Vile, 01 Apr 2008
This is the only book I have ever thrown away. It is also the only book to ever make me feel physically sick. I ordered this book due mostly to morbid curiosity, and secondly as I was interested (to a degree) in its author and his exploits. Whatever humour may be in this book, I'm afraid, was lost on me. I find it's difficult to appreciate the funny side when childeren are being raped. I couldn't finish the book, so perhaps I'm missing the punchline.

I thought myself relatively unshockable. This book proved otherwise. I found this thoroughly disturbing, and would whole heartedly suggest you buy something else.

Amusing in parts..., 29 Sep 2006
I read the book a few years ago and whilst I agree that the Simple Passions were sometimes amusing (if you like to laugh at other people's foibles), I felt the book got nastier as the passions progressed. By the time I read the third and fourth set of passions, I was glad that they were in outline form and that the detail had been lost. The fictional aspect of the book gives way to a vileness that is not found in Justine, for instance.
In all, I think that the book should be restricted. It is more likely a work of a mind frustrated and tortured by imprisonment than a philisophical work.


Tedium redefined, 30 May 2006
An interesting read, and an insight into a horrific side of human nature; but the repetition is overwhelming and I found myself skipping through endless descriptions of ejaculation, coprophagia and sexual abuse.

I must admit I found some of the author's style interesting as he 'treats' the reader to insights and tries to relay the story in an amusing way.

Worth buying I think, especially if you've watched the film first, then you realise just how mild the film is (and I thought that was off the scale!)

Very overrated, 10 Mar 2003
I read this book really knowing very little about it. I had heard it described as 'a catalogue of perversions', and that probably describes it very well. It is not simply that it is a list of extreme perversions, as it is actually quite well written, and has a lot of comedy in it (as paradoxical as that might seem considering the subject matter).

The problem I have with it is that it has no real direction or meaning; it is like a shopping list of violent sexual crimes with some humour thrown in. It needs something else if it is going to rise above that.

If you like your comedy to include priests bribing pre-pubescent girls to urinate in front of them; pregnant women being rolled down a slope in a barrel that has had nails hammered through it; or early teenage girls being forced to eat excrement and having their eyes poked out and their nipples cut off, then this is for you. I suspect that for the vast majority of people it won't be their cup of tea.

Why this has become a classic is beyond me. If it wasn't for the fact that Sade enjoyed this kind of lifestyle himself (albeit in a milder form), then he may have been able to write a book that didn't come over as something that he wrote because he found extreme sexual perversions, torture and murder as something erotic.

Comic and cruel, 16 Mar 2001
De Sade's opus and no surprise that his name would forever more be synonymous with vicious acts meted out purely for sexual gratification. A catalogue of sexual deviations, degenerating into ever-increasing cruelty as a group of captives (mainly children) are tormented and tortured to death.

An excellent translation. It is a surprisingly comic work which draws the reader in. It is also a subversive work, portraying the horrors as perpetrated by those with the unlimited resources to indulge their murderous tastes and the power or connections to avoid having to answer for them. Often they represent the law, as with the judge who always sentences everyone appearing before him to death, so that he can watch the execution from an overlooking apartment whilst fornicating at the same time.

Written in prison, it is incomplete. Only the first 30 days have been written out in full; the rest being in note form. It still makes for entertaining reading, although it is probably this incompleteness which makes the entire work disproportionately concerned with eating excrement (one of the earlier and milder sexual quirks).

Even in a world largely numbed to horror, some of this stuff is still unbelievable. Essential reading for anyone interested in the human psyche.

Vile, 01 Apr 2008
This is the only book I have ever thrown away. It is also the only book to ever make me feel physically sick. I ordered this book due mostly to morbid curiosity, and secondly as I was interested (to a degree) in its author and his exploits. Whatever humour may be in this book, I'm afraid, was lost on me. I find it's difficult to appreciate the funny side when childeren are being raped. I couldn't finish the book, so perhaps I'm missing the punchline.

I thought myself relatively unshockable. This book proved otherwise. I found this thoroughly disturbing, and would whole heartedly suggest you buy something else.

Amusing in parts..., 29 Sep 2006
I read the book a few years ago and whilst I agree that the Simple Passions were sometimes amusing (if you like to laugh at other people's foibles), I felt the book got nastier as the passions progressed. By the time I read the third and fourth set of passions, I was glad that they were in outline form and that the detail had been lost. The fictional aspect of the book gives way to a vileness that is not found in Justine, for instance.
In all, I think that the book should be restricted. It is more likely a work of a mind frustrated and tortured by imprisonment than a philisophical work.


Tedium redefined, 30 May 2006
An interesting read, and an insight into a horrific side of human nature; but the repetition is overwhelming and I found myself skipping through endless descriptions of ejaculation, coprophagia and sexual abuse.

I must admit I found some of the author's style interesting as he 'treats' the reader to insights and tries to relay the story in an amusing way.

Worth buying I think, especially if you've watched the film first, then you realise just how mild the film is (and I thought that was off the scale!)

Very overrated, 10 Mar 2003
I read this book really knowing very little about it. I had heard it described as 'a catalogue of perversions', and that probably describes it very well. It is not simply that it is a list of extreme perversions, as it is actually quite well written, and has a lot of comedy in it (as paradoxical as that might seem considering the subject matter).

The problem I have with it is that it has no real direction or meaning; it is like a shopping list of violent sexual crimes with some humour thrown in. It needs something else if it is going to rise above that.

If you like your comedy to include priests bribing pre-pubescent girls to urinate in front of them; pregnant women being rolled down a slope in a barrel that has had nails hammered through it; or early teenage girls being forced to eat excrement and having their eyes poked out and their nipples cut off, then this is for you. I suspect that for the vast majority of people it won't be their cup of tea.

Why this has become a classic is beyond me. If it wasn't for the fact that Sade enjoyed this kind of lifestyle himself (albeit in a milder form), then he may have been able to write a book that didn't come over as something that he wrote because he found extreme sexual perversions, torture and murder as something erotic.

Comic and cruel, 16 Mar 2001
De Sade's opus and no surprise that his name would forever more be synonymous with vicious acts meted out purely for sexual gratification. A catalogue of sexual deviations, degenerating into ever-increasing cruelty as a group of captives (mainly children) are tormented and tortured to death.

An excellent translation. It is a surprisingly comic work which draws the reader in. It is also a subversive work, portraying the horrors as perpetrated by those with the unlimited resources to indulge their murderous tastes and the power or connections to avoid having to answer for them. Often they represent the law, as with the judge who always sentences everyone appearing before him to death, so that he can watch the execution from an overlooking apartment whilst fornicating at the same time.

Written in prison, it is incomplete. Only the first 30 days have been written out in full; the rest being in note form. It still makes for entertaining reading, although it is probably this incompleteness which makes the entire work disproportionately concerned with eating excrement (one of the earlier and milder sexual quirks).

Even in a world largely numbed to horror, some of this stuff is still unbelievable. Essential reading for anyone interested in the human psyche.

One of the outstanding novels of the last hundred years, 26 Mar 2008
A superb account of lives lived to the full. It makes most modern novels and novelists look half-witted and inane - Martin Amis, and all the other contemporary soon-to-be-forgotten fads.

Don't let the philosophy put you off!, 22 Oct 2007
This is a cracking good read, though it might possibly have benefited from some pruning by the author. I first read it in the early 1960s when Existensialism was highly fashionable. I'm ashamed to say the only bits I remembered were Henri and Nadine's trip to Portugal at the beginning and the gruesome disposal of the body of a murdered former Nazi collaborator at the end. Rereading it was a fascinating experience. I found the characters much more like flesh and blood in the real world than spokesmen and of course spokeswomen for a philosophical movement. I found myself really caring what happened to them. Presumably that's partly because some of the Existensialists' point of view has been incorporated into mainstream attitudes to life. It's also because the author was a great story-teller quite apart from being a philosopher.

It now seems odd that highly intelligent people, like the author and her circle, who had just survived occupation by one sort of totalitarian regime should be so unwilling to reject out of hand a different variety of totalitarianism, despite being well aware of Stalin's excesses, but there is nothing like post 1989 hindsight. The interplay between Resistance heroes and the compromisers or worse is fascinating; which of us in whatever country would have the courage to be the former or the strength not to be the latter?

So, go and read it and don't let fear of philosophy and intellectualism put you off!

essential/existential/exceptional, 14 Jan 2007
as an avid fan of the existentialist movement i came to De Bouviour's work strangely late; odd, considering that i started reading existentialism with Iris Murdoch, a writer who's quote adorns most copies of this novel. i had started with Simoné's 'she came to stay' and got used to her indivdual style of veiled biography and realised that, unlike her other contemporaries (and her partner; Sartre) hers are not so much philosophical moral tales, as a portrait of those around her that lived their whole lives by their philosophy- you get the very truth of what it's like to exist as an existentialist, to be (or fail to be) what you write about. The Mandarins is her greatest expression of this unique style- an astonishingly heart-rending story of post-war life, people trying to forget, people trying to act like heroes, accusers and the bourgiouse elite. paris is beautifully represented in real colour and vibrancy and at the heart of the story is a powerful friendship between one genious and his mentor, a friendship that falls apart through politics- something i found terrible and gripping to find myself a bystander to. don't belive the other bad review, this book was one of the most all enveloping works of literature i have ever experienced. if you're even slightly interesed in the movement this should be your guide. it is truly essential.

