The Mandarins

Rating:
Summary: A PRIZE WINNER?
Review: "The Madarins" won the Priz Goncourt, FRance's highest literary award. Can one really give an award to a novel? The winner of a race is usually easy to spot, but how can a novel win an award? In the case of The Mandarins, the merit may have been due to the depiction of the political fragmentation of France immediately after the War. Simone de Beauvoir was bitterly disappointed that France did not emerge as an authentic world power with the coming of peace. The division within the country, however, was more painful to her than France's diminished stature. During the War, some of the factionalism of that country with more than 260 kinds of cheese abated somewhat, but peace meant a return to acrimony. Most of Simone's fiction is based on her life and the people in it. However, no character is ever a one-to-one representation of any individual. To say that the fictional Anne is Simone and Anne's husband is Jean-Paul Sartre is to over-simplify for Simone invested some of her personality traits in both characters. The correspondance between Anne and Simone is greatest when Anne falls in love with the American known as Lewis. (Lcarver of Florida thought this was the weakest part of the novel and I heartily disagree. I knew Nelson Algren. I think Simone wanted to love him but there were many reasons why she never fully allowed herself that luxury.) Once Anne meets Lewis, Simone's writing becomes freer and more relaxed. Simone desperately needed an editor, someone who would have sent the manuscript for the Mandarins back to her with orders to tighten. It may have been that by the time she wrote The Mandarins, she was an embryonic sacred monster. One of my criticism's of Simone as a novelist is her 19th century habit of acting as the omniescent author. It is annoying when Anne smiles knowingly or Lewis nods sleepily. The young Simone (aged 10) read and admired Louisa May Alcott -- who had more in common with Simone than most Americans might suppose -- and Louisa loved melodrama. So did Simone. In fact, her novel, "She Came to Stay," has been criticized as being melodramatic. Toril Moi, who has written a study of Simone called "The Making of an Intellectual Woman," says that book is melodramatic because existentialism is a melodramatic philosophy. There is more than a bit of melodrama to The Mandarins. It is a shame that the fine writing of which Simone was capable -- America Day by Day and Force of Circumstance -- didn't transfer to her novels.

Rating:
Summary: A PRIZE WINNER?
Review: "The Madarins" won the Priz Goncourt, FRance's highest literary award. Can one really give an award to a novel? The winner of a race is usually easy to spot, but how can a novel win an award? In the case of The Mandarins, the merit may have been due to the depiction of the political fragmentation of France immediately after the War. Simone de Beauvoir was bitterly disappointed that France did not emerge as an authentic world power with the coming of peace. The division within the country, however, was more painful to her than France's diminished stature. During the War, some of the factionalism of that country with more than 260 kinds of cheese abated somewhat, but peace meant a return to acrimony. Most of Simone's fiction is based on her life and the people in it. However, no character is ever a one-to-one representation of any individual. To say that the fictional Anne is Simone and Anne's husband is Jean-Paul Sartre is to over-simplify for Simone invested some of her personality traits in both characters. The correspondance between Anne and Simone is greatest when Anne falls in love with the American known as Lewis. (Lcarver of Florida thought this was the weakest part of the novel and I heartily disagree. I knew Nelson Algren. I think Simone wanted to love him but there were many reasons why she never fully allowed herself that luxury.) Once Anne meets Lewis, Simone's writing becomes freer and more relaxed. Simone desperately needed an editor, someone who would have sent the manuscript for the Mandarins back to her with orders to tighten. It may have been that by the time she wrote The Mandarins, she was an embryonic sacred monster. One of my criticism's of Simone as a novelist is her 19th century habit of acting as the omniescent author. It is annoying when Anne smiles knowingly or Lewis nods sleepily. The young Simone (aged 10) read and admired Louisa May Alcott -- who had more in common with Simone than most Americans might suppose -- and Louisa loved melodrama. So did Simone. In fact, her novel, "She Came to Stay," has been criticized as being melodramatic. Toril Moi, who has written a study of Simone called "The Making of an Intellectual Woman," says that book is melodramatic because existentialism is a melodramatic philosophy. There is more than a bit of melodrama to The Mandarins. It is a shame that the fine writing of which Simone was capable -- America Day by Day and Force of Circumstance -- didn't transfer to her novels.

