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Rating: 
Summary: Bad book!
Review: According to Claude Lanzmann there are several major errors which do occur in Bairs book, and basically it's gives a rotten and unworthy presentation of de Beauvoirs life and work. /Leah Greber
Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive and Detailed - an Existensialist Must Read.
Review: Bair works really hard at making it clear that Sartre and De Beauvoir were two sides of the same coin. Larger than life as always but deeply and painfully human too. Despite the eventual demise of their "professional" relationship, and the eventual move of Sartre to study Flaubert and De Beauvior to her feminist crusade, the two are inextricably linked. Did she really have as much control (specially in the end) over Sartre and his life? We will never know. What Bair does though is succeed in making her human more than all of De Beauvior's work ever could. Despite the fact that De Beauvior and Sartre are larger than life, and they always will be, Bair makes her subject - human, vulnerable and understandable. It is comprehensive and exhaustive journey (despite whatever errors there might be), one worth taking at any junction in the readers Existential journey.
Rating: 
Summary: Complete
Review: Really, this book was a page-turner, a book of facts so well-written it made one want to know more, more, more, even when the knowing was almost painful out of de Beauvoir empathy. I wanted to read it as a companion to de Beauvoir's autobiographical series and was particularly grateful to Bair for pointing out incidents in which de Beauvoir "guilded the lily" when she recounted her own life. De Beauvoir's autobiography and this make perfect companions for a study on auto/biography and its subjectivication. (Also see Silent Woman by Janet Malcom.) I had read previous biographical material on de Beauvoir, but none I ever felt was so complete, and helped me to know her so well. I strongly recommend this as history, literary criticism, psychology and philosophy.
Rating: 
Summary: Too repetitive, lacks analysis of her works and her ideology
Review: The value of this biography is that it adds new facts andcorrects some of SdB's own mis- representations of her life. But it'stoo repetitive, often concentrating on insignficant chronologies of her trips, etc. Lacks sufficient explanation of the stultifying catholic education she rejected early in her life (was it guilt-inducing jansenistic sexophobia, the doctrine of a caring God, etc) or of the basic existentialist tenets which guided her life, such as the self-creating life project, absolute responsiblity for choices, etc. Badly in need of a final summing up chapter listing and analyzing the very disparate opinions about the contradictions and import of this amazing woman, eg was it unfathomable tenderness or simply self-delusion that enabled her to transform the ecstasy she felt with Nelson Algren into the sublimest and most poignant love affair? In many aspects of her life SdB could be a example for many women, but after reading this book one is still left wondering how and why.
Rating:
Summary: A imformative story of an interesting life.
Review: This biography adds to the memoirs de Beauboir has already written. It tells her complete life story and provides new information and viewpoints. It sometimes feels too long, but is usually clear and engaging.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of information but - yawn - hard work to get to it.
Review: Turgid. There is no question this book is based on genuine and scholarly research. But the ordinary but informed reader is better leaving this one to the academicians.
Rating:
Summary: Lots of information but - yawn - hard work to get to it.
Review: Turgid. There is no question this book is based on genuine and scholarly research. But the ordinary but informed reader is better leaving this one to the academicians.
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