The sober Beauvoir | Reading Note 8

After a week, it took about eight and a half hours to finally read the biography of "Becoming Beauvoir". The first day was exciting, and when I read it, I entered a state of flow, as if traveling back in time to 1908 and watching a great philosophical thinker, a feminist, born in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.

The reading experience in the next few days is a bit decadent, even impatient, perhaps caused by a sense of gap.

I read this book because I was first attracted to Sartre's philosophical ideas, his "existence is nothingness", "others are hell", "free choice is a heavy burden", etc., and he practiced his philosophical views with his own actual life, which can't help but want people to know more about his life. Countless descendants tried to imitate the love contract between Sartre and Beauvoir, they did not want to be tied together by marriage, but signed a contract every two years with free will to determine the most essential love between them, of course, during this period their relationship is not exclusive, if they encounter their own accidental love can also be openly and honestly told to each other.

There are several chapters in the book that introduce their respective lovers, and even their shared lovers. I saw their intricate emotional entanglements, not very interested, and even a little bit unable to look at them. Because it was incredible and curious to hear that there was such an advanced concept of relationship in that era, and that they really persisted for 52 years until Sartre died. But I really learned about the details of those public letters and other details through this biography, in fact, the impact on me personally is relatively large, at least for the time being, I do not agree, how can true love not be exclusive?

After reading it all, I thought that the reason why Beauvoir was able to write those works, and the feminist wave she set off, was inseparable from her shared experiences with lovers or friends, and most importantly, with Sartre's spiritual resonance, she wrote in her diary: Sartre is to me, is "my mind, my body, but most importantly, my mind has gained an incomparable friend." The companion of body and mind, others can also do, but the friend of the mind is only him, irreplaceable."

The book is an attempt to prove that Beauvoir had her own philosophical ideas, that she was not an appendage of Sartre, but that unfortunately the Times of London, in its article announcing Sartre's death, introduced her as one of Sartre's "closest friends," "becoming his mistress and a lifelong political, philosophical, and literary ally," and that Beauvoir seemed to be living in Sartre's shadow.

The orientation of the media did play a role, and I also went to know Beauvoir because of Sartre, and after reading this book, a three-dimensional and vivid she seemed to stand in front of me, separated by more than a hundred years of time and space, I expressed deep respect, her courage, her intellect, her sobriety, at that time few people in that place could do it, even today.

The original family can affect a person, but thinking in the process of growing up can more shape a person to become rational and mature. Beauvoir's mother was a devout Catholic and her father was a staunch atheist, living in such an environment that led her childhood to a tug-of-war between skepticism and fidelity. Fortunately, she loved to read, to keep a diary, and to refute the old rules and regulations and dogmatism that had been established.

Beauvoir is a proper academic bully, in two years to get 6 higher education qualifications, such as mathematics, French literature, Latin, history of philosophy, Greek, etc., she put most of her energy into learning, but at the same time also experienced adolescence of love ignorance and curiosity, she has a strong critical thinking, she discussed with her father "what love means", her father believes that "love" means "dedication, admiration and gratitude", she does not agree with this, she read a lot of philosophical thinkers in her early years, So instead of succumbing to the authority of her elders and beginning to think independently, she felt that "reciprocal feedback is a necessary condition for love."

Beauvoir's philosophical brilliance was largely overshadowed by Sartre, who had already addressed existentialism in her diary before Sartre published Existence and Nothingness, but did not come up with a solution to the problem. But in any case, her relationship with Sartre, which lasted for half a century, was more like a soul mate, a spiritual reliance, and their past lovers only briefly accompanied a journey, and the two of them were partners and friends who knew each other and supported each other from beginning to end.

In her life, Beauvoir has experienced countless times of ridicule and denigration, but she clearly knows what she wants. In her memoirs, Beauvoir said that she was determined not to enter the bourgeois system of marriage and did not want to have children, because she needed time and freedom to write, so she said: "Without children, I can accomplish my mission." ”

Beauvoir, absolute human sobriety. Such a person who has spent her life practicing her philosophical views deserves my 8 hours or so to walk into her world.