A lot of shoulder shrugging, 11 Oct 2000
Dubreuilh shrugged his shoulders. Nadine shrugged her shoulders. There are exactly 140 shoulder shruggings in The Mandarins. It is annoying. First, I thought, maybe, it was the translation. So, I checked the original and found out that the excruciating shrugs were in the French version too (elle haussa les epaules). When people are not shrugging their shoulders, they are shaking their heads. Simone de Beauvoir, whose life and accomplishments I find fascinating, is not that great a story teller. Which is a shame because she always has interesting things to tell. The Mandarins is a captivating story if you can get past the style with which the dialogues are delivered. Simone de Beauvoir had told that this was not a biography, it was fiction. But, still, I am sure that it gives a pretty accurate account of how the intellectuals lived, contemplated, worked and played, especially just after the war. Camus, Sartre and many others are in there under thin disguise.

Vile, 01 Apr 2008
This is the only book I have ever thrown away. It is also the only book to ever make me feel physically sick. I ordered this book due mostly to morbid curiosity, and secondly as I was interested (to a degree) in its author and his exploits. Whatever humour may be in this book, I'm afraid, was lost on me. I find it's difficult to appreciate the funny side when childeren are being raped. I couldn't finish the book, so perhaps I'm missing the punchline.

I thought myself relatively unshockable. This book proved otherwise. I found this thoroughly disturbing, and would whole heartedly suggest you buy something else.

Amusing in parts..., 29 Sep 2006
I read the book a few years ago and whilst I agree that the Simple Passions were sometimes amusing (if you like to laugh at other people's foibles), I felt the book got nastier as the passions progressed. By the time I read the third and fourth set of passions, I was glad that they were in outline form and that the detail had been lost. The fictional aspect of the book gives way to a vileness that is not found in Justine, for instance.
In all, I think that the book should be restricted. It is more likely a work of a mind frustrated and tortured by imprisonment than a philisophical work.


Tedium redefined, 30 May 2006
An interesting read, and an insight into a horrific side of human nature; but the repetition is overwhelming and I found myself skipping through endless descriptions of ejaculation, coprophagia and sexual abuse.

I must admit I found some of the author's style interesting as he 'treats' the reader to insights and tries to relay the story in an amusing way.

Worth buying I think, especially if you've watched the film first, then you realise just how mild the film is (and I thought that was off the scale!)

Very overrated, 10 Mar 2003
I read this book really knowing very little about it. I had heard it described as 'a catalogue of perversions', and that probably describes it very well. It is not simply that it is a list of extreme perversions, as it is actually quite well written, and has a lot of comedy in it (as paradoxical as that might seem considering the subject matter).

The problem I have with it is that it has no real direction or meaning; it is like a shopping list of violent sexual crimes with some humour thrown in. It needs something else if it is going to rise above that.

If you like your comedy to include priests bribing pre-pubescent girls to urinate in front of them; pregnant women being rolled down a slope in a barrel that has had nails hammered through it; or early teenage girls being forced to eat excrement and having their eyes poked out and their nipples cut off, then this is for you. I suspect that for the vast majority of people it won't be their cup of tea.

Why this has become a classic is beyond me. If it wasn't for the fact that Sade enjoyed this kind of lifestyle himself (albeit in a milder form), then he may have been able to write a book that didn't come over as something that he wrote because he found extreme sexual perversions, torture and murder as something erotic.

Comic and cruel, 16 Mar 2001
De Sade's opus and no surprise that his name would forever more be synonymous with vicious acts meted out purely for sexual gratification. A catalogue of sexual deviations, degenerating into ever-increasing cruelty as a group of captives (mainly children) are tormented and tortured to death.

An excellent translation. It is a surprisingly comic work which draws the reader in. It is also a subversive work, portraying the horrors as perpetrated by those with the unlimited resources to indulge their murderous tastes and the power or connections to avoid having to answer for them. Often they represent the law, as with the judge who always sentences everyone appearing before him to death, so that he can watch the execution from an overlooking apartment whilst fornicating at the same time.

Written in prison, it is incomplete. Only the first 30 days have been written out in full; the rest being in note form. It still makes for entertaining reading, although it is probably this incompleteness which makes the entire work disproportionately concerned with eating excrement (one of the earlier and milder sexual quirks).

Even in a world largely numbed to horror, some of this stuff is still unbelievable. Essential reading for anyone interested in the human psyche.

One of the outstanding novels of the last hundred years, 26 Mar 2008
A superb account of lives lived to the full. It makes most modern novels and novelists look half-witted and inane - Martin Amis, and all the other contemporary soon-to-be-forgotten fads.

Don't let the philosophy put you off!, 22 Oct 2007
This is a cracking good read, though it might possibly have benefited from some pruning by the author. I first read it in the early 1960s when Existensialism was highly fashionable. I'm ashamed to say the only bits I remembered were Henri and Nadine's trip to Portugal at the beginning and the gruesome disposal of the body of a murdered former Nazi collaborator at the end. Rereading it was a fascinating experience. I found the characters much more like flesh and blood in the real world than spokesmen and of course spokeswomen for a philosophical movement. I found myself really caring what happened to them. Presumably that's partly because some of the Existensialists' point of view has been incorporated into mainstream attitudes to life. It's also because the author was a great story-teller quite apart from being a philosopher.

It now seems odd that highly intelligent people, like the author and her circle, who had just survived occupation by one sort of totalitarian regime should be so unwilling to reject out of hand a different variety of totalitarianism, despite being well aware of Stalin's excesses, but there is nothing like post 1989 hindsight. The interplay between Resistance heroes and the compromisers or worse is fascinating; which of us in whatever country would have the courage to be the former or the strength not to be the latter?

So, go and read it and don't let fear of philosophy and intellectualism put you off!

essential/existential/exceptional, 14 Jan 2007
as an avid fan of the existentialist movement i came to De Bouviour's work strangely late; odd, considering that i started reading existentialism with Iris Murdoch, a writer who's quote adorns most copies of this novel. i had started with Simoné's 'she came to stay' and got used to her indivdual style of veiled biography and realised that, unlike her other contemporaries (and her partner; Sartre) hers are not so much philosophical moral tales, as a portrait of those around her that lived their whole lives by their philosophy- you get the very truth of what it's like to exist as an existentialist, to be (or fail to be) what you write about. The Mandarins is her greatest expression of this unique style- an astonishingly heart-rending story of post-war life, people trying to forget, people trying to act like heroes, accusers and the bourgiouse elite. paris is beautifully represented in real colour and vibrancy and at the heart of the story is a powerful friendship between one genious and his mentor, a friendship that falls apart through politics- something i found terrible and gripping to find myself a bystander to. don't belive the other bad review, this book was one of the most all enveloping works of literature i have ever experienced. if you're even slightly interesed in the movement this should be your guide. it is truly essential.

A lot of shoulder shrugging, 11 Oct 2000
Dubreuilh shrugged his shoulders. Nadine shrugged her shoulders. There are exactly 140 shoulder shruggings in The Mandarins. It is annoying. First, I thought, maybe, it was the translation. So, I checked the original and found out that the excruciating shrugs were in the French version too (elle haussa les epaules). When people are not shrugging their shoulders, they are shaking their heads. Simone de Beauvoir, whose life and accomplishments I find fascinating, is not that great a story teller. Which is a shame because she always has interesting things to tell. The Mandarins is a captivating story if you can get past the style with which the dialogues are delivered. Simone de Beauvoir had told that this was not a biography, it was fiction. But, still, I am sure that it gives a pretty accurate account of how the intellectuals lived, contemplated, worked and played, especially just after the war. Camus, Sartre and many others are in there under thin disguise.

Perfect for research, 11 Jan 2008
To be honest, if de Beauvoir had not had a relationship with Satre, I probably wouldn't have picked this book up, but that fact kept me going to the end. In the event, I loved reading her story, but much more the story of her tragic friend who lived the Christian life and obeyed her repressed mother. It's a wonderful depiction of upper-middle-class morals at the beginning of 20th Century Paris.

It makes you think!, 26 Aug 2002
I first encountered this at school, but that was some 25 years ago and I was dissuaded by a teacher from finishing it when she claimed that the concepts would be too adult for me. As I was only 14, she was probably right; although I found it very readable then, in a 'grown up school story' kind of way, I am getting much more from it now.

I'm not well versed in the thinking of de Beauvoir, and not sure I'd agree with many of her opinions (her pro-abortion views horrified me) but this book made me consider deeply the reasons why middle-class people become socialists, and made me also think about the shackles which bound many intelligent women in the early years of the last century....

Far from being deeply intellectual in its approach, this book is very readable, and made me want to find out more about de Beauvoir's life and work.

