Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (Twentieth Century Classics) [Paperback]

Initially, as I was reading the book, I was really resistant to it. Even though beautifully written, it was frustrating to wade through the encyclopedic portrait of her girlhood, and I truthfully didn't understand the point of all the microscopic detail.

However, when I reached the latter part of the book, with the attention to her studies, I started to feel like I understood. This felt to me, in the end, to be an exhaustive catalogue of the person who began to think, so we (the reader) could come to understand why she thought the way she did. She doesn't spare herself, uncompromisingly addressing her faults and sharing the caustic remark that Weil had to make about her. She also provides a sense of her biography via books-- discussing what books she was reading when and how they impacted her. As such, I finally found this book extremely valuable.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people start here with Beauvoir, and in my opinion that's a serious mistake. To begin with her prose, I'd recommend 'She Came to Stay' or 'The Woman Destroyed'. For a biographic overview I'd recommend Dierdre Bair's biography. I'm going to be looking forward, myself, to reading volume 2 of the autobiography.

Her book is a tumult of turbulent love, teenage angst, philosophical concepts and some clever insights. Raised in a conservative bourgeois family, she is educated and cared for, but her developing intellect forces her to reject the religion and materialism imposed upon her. She writes intricately of her relationships and the experience of a woman defining herself against a restrictive society.

To write an autobiography, it's necessary to have a sense of self-importance which motivates thorough disclosure. De Beauvoir demonstrates this when describing her interactions with Jean-Paul Sartre, "we used to talk about all kinds of things, but especially about a subject which interested me above all others: myself". She writes about her childhood with an adult perspective. Of her two-year old tantrums she explains, "I felt I was not only the prey of grown-up wills, but also of their consciences, which sometimes played the role of a kindly mirror in which I was unwillingly and unrecognisably reflected". Although this comment seems misplaced when attributed to a two-year old mind, it is evidence of her intelligent analysis.

Like other renowned intellectuals this century, she disowns her bourgeois background without acknowledging that its status allows and encourages intellectual thought. This was brought to her attention during a conversation with another student who said, "the only thing that matters in the world today, is to feed the starving people". De Beauvoir retorted, "the problem is not to make men happy but find the reason for their existence" to which the student replied, "it is easy to see you have never been hungry".

What kept me reading was the concise and often poetic writing style, the vivid characters and descriptions of life in France in the 1920s. Also, her insights leading to the rejection of her indoctrinated religion including, "His perfection cancelled out His reality", and "I had subtle arguments to refute any objection that might be brought against revealed truths; but I didn't know one that could prove them".

The book is intimate and honest which leaves a great imprint of de Beauvoir on the reader. It was less philosophical and more self-indulgent than I had hoped, but an interesting insight into a prized mind.