I was particularly grateful for the information about the poor original translation of The Second Sex in the 1950s. I have the text but I don't think I ever got through the whole book. I could simply not understand how such a badly-done book could have had the huge impact that I know it did have!
I’m currently reading Beauvoir’s novel, Inseparable. The pleasure is multidimensional. One, I’ve not yet read Simone de Beauvoir, so to be introduced to her work not through the head but the heart is a different kind of portal. Two, the story beautifully recalls the intensity of girlhood friendship, when everything turned on the highs and lows of being and growing up together. And three, the opening essay by Margaret Atwood is as rich and rewarding as the novel. Atwood recounts Sartre’s dismissal of Beauvoir’s novel because he judged works by their political significance, failing to realize how being a girl or woman in conservative Catholic France was, itself, political.
Oh, this need to please! Will it ever go away? I do think women are hampered by the desire and need to please. I'm guilty of this. I'm afraid to cross boundaries that offer too much risk, but interestingly, I'm not afraid to approach boundaries that I don't care about as much. A bigger obstacle for me in writing is perfectionism. I suffer from what Ira Glass calls the taste gap. I know what great writing looks like, but I don't feel that I measure up. I'm not the writer I'd hoped I'd be...
I do think women have more opportunities than Beauvior did, but we don't take advantage of them as much as we should. A couple of women writers who resonate with me today are Margaret Atwood (mostly her short stories and essays) and Maria Popova. Popover has a wonderful blog called The Marginalian, and her book Figuring is mind blowing at times. Have you read it?
I was also wondering, have you read Inseparable, a posthumous book by Beauvoir? The intro alone by Margaret Atwood is worth reading.
Great post, as always. Thanks for all the insights!
It seems getting recognition is a quest for each generation of women. Shakespeare's Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance by Ramie Targoff is reviewed in today's New York Times Book Review. Beverly Rude
Super interesting, thanks! Was familiar with Simone de Beauvoir's story, but not the Tin House article and that was an interesting combo. Loved how you pulled different threads together. Claire Vaye Watkins's piece made me think quite a bit. I think that some of that background was why I focused on the scene of an interviewer being awestruck by Yoko Tawada, in an essay here on Substack about Tawada's book about a vanished language. It actually felt unusual, and that was shocking. On the other hand, I don't share Watkins's experience when it comes to fiction. I think I got shocked out of it when I first got to attend literary readings as a teenager and discovered that I didn't like John Updike's writing or how he read it, even though he was in the New Yorker. The same with a couple of other writers. It changed the world on its axis a little.
Great read, thank you for sharing! I have a slightly different take on this question of whether women still need to please, in a way that takes away from their own possibilities. The women that I have known the intellectuals and artist, they do not lack encourage. And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that we take other peoples feelings and opinions into account as we find a way to do the things that we need and want to do. Yes a need to please at all costs is not a positive thing. But even with that need and that social pressure, women can, and do amazing things. Beauvoir’s life and works being a great example of this, and ordinary women’s lives that are often also quite extraordinary upon closer inspection. More women were not recognized as writers and artists and intellectuals simply because they were not published or acknowledged in the public realm, but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t been doing these things all along.
“In France, if you are a writer, to be a woman is simply to provide a stick for you to be beaten with,” Wow!!! So powerful. And the summary-annotation from you as well, Anne—that women NEED to please, which can keep them from doing radical work. So much the case for the three women at the center of Engaging Italy, as I noted in those pages. Thanks for another insightful piece.
Such an insightful post! I love your writing Anne, it gets me excited to pick up another Simone de Beauvoir book.
I was particularly grateful for the information about the poor original translation of The Second Sex in the 1950s. I have the text but I don't think I ever got through the whole book. I could simply not understand how such a badly-done book could have had the huge impact that I know it did have!
I’m currently reading Beauvoir’s novel, Inseparable. The pleasure is multidimensional. One, I’ve not yet read Simone de Beauvoir, so to be introduced to her work not through the head but the heart is a different kind of portal. Two, the story beautifully recalls the intensity of girlhood friendship, when everything turned on the highs and lows of being and growing up together. And three, the opening essay by Margaret Atwood is as rich and rewarding as the novel. Atwood recounts Sartre’s dismissal of Beauvoir’s novel because he judged works by their political significance, failing to realize how being a girl or woman in conservative Catholic France was, itself, political.
Oh, this need to please! Will it ever go away? I do think women are hampered by the desire and need to please. I'm guilty of this. I'm afraid to cross boundaries that offer too much risk, but interestingly, I'm not afraid to approach boundaries that I don't care about as much. A bigger obstacle for me in writing is perfectionism. I suffer from what Ira Glass calls the taste gap. I know what great writing looks like, but I don't feel that I measure up. I'm not the writer I'd hoped I'd be...
I do think women have more opportunities than Beauvior did, but we don't take advantage of them as much as we should. A couple of women writers who resonate with me today are Margaret Atwood (mostly her short stories and essays) and Maria Popova. Popover has a wonderful blog called The Marginalian, and her book Figuring is mind blowing at times. Have you read it?
I was also wondering, have you read Inseparable, a posthumous book by Beauvoir? The intro alone by Margaret Atwood is worth reading.
Great post, as always. Thanks for all the insights!
It seems getting recognition is a quest for each generation of women. Shakespeare's Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance by Ramie Targoff is reviewed in today's New York Times Book Review. Beverly Rude
Super interesting, thanks! Was familiar with Simone de Beauvoir's story, but not the Tin House article and that was an interesting combo. Loved how you pulled different threads together. Claire Vaye Watkins's piece made me think quite a bit. I think that some of that background was why I focused on the scene of an interviewer being awestruck by Yoko Tawada, in an essay here on Substack about Tawada's book about a vanished language. It actually felt unusual, and that was shocking. On the other hand, I don't share Watkins's experience when it comes to fiction. I think I got shocked out of it when I first got to attend literary readings as a teenager and discovered that I didn't like John Updike's writing or how he read it, even though he was in the New Yorker. The same with a couple of other writers. It changed the world on its axis a little.
Great read, thank you for sharing! I have a slightly different take on this question of whether women still need to please, in a way that takes away from their own possibilities. The women that I have known the intellectuals and artist, they do not lack encourage. And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that we take other peoples feelings and opinions into account as we find a way to do the things that we need and want to do. Yes a need to please at all costs is not a positive thing. But even with that need and that social pressure, women can, and do amazing things. Beauvoir’s life and works being a great example of this, and ordinary women’s lives that are often also quite extraordinary upon closer inspection. More women were not recognized as writers and artists and intellectuals simply because they were not published or acknowledged in the public realm, but that doesn’t mean that they haven’t been doing these things all along.
“In France, if you are a writer, to be a woman is simply to provide a stick for you to be beaten with,” Wow!!! So powerful. And the summary-annotation from you as well, Anne—that women NEED to please, which can keep them from doing radical work. So much the case for the three women at the center of Engaging Italy, as I noted in those pages. Thanks for another insightful piece.
A lot to think about here. Will come back.