Thoroughly absorbing, 02 Jul 2002
I picked Memoirs up in my school library, read the first few pages and was completely hooked. I haven't read any of de Beauvoir's or Sartre's work but would love to read more, starting with the next three volumes of her autobiography! It was intensly absorbing and drew me completely into 20s Paris; in addition I was fascinated by the frequent references to Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes (read it, it's magical) and other literature. De Beauvoir has a memory for detail and builds up a vivid and often moving picture of her life and her emotions as a child and later.

Vile, 01 Apr 2008
This is the only book I have ever thrown away. It is also the only book to ever make me feel physically sick. I ordered this book due mostly to morbid curiosity, and secondly as I was interested (to a degree) in its author and his exploits. Whatever humour may be in this book, I'm afraid, was lost on me. I find it's difficult to appreciate the funny side when childeren are being raped. I couldn't finish the book, so perhaps I'm missing the punchline.

I thought myself relatively unshockable. This book proved otherwise. I found this thoroughly disturbing, and would whole heartedly suggest you buy something else.

Amusing in parts..., 29 Sep 2006
I read the book a few years ago and whilst I agree that the Simple Passions were sometimes amusing (if you like to laugh at other people's foibles), I felt the book got nastier as the passions progressed. By the time I read the third and fourth set of passions, I was glad that they were in outline form and that the detail had been lost. The fictional aspect of the book gives way to a vileness that is not found in Justine, for instance.
In all, I think that the book should be restricted. It is more likely a work of a mind frustrated and tortured by imprisonment than a philisophical work.


Tedium redefined, 30 May 2006
An interesting read, and an insight into a horrific side of human nature; but the repetition is overwhelming and I found myself skipping through endless descriptions of ejaculation, coprophagia and sexual abuse.

I must admit I found some of the author's style interesting as he 'treats' the reader to insights and tries to relay the story in an amusing way.

Worth buying I think, especially if you've watched the film first, then you realise just how mild the film is (and I thought that was off the scale!)

Very overrated, 10 Mar 2003
I read this book really knowing very little about it. I had heard it described as 'a catalogue of perversions', and that probably describes it very well. It is not simply that it is a list of extreme perversions, as it is actually quite well written, and has a lot of comedy in it (as paradoxical as that might seem considering the subject matter).

The problem I have with it is that it has no real direction or meaning; it is like a shopping list of violent sexual crimes with some humour thrown in. It needs something else if it is going to rise above that.

If you like your comedy to include priests bribing pre-pubescent girls to urinate in front of them; pregnant women being rolled down a slope in a barrel that has had nails hammered through it; or early teenage girls being forced to eat excrement and having their eyes poked out and their nipples cut off, then this is for you. I suspect that for the vast majority of people it won't be their cup of tea.

Why this has become a classic is beyond me. If it wasn't for the fact that Sade enjoyed this kind of lifestyle himself (albeit in a milder form), then he may have been able to write a book that didn't come over as something that he wrote because he found extreme sexual perversions, torture and murder as something erotic.

Comic and cruel, 16 Mar 2001
De Sade's opus and no surprise that his name would forever more be synonymous with vicious acts meted out purely for sexual gratification. A catalogue of sexual deviations, degenerating into ever-increasing cruelty as a group of captives (mainly children) are tormented and tortured to death.

An excellent translation. It is a surprisingly comic work which draws the reader in. It is also a subversive work, portraying the horrors as perpetrated by those with the unlimited resources to indulge their murderous tastes and the power or connections to avoid having to answer for them. Often they represent the law, as with the judge who always sentences everyone appearing before him to death, so that he can watch the execution from an overlooking apartment whilst fornicating at the same time.

Written in prison, it is incomplete. Only the first 30 days have been written out in full; the rest being in note form. It still makes for entertaining reading, although it is probably this incompleteness which makes the entire work disproportionately concerned with eating excrement (one of the earlier and milder sexual quirks).

Even in a world largely numbed to horror, some of this stuff is still unbelievable. Essential reading for anyone interested in the human psyche.

One of the outstanding novels of the last hundred years, 26 Mar 2008
A superb account of lives lived to the full. It makes most modern novels and novelists look half-witted and inane - Martin Amis, and all the other contemporary soon-to-be-forgotten fads.

Don't let the philosophy put you off!, 22 Oct 2007
This is a cracking good read, though it might possibly have benefited from some pruning by the author. I first read it in the early 1960s when Existensialism was highly fashionable. I'm ashamed to say the only bits I remembered were Henri and Nadine's trip to Portugal at the beginning and the gruesome disposal of the body of a murdered former Nazi collaborator at the end. Rereading it was a fascinating experience. I found the characters much more like flesh and blood in the real world than spokesmen and of course spokeswomen for a philosophical movement. I found myself really caring what happened to them. Presumably that's partly because some of the Existensialists' point of view has been incorporated into mainstream attitudes to life. It's also because the author was a great story-teller quite apart from being a philosopher.

It now seems odd that highly intelligent people, like the author and her circle, who had just survived occupation by one sort of totalitarian regime should be so unwilling to reject out of hand a different variety of totalitarianism, despite being well aware of Stalin's excesses, but there is nothing like post 1989 hindsight. The interplay between Resistance heroes and the compromisers or worse is fascinating; which of us in whatever country would have the courage to be the former or the strength not to be the latter?

So, go and read it and don't let fear of philosophy and intellectualism put you off!

essential/existential/exceptional, 14 Jan 2007
as an avid fan of the existentialist movement i came to De Bouviour's work strangely late; odd, considering that i started reading existentialism with Iris Murdoch, a writer who's quote adorns most copies of this novel. i had started with Simoné's 'she came to stay' and got used to her indivdual style of veiled biography and realised that, unlike her other contemporaries (and her partner; Sartre) hers are not so much philosophical moral tales, as a portrait of those around her that lived their whole lives by their philosophy- you get the very truth of what it's like to exist as an existentialist, to be (or fail to be) what you write about. The Mandarins is her greatest expression of this unique style- an astonishingly heart-rending story of post-war life, people trying to forget, people trying to act like heroes, accusers and the bourgiouse elite. paris is beautifully represented in real colour and vibrancy and at the heart of the story is a powerful friendship between one genious and his mentor, a friendship that falls apart through politics- something i found terrible and gripping to find myself a bystander to. don't belive the other bad review, this book was one of the most all enveloping works of literature i have ever experienced. if you're even slightly interesed in the movement this should be your guide. it is truly essential.

A lot of shoulder shrugging, 11 Oct 2000
Dubreuilh shrugged his shoulders. Nadine shrugged her shoulders. There are exactly 140 shoulder shruggings in The Mandarins. It is annoying. First, I thought, maybe, it was the translation. So, I checked the original and found out that the excruciating shrugs were in the French version too (elle haussa les epaules). When people are not shrugging their shoulders, they are shaking their heads. Simone de Beauvoir, whose life and accomplishments I find fascinating, is not that great a story teller. Which is a shame because she always has interesting things to tell. The Mandarins is a captivating story if you can get past the style with which the dialogues are delivered. Simone de Beauvoir had told that this was not a biography, it was fiction. But, still, I am sure that it gives a pretty accurate account of how the intellectuals lived, contemplated, worked and played, especially just after the war. Camus, Sartre and many others are in there under thin disguise.

Perfect for research, 11 Jan 2008
To be honest, if de Beauvoir had not had a relationship with Satre, I probably wouldn't have picked this book up, but that fact kept me going to the end. In the event, I loved reading her story, but much more the story of her tragic friend who lived the Christian life and obeyed her repressed mother. It's a wonderful depiction of upper-middle-class morals at the beginning of 20th Century Paris.

It makes you think!, 26 Aug 2002
I first encountered this at school, but that was some 25 years ago and I was dissuaded by a teacher from finishing it when she claimed that the concepts would be too adult for me. As I was only 14, she was probably right; although I found it very readable then, in a 'grown up school story' kind of way, I am getting much more from it now.

I'm not well versed in the thinking of de Beauvoir, and not sure I'd agree with many of her opinions (her pro-abortion views horrified me) but this book made me consider deeply the reasons why middle-class people become socialists, and made me also think about the shackles which bound many intelligent women in the early years of the last century....

Far from being deeply intellectual in its approach, this book is very readable, and made me want to find out more about de Beauvoir's life and work.

Thoroughly absorbing, 02 Jul 2002
I picked Memoirs up in my school library, read the first few pages and was completely hooked. I haven't read any of de Beauvoir's or Sartre's work but would love to read more, starting with the next three volumes of her autobiography! It was intensly absorbing and drew me completely into 20s Paris; in addition I was fascinated by the frequent references to Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes (read it, it's magical) and other literature. De Beauvoir has a memory for detail and builds up a vivid and often moving picture of her life and her emotions as a child and later.

Good Story, but too Long, 25 Sep 2008
This is Simone's first book which took her about 1 year to write. - The fact that this is her debut is manifested through the somewhat mediocre and repetitive writing, but to make up for that she has a good story and some very good character desriptions.

Adept describing emotions, Simone brings to life some of the foremost persons of post WW2 Parisian intellectual circles in vivid detail. So if you can handle the rather long read odds are that you will find this book well worth your effort.