Rating:
Summary: I admire the philosophical intellect, not the writing...
Review: Salty and frank.....is how an editorial review described DeBeauvoir's story and writing style. I came to the book feeling that a treatise on intellectual life in post WWII Paris would serve me well in regards to expanding my own knowledge in modern theory. And it did. I appreciate the seemingly unabashed look into some of the proposed great thinkers of our century. The intermittent sections of the novel concerning Anne's affair with Lewis, an American writer, however, made the novel come to grinding halts for me. The writing in these sections read like a dime store romance. I sensed DeBeauvoir rushed through these scenes, cram-packing the volatile emotions of the love affair, into prose that sadly negated the brilliance I saw in other sections of the novel. When the story picked back up in Paris, I, too, continued my interest in the story. But when she again returned to the American scenes with Lewis, I found myself saying, Simone...! What's wrong? What are you doing? I'm fairly sure the character of Lewis was adapted from a real person, although I don't know his identity. I thought after finishing the book that it is very hard, indeed, to write about the people / scenes of our lives that are most emotionally sensitive to us. As a poet and artist, I've yet to create anything that is STRICTLY autobiographical that I've found up to par with the emotional content the subjects evoke. I wonder if this wasn't the case with DeBeauvoir. I do, however, resepct the book. It's hard for me not to admire the intelligence I do see in a great deal of DeBeauvoir's writing.

Rating:
Summary: Finding the Conflicts and Humanity in Existentialism
Review: The reason that I love Simone so much is defined in this book. What happens when you live with atrocities? What happens when you have to see lives terribly torn apart by evil? What can a person do?

DeBeauvior takes these questions and makes them human, and gives hope to our world. But, with any great existentialist thinker, makes the point that living is hard. To exist well we must make choices and be able to live with them. All of the characters in this book show the angst and chaos of war. How they are able to live with each other and themselves is displayed with amazing depth and insight. The complexities of women are shown vividly - especially if you have read The Second Sex. Each of the woman characters are shown struggling with their societial place as Other, yet, show this trancendence that is even more important to her gender.

This is also an incredible demonstration of the power and pain of love. I read this book as a teenager and found that I reread it at least once a year to remind me of the beauty and pain of life. It is a wonderful book about being a woman, and a thinker. I recommend it to anyone who is disturbed about events in this world and how to deal with them.

Rating:
Summary: Finding the Conflicts and Humanity in Existentialism
Review: The reason that I love Simone so much is defined in this book. What happens when you live with atrocities? What happens when you have to see lives terribly torn apart by evil? What can a person do?

DeBeauvior takes these questions and makes them human, and gives hope to our world. But, with any great existentialist thinker, makes the point that living is hard. To exist well we must make choices and be able to live with them. All of the characters in this book show the angst and chaos of war. How they are able to live with each other and themselves is displayed with amazing depth and insight. The complexities of women are shown vividly - especially if you have read The Second Sex. Each of the woman characters are shown struggling with their societial place as Other, yet, show this trancendence that is even more important to her gender.

This is also an incredible demonstration of the power and pain of love. I read this book as a teenager and found that I reread it at least once a year to remind me of the beauty and pain of life. It is a wonderful book about being a woman, and a thinker. I recommend it to anyone who is disturbed about events in this world and how to deal with them.

Rating:
Summary: Memorable record of postwar Paris
Review: There are plenty of great books and films about the squalor of life during wartime, and even more about shellshocked soldiers coming to grips with life during peacetime. But surprisingly few novels deal with civilians faced with the task of rebuilding the devastated world around them. The Mandarins would have to be at the top of that very short list. Most critics, here and elsewhere, have tended to focus on the book as Beauvoir's record of her affair with Nelson Algren, but like all great artists, Beauvoir transforms the raw material of her life into something far more profound and encompassing, especially as it is played out against the grand, ruined backdrop of postwar Paris. The resulting book succeeds on so many levels: as roman a clef (Camus, Sartre, Koestler, and obviously Algren all feature prominently), as novel of ideas (of the "where do we go from here?" variety), as a love story (really two love stories--we can't forget Henri/Camus, whose story takes up half the book!), as a Jamesian exploration of brash New World vs. exhausted Old World culture, and finally as a portrait of an intelligent, civilized woman wrestling with her darkest impulses in the wake of Europe's darkest moment.

