The Paper's reporter Fan Jialai
"Women are not born, but acquired."
In French literature, the names of Marguerite Duras and Simone de Beauvoir shine brightly: as pioneers of feminism, they have used their works many years ago to document the difficult problems of occupation, love, survival pressures, social status and other difficulties faced by modern women.
Since the Age of Enlightenment in Europe in the 18th century, the Western women's liberation movement has been going on for more than two hundred years. On July 3, with the publication of the new book "Simone de Beauvoir: Writing and Existence" and "Margaret Duras: The Darkroom of Writing", Professors Mao Jian and Yuan Xiaoyi of East China Normal University, Shen Ke, young teachers, and Huang Xun, professor and translator of Nanjing University, gathered at Duoyun Academy to share with readers their understanding of feminism and the writing stories of Duras and Beauvoir.
The sharing session is on-site. Image source: Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press
Duras is like a "youth textbook"
As a French writer, Duras enjoys a high reputation among domestic readers. As one of the first foreign writers to be introduced into China after the reform and opening up, Duras and a group of new novel writers entered the field of vision of Chinese readers together, triggering a wave of reading.
Margaret Duras. China Jilin Network Infographic
"I'm tired of Duras." For Duras's high popularity in China, Mao Jian laughed, she mentioned that Duras "wrote novels, wrote columns, wrote scripts, played pioneer films and dramas, and did all the things that a literary and artistic youth could dream of, but there were more than that." Throughout her life, she fell in love day and night, and became high-profile political, living from 1914 to 1996, "She ended what we could do in ten lifetimes with a lifetime." ”
In her view, Duras is like a "youth textbook", in her lifelong writing, there is the passion and rebellion of youth, she has always used the way of a rebellious girl to tear, hug, break, reconcile, break and shake hands with the world. "Duras's statement that she can have fifty lovers at the same time is certainly a radical expression, but her perseverance in love does have a god-like will in it."
As a well-known research expert in Duras in China, Huang Edu has been associated with Duras for a long time. "The master's thesis was done by her, the doctoral thesis was done by her, and Duras also let my research take a 'grand slam'." In Maojian's words, I spent a quarter of a century on Duras. "Huang Xun laughed." Studying Duras is not a lonely thing for me, because Duras's writing is very rich, she is a writer with a particularly rich reach, and this is what I like about her in particular. ”
She mentioned that for Duras, many domestic readers and writers have misread her, and the overall impression of duras by the media is still superficial, and it is too naïve and rash to equate Duras's life's creation with "Lover". In fact, Duras pursued not only in writing, but also in politics, "As an active member of the French intellectual circles involved in political and social life, Duras participated in the resistance movement, joined the French Communist Party, traveled, sold newspapers, and distributed revolutionary leaflets; as a literary and artistic all-rounder, she was both a writer, a dramatist, a director, and a columnist; as a model of love of life, she was hospitable, could cook a good dish, took care of her home properly, and took care of flowers and plants. Even the dried flowers she inserted in various bottles had a decadent material beauty. She had lovers, even too many, and liked the young body, but she poured her true feelings into every love, and love nourished her life and writing. ”
Beauvoir and Sartre: Not a couple, more like a soul mate
If Duras symbolizes sensibility, Beauvoir, who is also a female writer, undoubtedly represents the rational side. "Beauvoir is a typical scholar, and the writing of The Second Sex is also the writing of scholars, an encyclopedic writing with a powerful reasoning process in it." Yuan Xiaoyi summed it up like this. Many people know Beauvoir without her partner: the philosopher Sartre. Sartre's relationship with Beauvoir is still enjoyed by readers years later. In Shen Ke's recollection, his first reading of Beauvoir dates back to the age of eighteen or nineteen. "I was still a sophomore, and my first book was her autobiography, The Lady of the Boudoir, and even to this day, the excitement of reading it and the feeling of recognizing myself in this book still exist." Shen Ke also has his own understanding of the meaning of love to Beauvoir: "Love is the starting point of our understanding of Beauvoir, but it is precisely in Beauvoir's life that love has never accounted for a very important proportion. In her work or in her life, love is not the first, and I believe that Beauvoir has always been an ambitious woman. The death of his friend Zaza allowed Beauvoir to see the universal fate of women within the confines of the times. If she does not fight, she will face the same fate. "So Zaza's death laid a very important foreshadowing for her writing, her subsequent life, and her thinking about women's issues." Shen Ke said.
Simone de Beauvoir. Shenzhen News Network Infographic
Love has never been the main theme of Beauvoir's life and writing. She met the writer Aglin in the United States and fell in love, but when Aeglin asked her to marry, she returned to Paris and back to Sartre. The relationship between Beauvoir and Sartre has gone far beyond love, and they have become intellectual partners, and every time the two of them write a book or a book, they will actually become their first readers. Whether it is Sartre to Beauvoir or Beauvoir to Sartre, in fact, they are communicating with each other, giving each other advice, and becoming each other's first readers and commenters, they are more like each other's soul mates than husband and wife.
For a long time, beauvoir and Sartre's close relationship, people often misunderstood Beauvoir. Statements such as "female Sartre" and "Sartre's woman" are also one of the satires specifically aimed at Beauvoir. Of course, scholars also generally agree on Sartre's profound influence on Beauvoir. In this regard, Yuan Xiaoyi asked an interesting question, "Without Sartre's Beauvoir, is she still Beauvoir?" ”
"If Beauvoir hadn't met Sartre, she would have been hardly the Simone de Beauvoir we know now." Shen Ke said frankly, "Beauvoir was not born, she also became. Especially in her philosophical expression, whether it is the relationship between the self and others, or the elaboration of women's issues, on the one hand, it is inseparable from the influence of Sartre's 'existentialism', but at the same time, we should also see her expansion and enrichment of Sartre's philosophy, which is reflected in several of her philosophical works. ”
Editor-in-Charge: Liang Jia
Proofreader: Shi Gong