Morally Ambiguous, 04 Feb 2002
If you enjoyed Jean Paul Sartre's "Roads
To Freedom" existentialist novels, then
this book will also prove absorbing. The last
third seems to bring new depths and developments
to the characters and their situations and
it's almost like the reading equivalent of
peeling the onion. The way that France's
involvement with the Second World War
begins to permeate the idyllic (on the surface)
cafe lifestyle of Paris, more and more as
the book goes on is impressive. The ending
of the book is both grim and fascinating.
Depending on how you interpret it, it's
either a deeply disturbing and ugly end
to what's went before or it's a blackly
comic act of literary revenge/exorcism.

Dark, dazzling and infuriating., 24 Oct 2000
A menage a trois that is saturated with a bitter, disturbing jealousy. A beautiful narrative that weaves a web of assignations, petty truculence and ambiguous passion. Set in Paris Simone de Beauvoir captures the essence of the city & imbues it with the necessary haze of alcohol, smoke and sadness to set the scene for the ensuing nightmare of recriminations. De Beauvoir's characters are painstakingly depicted, each permeated with thier own aura of mystery and banality. A brilliant story, boldy told.

Vile, 01 Apr 2008
This is the only book I have ever thrown away. It is also the only book to ever make me feel physically sick. I ordered this book due mostly to morbid curiosity, and secondly as I was interested (to a degree) in its author and his exploits. Whatever humour may be in this book, I'm afraid, was lost on me. I find it's difficult to appreciate the funny side when childeren are being raped. I couldn't finish the book, so perhaps I'm missing the punchline.

I thought myself relatively unshockable. This book proved otherwise. I found this thoroughly disturbing, and would whole heartedly suggest you buy something else.

Amusing in parts..., 29 Sep 2006
I read the book a few years ago and whilst I agree that the Simple Passions were sometimes amusing (if you like to laugh at other people's foibles), I felt the book got nastier as the passions progressed. By the time I read the third and fourth set of passions, I was glad that they were in outline form and that the detail had been lost. The fictional aspect of the book gives way to a vileness that is not found in Justine, for instance.
In all, I think that the book should be restricted. It is more likely a work of a mind frustrated and tortured by imprisonment than a philisophical work.


Tedium redefined, 30 May 2006
An interesting read, and an insight into a horrific side of human nature; but the repetition is overwhelming and I found myself skipping through endless descriptions of ejaculation, coprophagia and sexual abuse.

I must admit I found some of the author's style interesting as he 'treats' the reader to insights and tries to relay the story in an amusing way.

Worth buying I think, especially if you've watched the film first, then you realise just how mild the film is (and I thought that was off the scale!)

Very overrated, 10 Mar 2003
I read this book really knowing very little about it. I had heard it described as 'a catalogue of perversions', and that probably describes it very well. It is not simply that it is a list of extreme perversions, as it is actually quite well written, and has a lot of comedy in it (as paradoxical as that might seem considering the subject matter).

The problem I have with it is that it has no real direction or meaning; it is like a shopping list of violent sexual crimes with some humour thrown in. It needs something else if it is going to rise above that.

If you like your comedy to include priests bribing pre-pubescent girls to urinate in front of them; pregnant women being rolled down a slope in a barrel that has had nails hammered through it; or early teenage girls being forced to eat excrement and having their eyes poked out and their nipples cut off, then this is for you. I suspect that for the vast majority of people it won't be their cup of tea.

Why this has become a classic is beyond me. If it wasn't for the fact that Sade enjoyed this kind of lifestyle himself (albeit in a milder form), then he may have been able to write a book that didn't come over as something that he wrote because he found extreme sexual perversions, torture and murder as something erotic.

Comic and cruel, 16 Mar 2001
De Sade's opus and no surprise that his name would forever more be synonymous with vicious acts meted out purely for sexual gratification. A catalogue of sexual deviations, degenerating into ever-increasing cruelty as a group of captives (mainly children) are tormented and tortured to death.

An excellent translation. It is a surprisingly comic work which draws the reader in. It is also a subversive work, portraying the horrors as perpetrated by those with the unlimited resources to indulge their murderous tastes and the power or connections to avoid having to answer for them. Often they represent the law, as with the judge who always sentences everyone appearing before him to death, so that he can watch the execution from an overlooking apartment whilst fornicating at the same time.

Written in prison, it is incomplete. Only the first 30 days have been written out in full; the rest being in note form. It still makes for entertaining reading, although it is probably this incompleteness which makes the entire work disproportionately concerned with eating excrement (one of the earlier and milder sexual quirks).

Even in a world largely numbed to horror, some of this stuff is still unbelievable. Essential reading for anyone interested in the human psyche.

One of the outstanding novels of the last hundred years, 26 Mar 2008
A superb account of lives lived to the full. It makes most modern novels and novelists look half-witted and inane - Martin Amis, and all the other contemporary soon-to-be-forgotten fads.

Don't let the philosophy put you off!, 22 Oct 2007
This is a cracking good read, though it might possibly have benefited from some pruning by the author. I first read it in the early 1960s when Existensialism was highly fashionable. I'm ashamed to say the only bits I remembered were Henri and Nadine's trip to Portugal at the beginning and the gruesome disposal of the body of a murdered former Nazi collaborator at the end. Rereading it was a fascinating experience. I found the characters much more like flesh and blood in the real world than spokesmen and of course spokeswomen for a philosophical movement. I found myself really caring what happened to them. Presumably that's partly because some of the Existensialists' point of view has been incorporated into mainstream attitudes to life. It's also because the author was a great story-teller quite apart from being a philosopher.

It now seems odd that highly intelligent people, like the author and her circle, who had just survived occupation by one sort of totalitarian regime should be so unwilling to reject out of hand a different variety of totalitarianism, despite being well aware of Stalin's excesses, but there is nothing like post 1989 hindsight. The interplay between Resistance heroes and the compromisers or worse is fascinating; which of us in whatever country would have the courage to be the former or the strength not to be the latter?

So, go and read it and don't let fear of philosophy and intellectualism put you off!

essential/existential/exceptional, 14 Jan 2007
as an avid fan of the existentialist movement i came to De Bouviour's work strangely late; odd, considering that i started reading existentialism with Iris Murdoch, a writer who's quote adorns most copies of this novel. i had started with Simoné's 'she came to stay' and got used to her indivdual style of veiled biography and realised that, unlike her other contemporaries (and her partner; Sartre) hers are not so much philosophical moral tales, as a portrait of those around her that lived their whole lives by their philosophy- you get the very truth of what it's like to exist as an existentialist, to be (or fail to be) what you write about. The Mandarins is her greatest expression of this unique style- an astonishingly heart-rending story of post-war life, people trying to forget, people trying to act like heroes, accusers and the bourgiouse elite. paris is beautifully represented in real colour and vibrancy and at the heart of the story is a powerful friendship between one genious and his mentor, a friendship that falls apart through politics- something i found terrible and gripping to find myself a bystander to. don't belive the other bad review, this book was one of the most all enveloping works of literature i have ever experienced. if you're even slightly interesed in the movement this should be your guide. it is truly essential.

A lot of shoulder shrugging, 11 Oct 2000
Dubreuilh shrugged his shoulders. Nadine shrugged her shoulders. There are exactly 140 shoulder shruggings in The Mandarins. It is annoying. First, I thought, maybe, it was the translation. So, I checked the original and found out that the excruciating shrugs were in the French version too (elle haussa les epaules). When people are not shrugging their shoulders, they are shaking their heads. Simone de Beauvoir, whose life and accomplishments I find fascinating, is not that great a story teller. Which is a shame because she always has interesting things to tell. The Mandarins is a captivating story if you can get past the style with which the dialogues are delivered. Simone de Beauvoir had told that this was not a biography, it was fiction. But, still, I am sure that it gives a pretty accurate account of how the intellectuals lived, contemplated, worked and played, especially just after the war. Camus, Sartre and many others are in there under thin disguise.

Perfect for research, 11 Jan 2008
To be honest, if de Beauvoir had not had a relationship with Satre, I probably wouldn't have picked this book up, but that fact kept me going to the end. In the event, I loved reading her story, but much more the story of her tragic friend who lived the Christian life and obeyed her repressed mother. It's a wonderful depiction of upper-middle-class morals at the beginning of 20th Century Paris.

It makes you think!, 26 Aug 2002
I first encountered this at school, but that was some 25 years ago and I was dissuaded by a teacher from finishing it when she claimed that the concepts would be too adult for me. As I was only 14, she was probably right; although I found it very readable then, in a 'grown up school story' kind of way, I am getting much more from it now.

I'm not well versed in the thinking of de Beauvoir, and not sure I'd agree with many of her opinions (her pro-abortion views horrified me) but this book made me consider deeply the reasons why middle-class people become socialists, and made me also think about the shackles which bound many intelligent women in the early years of the last century....

Far from being deeply intellectual in its approach, this book is very readable, and made me want to find out more about de Beauvoir's life and work.

