (aged 10) read and admired Louisa May Alcott -- who had more in common with Simone than most Americans might suppose -- and Louisa loved melodrama. So did Simone. In fact, her novel, "She Came to Stay," has been criticized as being melodramatic. Toril Moi, who has written a study of Simone called "The Making of an Intellectual Woman," says that book is melodramatic because existentialism is a melodramatic philosophy. There is more than a bit of melodrama to The Mandarins. It is a shame that the fine writing of which Simone was capable -- America Day by Day and Force of Circumstance -- didn't transfer to her novels.
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