Is the book overly long? Probably. Melodramatic? At times. Too cluttered with phrases of the "smiled knowingly" variety? Without a doubt. But it's redeemed time and again by the keen intelligence Beauvoir brings to bear on her characters and herself. For days after I put the book down, I found myself literally pining for the company of Anne, Lewis and Henri. Is there any greater testament to a novel than that?

Rating:
Summary: Memorable record of postwar Paris
Review: There are plenty of great books and films about the squalor of life during wartime, and even more about shellshocked soldiers coming to grips with life during peacetime. But surprisingly few novels deal with civilians faced with the task of rebuilding the devastated world around them. The Mandarins would have to be at the top of that very short list. Most critics, here and elsewhere, have tended to focus on the book as Beauvoir's record of her affair with Nelson Algren, but like all great artists, Beauvoir transforms the raw material of her life into something far more profound and encompassing, especially as it is played out against the grand, ruined backdrop of postwar Paris. The resulting book succeeds on so many levels: as roman a clef (Camus, Sartre, Koestler, and obviously Algren all feature prominently), as novel of ideas (of the "where do we go from here?" variety), as a love story (really two love stories--we can't forget Henri/Camus, whose story takes up half the book!), as a Jamesian exploration of brash New World vs. exhausted Old World culture, and finally as a portrait of an intelligent, civilized woman wrestling with her darkest impulses in the wake of Europe's darkest moment.

Is the book overly long? Probably. Melodramatic? At times. Too cluttered with phrases of the "smiled knowingly" variety? Without a doubt. But it's redeemed time and again by the keen intelligence Beauvoir brings to bear on her characters and herself. For days after I put the book down, I found myself literally pining for the company of Anne, Lewis and Henri. Is there any greater testament to a novel than that?

Rating:
Summary: A life-affirming work of genius.
Review: This novel is the work of a brilliant mind wrestling with big thoughts during Europe's darkest hour, and it is easy to understand why it won France's highest honor, the Prix Goncourt. Set amidst the ruins of post-World War II Paris, THE MANDARINS (1954) provides a fictional portrait of Simone de Beauvoir's existential, intellectual circle of friends, which included her lifelong partner, Jean-Paul Sarte, Albert Camus, Aurthur Koestler, and her lover, Nelson Algren. (In her fiction, de Beauvoir drew heavily from her own life and the people in it. As a result, many readers of THE MANDARINS have drawn comparisons between her character Anne to de Beauvoir, Henri to Camus, Anne's husband to Sartre, and Anne's daughter to de Beauvoir's lover, and just as many readers have approached her novel primarily as an thinly fictionalized account of de Beauvoir's passionate affair with Algren.) Certainly, THE MANDARINS may be read as a love story examining the complex dilemmas posed by love and marriage (i.e., existential relationships are easier in theory than in reality). However it also succeeds on a more profound level.

In the confusing aftermath of a world war, when oppression and fascism threatened personal freedom, de Beauvoir insightfully struggles with the question, "where do we go from here?" in THE MANDARINS. Her fascinating circle of intellectual characters demonstrate that life is difficult and confusing, and to live a meaningful life, we must accept the responsibilities that come with freedom. In the end, one must decide to either founder in apathy--things "are never as important as they seem; they change, they end, and above all, when all is said and done, everyone dies. That settles everything" (p. 359)--or one may listen instead to the life-affirming beat of the heart--as the heart continues to beat, and it beats "for something, for someone" (p. 610).


THE MANDARINS is truly a masterpiece and a life-affirming work of genius. And when oppressive governments continue to threaten our personal liberties, the philosophical questions that haunted de Beauvoir when her novel was published fifty years ago remain just as relevant today.

G. Merritt