Thoroughly absorbing, 02 Jul 2002
I picked Memoirs up in my school library, read the first few pages and was completely hooked. I haven't read any of de Beauvoir's or Sartre's work but would love to read more, starting with the next three volumes of her autobiography! It was intensly absorbing and drew me completely into 20s Paris; in addition I was fascinated by the frequent references to Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes (read it, it's magical) and other literature. De Beauvoir has a memory for detail and builds up a vivid and often moving picture of her life and her emotions as a child and later.

Good Story, but too Long, 25 Sep 2008
This is Simone's first book which took her about 1 year to write. - The fact that this is her debut is manifested through the somewhat mediocre and repetitive writing, but to make up for that she has a good story and some very good character desriptions.

Adept describing emotions, Simone brings to life some of the foremost persons of post WW2 Parisian intellectual circles in vivid detail. So if you can handle the rather long read odds are that you will find this book well worth your effort.

Morally Ambiguous, 04 Feb 2002
If you enjoyed Jean Paul Sartre's "Roads
To Freedom" existentialist novels, then
this book will also prove absorbing. The last
third seems to bring new depths and developments
to the characters and their situations and
it's almost like the reading equivalent of
peeling the onion. The way that France's
involvement with the Second World War
begins to permeate the idyllic (on the surface)
cafe lifestyle of Paris, more and more as
the book goes on is impressive. The ending
of the book is both grim and fascinating.
Depending on how you interpret it, it's
either a deeply disturbing and ugly end
to what's went before or it's a blackly
comic act of literary revenge/exorcism.

Dark, dazzling and infuriating., 24 Oct 2000
A menage a trois that is saturated with a bitter, disturbing jealousy. A beautiful narrative that weaves a web of assignations, petty truculence and ambiguous passion. Set in Paris Simone de Beauvoir captures the essence of the city & imbues it with the necessary haze of alcohol, smoke and sadness to set the scene for the ensuing nightmare of recriminations. De Beauvoir's characters are painstakingly depicted, each permeated with thier own aura of mystery and banality. A brilliant story, boldy told.

The curse of immortality, 28 Mar 2006
In All Men are Mortal Simone de Beauvoir captures the meaninglessness of human endeavour and sacrifice. Fosca (born in the thirteenth century) captures the interest of the narcissistic Regina (a twentieth century prima donna). Although Fosca is initially reluctant to engage, a relationship is developed, powered by Regina's domineering personality and obsessive craving for power over others. She lures Fosca into a love struggle that impels him to reveal the secret of his immortality and the history of his life spanning several centuries. Fosca describes his love for his native land and his pursuit of power and dominion over all humanity. The results are brutal and an awful indictment of the potential cruelty of humanity. His immortality (he considers a curse) is stained with the blood of countless lives, the rise and fall of empires and the vulgar exploitation of the disadvantaged by the powerful. And for what? Fosca realises: all for nothing. Interspersed in his tale are his loves (wives, sons and daughters, grandchildren, dear friends) all tarnished by the fact he will never die. Fosca is forever trapped in a cage, enclosed by the universe, ultimately to be isolated from all living creatures; his only companion a white mouse! Beauvoir's remarkable story displays her exquisite talent for historical observation and her understanding of the predictability of human behaviour. By doing so she emphasises our own destructive tendencies and the consequences of vanity. In due course Beauvoir portentously reminds us we all enter this short existence with a primal scream. Miraculous.

A very thought provoking book, and also a damn fine read, 04 Sep 2000
I decided to read this book whilst going through a 'classics phase'. Having got into Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as part of my 'literary education' (begun whilst revising for an 'A'level special paper) - I thought I might as well give philosophy a go too.

I have to say I was plesantly surprised. The characterisation is fantastic, and I was completely drawn into Fosca's existence. I was fascinated by his history, and captivated by his experiences - almost without exception I felt in tune with Fosca's views and decisions on life.

I continued pondering the issues raised long after I had finished the book. This is the only book I have ever read which I have enjoyed as a fictional work in it's own right, but which has also had an impact upon my own understanding of the world around me, and my place within it. Sounds pompous I know - despite this the book is one damn fine read.

Vile, 01 Apr 2008
This is the only book I have ever thrown away. It is also the only book to ever make me feel physically sick. I ordered this book due mostly to morbid curiosity, and secondly as I was interested (to a degree) in its author and his exploits. Whatever humour may be in this book, I'm afraid, was lost on me. I find it's difficult to appreciate the funny side when childeren are being raped. I couldn't finish the book, so perhaps I'm missing the punchline.

I thought myself relatively unshockable. This book proved otherwise. I found this thoroughly disturbing, and would whole heartedly suggest you buy something else.

Amusing in parts..., 29 Sep 2006
I read the book a few years ago and whilst I agree that the Simple Passions were sometimes amusing (if you like to laugh at other people's foibles), I felt the book got nastier as the passions progressed. By the time I read the third and fourth set of passions, I was glad that they were in outline form and that the detail had been lost. The fictional aspect of the book gives way to a vileness that is not found in Justine, for instance.
In all, I think that the book should be restricted. It is more likely a work of a mind frustrated and tortured by imprisonment than a philisophical work.


Tedium redefined, 30 May 2006
An interesting read, and an insight into a horrific side of human nature; but the repetition is overwhelming and I found myself skipping through endless descriptions of ejaculation, coprophagia and sexual abuse.

I must admit I found some of the author's style interesting as he 'treats' the reader to insights and tries to relay the story in an amusing way.

Worth buying I think, especially if you've watched the film first, then you realise just how mild the film is (and I thought that was off the scale!)

Very overrated, 10 Mar 2003
I read this book really knowing very little about it. I had heard it described as 'a catalogue of perversions', and that probably describes it very well. It is not simply that it is a list of extreme perversions, as it is actually quite well written, and has a lot of comedy in it (as paradoxical as that might seem considering the subject matter).

The problem I have with it is that it has no real direction or meaning; it is like a shopping list of violent sexual crimes with some humour thrown in. It needs something else if it is going to rise above that.

If you like your comedy to include priests bribing pre-pubescent girls to urinate in front of them; pregnant women being rolled down a slope in a barrel that has had nails hammered through it; or early teenage girls being forced to eat excrement and having their eyes poked out and their nipples cut off, then this is for you. I suspect that for the vast majority of people it won't be their cup of tea.

Why this has become a classic is beyond me. If it wasn't for the fact that Sade enjoyed this kind of lifestyle himself (albeit in a milder form), then he may have been able to write a book that didn't come over as something that he wrote because he found extreme sexual perversions, torture and murder as something erotic.

Comic and cruel, 16 Mar 2001
De Sade's opus and no surprise that his name would forever more be synonymous with vicious acts meted out purely for sexual gratification. A catalogue of sexual deviations, degenerating into ever-increasing cruelty as a group of captives (mainly children) are tormented and tortured to death.

An excellent translation. It is a surprisingly comic work which draws the reader in. It is also a subversive work, portraying the horrors as perpetrated by those with the unlimited resources to indulge their murderous tastes and the power or connections to avoid having to answer for them. Often they represent the law, as with the judge who always sentences everyone appearing before him to death, so that he can watch the execution from an overlooking apartment whilst fornicating at the same time.

Written in prison, it is incomplete. Only the first 30 days have been written out in full; the rest being in note form. It still makes for entertaining reading, although it is probably this incompleteness which makes the entire work disproportionately concerned with eating excrement (one of the earlier and milder sexual quirks).

Even in a world largely numbed to horror, some of this stuff is still unbelievable. Essential reading for anyone interested in the human psyche.

One of the outstanding novels of the last hundred years, 26 Mar 2008
A superb account of lives lived to the full. It makes most modern novels and novelists look half-witted and inane - Martin Amis, and all the other contemporary soon-to-be-forgotten fads.

Don't let the philosophy put you off!, 22 Oct 2007
This is a cracking good read, though it might possibly have benefited from some pruning by the author. I first read it in the early 1960s when Existensialism was highly fashionable. I'm ashamed to say the only bits I remembered were Henri and Nadine's trip to Portugal at the beginning and the gruesome disposal of the body of a murdered former Nazi collaborator at the end. Rereading it was a fascinating experience. I found the characters much more like flesh and blood in the real world than spokesmen and of course spokeswomen for a philosophical movement. I found myself really caring what happened to them. Presumably that's partly because some of the Existensialists' point of view has been incorporated into mainstream attitudes to life. It's also because the author was a great story-teller quite apart from being a philosopher.

It now seems odd that highly intelligent people, like the author and her circle, who had just survived occupation by one sort of totalitarian regime should be so unwilling to reject out of hand a different variety of totalitarianism, despite being well aware of Stalin's excesses, but there is nothing like post 1989 hindsight. The interplay between Resistance heroes and the compromisers or worse is fascinating; which of us in whatever country would have the courage to be the former or the strength not to be the latter?

