Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

I have read many biographies and autobiographies of influential and powerful women in history and many were good, but Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter is by far the best written I've come across. Not only is it very thoughtfully expressed, but de Beauvoir has me totally hooked on her writing. So much of what she wrote about in her youth I could relate to: the feelings of being oppressed and pressures to conform to behaviors and beliefs she didn't believe in, wavering emotions of joy and pain in interactions with parents, sibling, and friends, wanting to break away from a suffocating atmosphere, and being her own person on HER terms. Many write of the same things, but she expressed exactly how she felt and thought in such a way that I felt I was right there with her! Few authors have grabbed me in such a feverish manner as to cause me to want to read EVERYTHING they wrote. I'm glad to say she is one of them. Highly recommended!

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter is the first of Simone de Beauvoir's four autobiographies. "The most innocent conversations were full of hidden traps; my parents construed my words with their own idiom and ascribed to me ideas that had nothing in common with what I really thought. I found myself repeating Barres' phrase: 'Why have words when their brutal precision bruises our complicated souls'. As soon as I opened my mouth, I provided them with a stick to beat me with, and once more I would be shut up in that world which I had spent years trying to get away from, in which everything, without any possibility of mistake, has its own name, its set place and its agreed function, in which hate and love, good and evil are as crudely differentiated as black and white, in which from the start everything is classified, catalogued, fixed and formulated, and irrevocably judged; that world with the sharp edges, its bare outlines starkly illuminated by an implacable flat light that is never once touched by the shadow of doubt." In Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, Simone de Beauvoir lives in a stark black-and-white world with no gray areas or blurred edges. Everything is stiff and rigid -- almost suffocatingly so -- she cannot breathe (philosophically speaking) and cries a lot. "Dutifulness" has a death-grip around her throat! She abhors blatant tradition, mindless religious rites and glaring absurdity -- but, she loves Paris, books, her first cousin Jacques, writing and nature! The Luxembourg garden in Paris (filled with picturesque fountains, diverse minds and fragrant flowers, near the Sorbonne university) plays a major (inspirational) focal point in her formative years. At a very early age, Simone decides she will become a world renowned writer -- but, in order to accomplish such a feat, must give up any idea of marriage and children -- at least in the traditional sense. She plans to focus all her creative energies toward her #1 passion, writing. A meticulous undertaking, satisfying -- very "Dutiful". --Katharena Eiermann, 2007, the Realm of Existentialism, Presidential Hopeful

Simone de Beauvoir was one of the rare women writers who overcame the odds against her sex in the early 20th century and got her work published. You can imagine how much focus and hard work it took her to be heard among the heady intellectuals on the Existential scene at the time. She had to be a tough woman with enormous self confidence to command the respect and admiration of intellectual giants like Sartre. When I first read MEMOIR OF A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER, I was drawn to the title and intriqued by de Beauvoir's interesting life story. And of course she is French. Simone de Beauvoir was a woman of extraordinary intellect and beauty. Her legendary love affair with philosopher Jean Paul Sartre was the inspiration for the personal story at the center of the famous Existentialist's ROADS TO FREEDOM. This riveting trilogy, which begins with the phenomenal AGE OF REASON was my favorite reading experience at Wellesley. The only other reading marathon that comes close to that memorable read is the months I spent immersed reading Japan and reincarnation in Mishima's tetralogy SEA OF FERTILITY a few years later. The French novel love affair started with a class at Wellesley in 1971 or 1972 with the late great writer George Stambolian where we read 19th century novels in the original French partnered with a history seminar where we studied the same period in France through history texts and novels. The pioneer scholar and advocate for gay writers and photographers M. Stambolian was exceedingly handsome and charming as well as brilliant. I fell in love with reading the French texts and kept going up into the 20th century on my own long after I left Wellesley. MEMOIR OF A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER is an important read for young women yearning to understand the meaning of their existence. De Beauvoir's complex contemplation of her life from girlhood to womanhood and her observations of how the political and religious institutions of her time affected women make this book basic reading for feminists and women's history scholars. That de Beauvoir's voice was ever heard is testament to her genius. That millions of women worldwide can read words she penned nearly a century ago is testimony to how far we have come.

This is the first (and, admittedly, the easiest to read) of Beauvoir's multi-volume journals. It is an amazing account of the philosopher's beginnings, and I press it on young women in high school and college when they talk to me about their struggles to understand their place in our world.