So, go and read it and don't let fear of philosophy and intellectualism put you off!

essential/existential/exceptional, 14 Jan 2007
as an avid fan of the existentialist movement i came to De Bouviour's work strangely late; odd, considering that i started reading existentialism with Iris Murdoch, a writer who's quote adorns most copies of this novel. i had started with Simoné's 'she came to stay' and got used to her indivdual style of veiled biography and realised that, unlike her other contemporaries (and her partner; Sartre) hers are not so much philosophical moral tales, as a portrait of those around her that lived their whole lives by their philosophy- you get the very truth of what it's like to exist as an existentialist, to be (or fail to be) what you write about. The Mandarins is her greatest expression of this unique style- an astonishingly heart-rending story of post-war life, people trying to forget, people trying to act like heroes, accusers and the bourgiouse elite. paris is beautifully represented in real colour and vibrancy and at the heart of the story is a powerful friendship between one genious and his mentor, a friendship that falls apart through politics- something i found terrible and gripping to find myself a bystander to. don't belive the other bad review, this book was one of the most all enveloping works of literature i have ever experienced. if you're even slightly interesed in the movement this should be your guide. it is truly essential.

A lot of shoulder shrugging, 11 Oct 2000
Dubreuilh shrugged his shoulders. Nadine shrugged her shoulders. There are exactly 140 shoulder shruggings in The Mandarins. It is annoying. First, I thought, maybe, it was the translation. So, I checked the original and found out that the excruciating shrugs were in the French version too (elle haussa les epaules). When people are not shrugging their shoulders, they are shaking their heads. Simone de Beauvoir, whose life and accomplishments I find fascinating, is not that great a story teller. Which is a shame because she always has interesting things to tell. The Mandarins is a captivating story if you can get past the style with which the dialogues are delivered. Simone de Beauvoir had told that this was not a biography, it was fiction. But, still, I am sure that it gives a pretty accurate account of how the intellectuals lived, contemplated, worked and played, especially just after the war. Camus, Sartre and many others are in there under thin disguise.

Perfect for research, 11 Jan 2008
To be honest, if de Beauvoir had not had a relationship with Satre, I probably wouldn't have picked this book up, but that fact kept me going to the end. In the event, I loved reading her story, but much more the story of her tragic friend who lived the Christian life and obeyed her repressed mother. It's a wonderful depiction of upper-middle-class morals at the beginning of 20th Century Paris.

It makes you think!, 26 Aug 2002
I first encountered this at school, but that was some 25 years ago and I was dissuaded by a teacher from finishing it when she claimed that the concepts would be too adult for me. As I was only 14, she was probably right; although I found it very readable then, in a 'grown up school story' kind of way, I am getting much more from it now.

I'm not well versed in the thinking of de Beauvoir, and not sure I'd agree with many of her opinions (her pro-abortion views horrified me) but this book made me consider deeply the reasons why middle-class people become socialists, and made me also think about the shackles which bound many intelligent women in the early years of the last century....

Far from being deeply intellectual in its approach, this book is very readable, and made me want to find out more about de Beauvoir's life and work.

Thoroughly absorbing, 02 Jul 2002
I picked Memoirs up in my school library, read the first few pages and was completely hooked. I haven't read any of de Beauvoir's or Sartre's work but would love to read more, starting with the next three volumes of her autobiography! It was intensly absorbing and drew me completely into 20s Paris; in addition I was fascinated by the frequent references to Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes (read it, it's magical) and other literature. De Beauvoir has a memory for detail and builds up a vivid and often moving picture of her life and her emotions as a child and later.

Good Story, but too Long, 25 Sep 2008
This is Simone's first book which took her about 1 year to write. - The fact that this is her debut is manifested through the somewhat mediocre and repetitive writing, but to make up for that she has a good story and some very good character desriptions.

Adept describing emotions, Simone brings to life some of the foremost persons of post WW2 Parisian intellectual circles in vivid detail. So if you can handle the rather long read odds are that you will find this book well worth your effort.

Morally Ambiguous, 04 Feb 2002
If you enjoyed Jean Paul Sartre's "Roads
To Freedom" existentialist novels, then
this book will also prove absorbing. The last
third seems to bring new depths and developments
to the characters and their situations and
it's almost like the reading equivalent of
peeling the onion. The way that France's
involvement with the Second World War
begins to permeate the idyllic (on the surface)
cafe lifestyle of Paris, more and more as
the book goes on is impressive. The ending
of the book is both grim and fascinating.
Depending on how you interpret it, it's
either a deeply disturbing and ugly end
to what's went before or it's a blackly
comic act of literary revenge/exorcism.

Dark, dazzling and infuriating., 24 Oct 2000
A menage a trois that is saturated with a bitter, disturbing jealousy. A beautiful narrative that weaves a web of assignations, petty truculence and ambiguous passion. Set in Paris Simone de Beauvoir captures the essence of the city & imbues it with the necessary haze of alcohol, smoke and sadness to set the scene for the ensuing nightmare of recriminations. De Beauvoir's characters are painstakingly depicted, each permeated with thier own aura of mystery and banality. A brilliant story, boldy told.

The curse of immortality, 28 Mar 2006
In All Men are Mortal Simone de Beauvoir captures the meaninglessness of human endeavour and sacrifice. Fosca (born in the thirteenth century) captures the interest of the narcissistic Regina (a twentieth century prima donna). Although Fosca is initially reluctant to engage, a relationship is developed, powered by Regina's domineering personality and obsessive craving for power over others. She lures Fosca into a love struggle that impels him to reveal the secret of his immortality and the history of his life spanning several centuries. Fosca describes his love for his native land and his pursuit of power and dominion over all humanity. The results are brutal and an awful indictment of the potential cruelty of humanity. His immortality (he considers a curse) is stained with the blood of countless lives, the rise and fall of empires and the vulgar exploitation of the disadvantaged by the powerful. And for what? Fosca realises: all for nothing. Interspersed in his tale are his loves (wives, sons and daughters, grandchildren, dear friends) all tarnished by the fact he will never die. Fosca is forever trapped in a cage, enclosed by the universe, ultimately to be isolated from all living creatures; his only companion a white mouse! Beauvoir's remarkable story displays her exquisite talent for historical observation and her understanding of the predictability of human behaviour. By doing so she emphasises our own destructive tendencies and the consequences of vanity. In due course Beauvoir portentously reminds us we all enter this short existence with a primal scream. Miraculous.

A very thought provoking book, and also a damn fine read, 04 Sep 2000
I decided to read this book whilst going through a 'classics phase'. Having got into Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as part of my 'literary education' (begun whilst revising for an 'A'level special paper) - I thought I might as well give philosophy a go too.

I have to say I was plesantly surprised. The characterisation is fantastic, and I was completely drawn into Fosca's existence. I was fascinated by his history, and captivated by his experiences - almost without exception I felt in tune with Fosca's views and decisions on life.

I continued pondering the issues raised long after I had finished the book. This is the only book I have ever read which I have enjoyed as a fictional work in it's own right, but which has also had an impact upon my own understanding of the world around me, and my place within it. Sounds pompous I know - despite this the book is one damn fine read.

Poignant Twentieth century account of a mother's death, 05 Feb 2007
De Beauvoir describes in detail the last few months of her mother's death which is illuminating for anyone interested in palliative care. De Beauvoir describes the conflicting feelings that she has for example - wanting her mother to stay alive and also wanting her to have a peaceful end. The conflict that one feels as offspring knowing that this is actually part of life. Above all, the feelings of guilt are apparent, in particular that the De Beavoir sisters felt they were conniving behind their mother's back - that they knew death was coming and didn't tell her. De Beauvoir touches on philosophy within the book at the end when she argues that death is not natural, as it never feels natural to the individual going through it. 'You die from something'.

An eloquent and realistic documentary on the topic of death., 01 Sep 1999
This book was recommended to me after I lost my mother to cancer. The writer, also an adult who lost her mother to cancer, very eloquently describes her conflicts in feelings as her mother's life slips away. These feelings are no doubt those experienced by many adult daughters. This is a must-read for anyone wishing to more fully understand the special feelings between a dying mother and her adult daughters.

An eye-opening experience of losing a mother to cancer, 05 Apr 1999
DeBeauvoir writes so that each word holds as much importance as each drip of life-sustaining solution pulsing into her mother's withering limbs. A Very Easy Death leads readers through the changing labyrinth of emotions surrounding the graphically-described death of the author's mother while undergoing care in Paris. On eloquent display is DeBeauvoir's heartache, anger, and confusion regarding the painful treatment of her cancer-ridden mother by two unrelenting doctors. Readers become DeBeauvoir's confidants, as through her torment she reveals her questioning of religion and the human body,as well as society and class issues. An expressive tale that challenges and explores cultural perspectives on death and dying.

Vile, 01 Apr 2008
This is the only book I have ever thrown away. It is also the only book to ever make me feel physically sick. I ordered this book due mostly to morbid curiosity, and secondly as I was interested (to a degree) in its author and his exploits. Whatever humour may be in this book, I'm afraid, was lost on me. I find it's difficult to appreciate the funny side when childeren are being raped. I couldn't finish the book, so perhaps I'm missing the punchline.

I thought myself relatively unshockable. This book proved otherwise. I found this thoroughly disturbing, and would whole heartedly suggest you buy something else.

Amusing in parts..., 29 Sep 2006
I read the book a few years ago and whilst I agree that the Simple Passions were sometimes amusing (if you like to laugh at other people's foibles), I felt the book got nastier as the passions progressed. By the time I read the third and fourth set of passions, I was glad that they were in outline form and that the detail had been lost. The fictional aspect of the book gives way to a vileness that is not found in Justine, for instance.
In all, I think that the book should be restricted. It is more likely a work of a mind frustrated and tortured by imprisonment than a philisophical work.


Tedium redefined, 30 May 2006
An interesting read, and an insight into a horrific side of human nature; but the repetition is overwhelming and I found myself skipping through endless descriptions of ejaculation, coprophagia and sexual abuse.

I must admit I found some of the author's style interesting as he 'treats' the reader to insights and tries to relay the story in an amusing way.

Worth buying I think, especially if you've watched the film first, then you realise just how mild the film is (and I thought that was off the scale!)

Very overrated, 10 Mar 2003
I read this book really knowing very little about it. I had heard it described as 'a catalogue of perversions', and that probably describes it very well. It is not simply that it is a list of extreme perversions, as it is actually quite well written, and has a lot of comedy in it (as paradoxical as that might seem considering the subject matter).

The problem I have with it is that it has no real direction or meaning; it is like a shopping list of violent sexual crimes with some humour thrown in. It needs something else if it is going to rise above that.

If you like your comedy to include priests bribing pre-pubescent girls to urinate in front of them; pregnant women being rolled down a slope in a barrel that has had nails hammered through it; or early teenage girls being forced to eat excrement and having their eyes poked out and their nipples cut off, then this is for you. I suspect that for the vast majority of people it won't be their cup of tea.

Why this has become a classic is beyond me. If it wasn't for the fact that Sade enjoyed this kind of lifestyle himself (albeit in a milder form), then he may have been able to write a book that didn't come over as something that he wrote because he found extreme sexual perversions, torture and murder as something erotic.

Comic and cruel, 16 Mar 2001
De Sade's opus and no surprise that his name would forever more be synonymous with vicious acts meted out purely for sexual gratification. A catalogue of sexual deviations, degenerating into ever-increasing cruelty as a group of captives (mainly children) are tormented and tortured to death.

An excellent translation. It is a surprisingly comic work which draws the reader in. It is also a subversive work, portraying the horrors as perpetrated by those with the unlimited resources to indulge their murderous tastes and the power or connections to avoid having to answer for them. Often they represent the law, as with the judge who always sentences everyone appearing before him to death, so that he can watch the execution from an overlooking apartment whilst fornicating at the same time.

Written in prison, it is incomplete. Only the first 30 days have been written out in full; the rest being in note form. It still makes for entertaining reading, although it is probably this incompleteness which makes the entire work disproportionately concerned with eating excrement (one of the earlier and milder sexual quirks).

Even in a world largely numbed to horror, some of this stuff is still unbelievable. Essential reading for anyone interested in the human psyche.

One of the outstanding novels of the last hundred years, 26 Mar 2008
A superb account of lives lived to the full. It makes most modern novels and novelists look half-witted and inane - Martin Amis, and all the other contemporary soon-to-be-forgotten fads.

Don't let the philosophy put you off!, 22 Oct 2007
This is a cracking good read, though it might possibly have benefited from some pruning by the author. I first read it in the early 1960s when Existensialism was highly fashionable. I'm ashamed to say the only bits I remembered were Henri and Nadine's trip to Portugal at the beginning and the gruesome disposal of the body of a murdered former Nazi collaborator at the end. Rereading it was a fascinating experience. I found the characters much more like flesh and blood in the real world than spokesmen and of course spokeswomen for a philosophical movement. I found myself really caring what happened to them. Presumably that's partly because some of the Existensialists' point of view has been incorporated into mainstream attitudes to life. It's also because the author was a great story-teller quite apart from being a philosopher.

It now seems odd that highly intelligent people, like the author and her circle, who had just survived occupation by one sort of totalitarian regime should be so unwilling to reject out of hand a different variety of totalitarianism, despite being well aware of Stalin's excesses, but there is nothing like post 1989 hindsight. The interplay between Resistance heroes and the compromisers or worse is fascinating; which of us in whatever country would have the courage to be the former or the strength not to be the latter?

So, go and read it and don't let fear of philosophy and intellectualism put you off!

essential/existential/exceptional, 14 Jan 2007
as an avid fan of the existentialist movement i came to De Bouviour's work strangely late; odd, considering that i started reading existentialism with Iris Murdoch, a writer who's quote adorns most copies of this novel. i had started with Simoné's 'she came to stay' and got used to her indivdual style of veiled biography and realised that, unlike her other contemporaries (and her partner; Sartre) hers are not so much philosophical moral tales, as a portrait of those around her that lived their whole lives by their philosophy- you get the very truth of what it's like to exist as an existentialist, to be (or fail to be) what you write about. The Mandarins is her greatest expression of this unique style- an astonishingly heart-rending story of post-war life, people trying to forget, people trying to act like heroes, accusers and the bourgiouse elite. paris is beautifully represented in real colour and vibrancy and at the heart of the story is a powerful friendship between one genious and his mentor, a friendship that falls apart through politics- something i found terrible and gripping to find myself a bystander to. don't belive the other bad review, this book was one of the most all enveloping works of literature i have ever experienced. if you're even slightly interesed in the movement this should be your guide. it is truly essential.

A lot of shoulder shrugging, 11 Oct 2000
Dubreuilh shrugged his shoulders. Nadine shrugged her shoulders. There are exactly 140 shoulder shruggings in The Mandarins. It is annoying. First, I thought, maybe, it was the translation. So, I checked the original and found out that the excruciating shrugs were in the French version too (elle haussa les epaules). When people are not shrugging their shoulders, they are shaking their heads. Simone de Beauvoir, whose life and accomplishments I find fascinating, is not that great a story teller. Which is a shame because she always has interesting things to tell. The Mandarins is a captivating story if you can get past the style with which the dialogues are delivered. Simone de Beauvoir had told that this was not a biography, it was fiction. But, still, I am sure that it gives a pretty accurate account of how the intellectuals lived, contemplated, worked and played, especially just after the war. Camus, Sartre and many others are in there under thin disguise.

Perfect for research, 11 Jan 2008
To be honest, if de Beauvoir had not had a relationship with Satre, I probably wouldn't have picked this book up, but that fact kept me going to the end. In the event, I loved reading her story, but much more the story of her tragic friend who lived the Christian life and obeyed her repressed mother. It's a wonderful depiction of upper-middle-class morals at the beginning of 20th Century Paris.

It makes you think!, 26 Aug 2002
I first encountered this at school, but that was some 25 years ago and I was dissuaded by a teacher from finishing it when she claimed that the concepts would be too adult for me. As I was only 14, she was probably right; although I found it very readable then, in a 'grown up school story' kind of way, I am getting much more from it now.

I'm not well versed in the thinking of de Beauvoir, and not sure I'd agree with many of her opinions (her pro-abortion views horrified me) but this book made me consider deeply the reasons why middle-class people become socialists, and made me also think about the shackles which bound many intelligent women in the early years of the last century....

Far from being deeply intellectual in its approach, this book is very readable, and made me want to find out more about de Beauvoir's life and work.

Thoroughly absorbing, 02 Jul 2002
I picked Memoirs up in my school library, read the first few pages and was completely hooked. I haven't read any of de Beauvoir's or Sartre's work but would love to read more, starting with the next three volumes of her autobiography! It was intensly absorbing and drew me completely into 20s Paris; in addition I was fascinated by the frequent references to Alain-Fournier's Le Grand Meaulnes (read it, it's magical) and other literature. De Beauvoir has a memory for detail and builds up a vivid and often moving picture of her life and her emotions as a child and later.

Good Story, but too Long, 25 Sep 2008
This is Simone's first book which took her about 1 year to write. - The fact that this is her debut is manifested through the somewhat mediocre and repetitive writing, but to make up for that she has a good story and some very good character desriptions.

Adept describing emotions, Simone brings to life some of the foremost persons of post WW2 Parisian intellectual circles in vivid detail. So if you can handle the rather long read odds are that you will find this book well worth your effort.

Morally Ambiguous, 04 Feb 2002
If you enjoyed Jean Paul Sartre's "Roads
To Freedom" existentialist novels, then
this book will also prove absorbing. The last
third seems to bring new depths and developments
to the characters and their situations and
it's almost like the reading equivalent of
peeling the onion. The way that France's
involvement with the Second World War
begins to permeate the idyllic (on the surface)
cafe lifestyle of Paris, more and more as
the book goes on is impressive. The ending
of the book is both grim and fascinating.
Depending on how you interpret it, it's
either a deeply disturbing and ugly end
to what's went before or it's a blackly
comic act of literary revenge/exorcism.

Dark, dazzling and infuriating., 24 Oct 2000
A menage a trois that is saturated with a bitter, disturbing jealousy. A beautiful narrative that weaves a web of assignations, petty truculence and ambiguous passion. Set in Paris Simone de Beauvoir captures the essence of the city & imbues it with the necessary haze of alcohol, smoke and sadness to set the scene for the ensuing nightmare of recriminations. De Beauvoir's characters are painstakingly depicted, each permeated with thier own aura of mystery and banality. A brilliant story, boldy told.

The curse of immortality, 28 Mar 2006
In All Men are Mortal Simone de Beauvoir captures the meaninglessness of human endeavour and sacrifice. Fosca (born in the thirteenth century) captures the interest of the narcissistic Regina (a twentieth century prima donna). Although Fosca is initially reluctant to engage, a relationship is developed, powered by Regina's domineering personality and obsessive craving for power over others. She lures Fosca into a love struggle that impels him to reveal the secret of his immortality and the history of his life spanning several centuries. Fosca describes his love for his native land and his pursuit of power and dominion over all humanity. The results are brutal and an awful indictment of the potential cruelty of humanity. His immortality (he considers a curse) is stained with the blood of countless lives, the rise and fall of empires and the vulgar exploitation of the disadvantaged by the powerful. And for what? Fosca realises: all for nothing. Interspersed in his tale are his loves (wives, sons and daughters, grandchildren, dear friends) all tarnished by the fact he will never die. Fosca is forever trapped in a cage, enclosed by the universe, ultimately to be isolated from all living creatures; his only companion a white mouse! Beauvoir's remarkable story displays her exquisite talent for historical observation and her understanding of the predictability of human behaviour. By doing so she emphasises our own destructive tendencies and the consequences of vanity. In due course Beauvoir portentously reminds us we all enter this short existence with a primal scream. Miraculous.

A very thought provoking book, and also a damn fine read, 04 Sep 2000
I decided to read this book whilst going through a 'classics phase'. Having got into Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as part of my 'literary education' (begun whilst revising for an 'A'level special paper) - I thought I might as well give philosophy a go too.

I have to say I was plesantly surprised. The characterisation is fantastic, and I was completely drawn into Fosca's existence. I was fascinated by his history, and captivated by his experiences - almost without exception I felt in tune with Fosca's views and decisions on life.

I continued pondering the issues raised long after I had finished the book. This is the only book I have ever read which I have enjoyed as a fictional work in it's own right, but which has also had an impact upon my own understanding of the world around me, and my place within it. Sounds pompous I know - despite this the book is one damn fine read.

Poignant Twentieth century account of a mother's death, 05 Feb 2007
De Beauvoir describes in detail the last few months of her mother's death which is illuminating for anyone interested in palliative care. De Beauvoir describes the conflicting feelings that she has for example - wanting her mother to stay alive and also wanting her to have a peaceful end. The conflict that one feels as offspring knowing that this is actually part of life. Above all, the feelings of guilt are apparent, in particular that the De Beavoir sisters felt they were conniving behind their mother's back - that they knew death was coming and didn't tell her. De Beauvoir touches on philosophy within the book at the end when she argues that death is not natural, as it never feels natural to the individual going through it. 'You die from something'.

An eloquent and realistic documentary on the topic of death., 01 Sep 1999
This book was recommended to me after I lost my mother to cancer. The writer, also an adult who lost her mother to cancer, very eloquently describes her conflicts in feelings as her mother's life slips away. These feelings are no doubt those experienced by many adult daughters. This is a must-read for anyone wishing to more fully understand the special feelings between a dying mother and her adult daughters.

An eye-opening experience of losing a mother to cancer, 05 Apr 1999
DeBeauvoir writes so that each word holds as much importance as each drip of life-sustaining solution pulsing into her mother's withering limbs. A Very Easy Death leads readers through the changing labyrinth of emotions surrounding the graphically-described death of the author's mother while undergoing care in Paris. On eloquent display is DeBeauvoir's heartache, anger, and confusion regarding the painful treatment of her cancer-ridden mother by two unrelenting doctors. Readers become DeBeauvoir's confidants, as through her torment she reveals her questioning of religion and the human body,as well as society and class issues. An expressive tale that challenges and explores cultural perspectives on death and dying.

Laurence veut changer l'immuabilité des choses, en vain..., 05 Dec 1998
Au premier abord, ce livre est une critique des années soixante, écrit dans ce style ironique si typique de cette époque. Mais il n'en est rien. Je crois que Simone de Beauvoir a essayé de montrer tout simplement le désir d'immuabilité du monde; sa théorie est d'ailleurs appliquable à n'importe quelle époque. Nous nous sentons aujourd'hui supérieur aux gens des temps passés, nous les considérons naïfs et fats. Je dus plusieurs fois sourire à certaines visions très utopiques: "(Jean-Charles)En quatre-vingt-cinq, on aura exploré le système solaire (...)Nous voulons que les choses changent. Maintenant, on peut produire plus de nourriture qu'avant, et les transporter vite et facilement des pays riches aux pays pauvres.(...)Les déserts se sont couverts de blé, de légumes, de fruits, toute la terre est devenue la terre promise; gavés de lait, de riz, de tomates et d'oranges, tous les enfants souri- aient." Mais au fond, nous sommes restés les mêmes, nous aussi voulons envoyer des civils sur Mars en 2019;que penseront les gens de nous à ce moment-là? Eux, tout comme nous le faisons maintenant, se moqueront de nos rêves. Car tout ceci n'est-il pas finalement une façon comme une autre de soulager notre conscience?

Plus tard, je me suis demandée pourquoi avoir choisi ce titre, "les belles images". Le mot "image" semble d'ailleurs avoir une grande importance dans ce livre. Pourquoi?? Tout d'abord, dans un premier sens, Laurence vend des images publicitaires,"je ne vends pas des panneaux de bois:je vends la sécurité, la réussite, et une touche de poésie en supplément". D'ailleurs, elle se considère elle-même comme une image:"alors pendant des jours, je n'ai plus été une image mais chair et sang, désir, plaisir." Mais ce mot a ici plutôt une valeur symbolique:l'image que l'on donne (ou que l'on veut donner) de soi à la société. Dominique ne veut pas donner l'image d'une femme qui vieillit, c'est pourquoi elle sort chaque soir avec Gilbert. En fait, la plupart des personnages du livre sont très hypocrites, ils veulent être quelqu'un qu'ils ne sont pas en réalité; ils veulent refléter une belle image sur le miroir des autres.

Vile, 01 Apr 2008
This is the only book I have ever thrown away. It is also the only book to ever make me feel physically sick. I ordered this book due mostly to morbid curiosity, and secondly as I was interested (to a degree) in its author and his exploits. Whatever humour may be in this book, I'm afraid, was lost on me. I find it's difficult to appreciate the funny side when childeren are being raped. I couldn't finish the book, so perhaps I'm missing the punchline.

I thought myself relatively unshockable. This book proved otherwise. I found this thoroughly disturbing, and would whole heartedly suggest you buy something else.

Amusing in parts..., 29 Sep 2006
I read the book a few years ago and whilst I agree that the Simple Passions were sometimes amusing (if you like to laugh at other people's foibles), I felt the book got nastier as the passions progressed. By the time I read the third and fourth set of passions, I was glad that they were in outline form and that the detail had been lost. The fictional aspect of the book gives way to a vileness that is not found in Justine, for instance.
In all, I think that the book should be restricted. It is more likely a work of a mind frustrated and tortured by imprisonment than a philisophical work.


Tedium redefined, 30 May 2006
An interesting read, and an insight into a horrific side of human nature; but the repetition is overwhelming and I found myself skipping through endless descriptions of ejaculation, coprophagia and sexual abuse.

I must admit I found some of the author's style interesting as he 'treats' the reader to insights and tries to relay the story in an amusing way.

Worth buying I think, especially if you've watched the film first, then you realise just how mild the film is (and I thought that was off the scale!)

Very overrated, 10 Mar 2003
I read this book really knowing very little about it. I had heard it described as 'a catalogue of perversions', and that probably describes it very well. It is not simply that it is a list of extreme perversions, as it is actually quite well written, and has a lot of comedy in it (as paradoxical as that might seem considering the subject matter).

The problem I have with it is that it has no real direction or meaning; it is like a shopping list of violent sexual crimes with some humour thrown in. It needs something else if it is going to rise above that.

If you like your comedy to include priests bribing pre-pubescent girls to urinate in front of them; pregnant women being rolled down a slope in a barrel that has had nails hammered through it; or early teenage girls being forced to eat excrement and having their eyes poked out and their nipples cut off, then this is for you. I suspect that for the vast majority of people it won't be their cup of tea.

Why this has become a classic is beyond me. If it wasn't for the fact that Sade enjoyed this kind of lifestyle himself (albeit in a milder form), then he may have been able to write a book that didn't come over as something that he wrote because he found extreme sexual perversions, torture and murder as something erotic.

Comic and cruel, 16 Mar 2001
De Sade's opus and no surprise that his name would forever more be synonymous with vicious acts meted out purely for sexual gratification. A catalogue of sexual deviations, degenerating into ever-increasing cruelty as a group of captives (mainly children) are tormented and tortured to death.

An excellent translation. It is a surprisingly comic work which draws the reader in. It is also a subversive work, portraying the horrors as perpetrated by those with the u