#32 Falling in love with one's mind
On love, friendship, feminism, and Simone de Beauvoir's "The Inseparables."
“One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.” – Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
I fall in love slowly, but I get bored quickly; I don’t like wasting time, and I am usually always right. Once you get that about me, we’re good. I understand that I sound high-maintenance (I am) and ill-fitted for online dating (most likely). But there is one occasion when what I wrote above doesn’t apply. It doesn’t happen often to get something of a frisson down my back, for the heart to beat faster because I’m giddy and excited all at once, and to be unable to control my emotions, so instead I showcase a dumb smile on my face hoping I can keep up appearances.
This is how I become when I fall in love with someone’s mind. I do it fast, and I want it to last forever. [FYI – If you also get sexually aroused by intellectual debate and long conversations about literature and good grammar (ha!), then you’re sapiosexual. Not that you needed to know that…]
Reading Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Inseparables,” it reminded me how that felt like. This semi-autobiographical tale has at its core the friendship of two teenage girls, Andrée and Sylvie. Andrée is based on Beauvoir’s classmate Élisabeth Lacoin – “Zaza” – in her “Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter.” They met in Paris in 1917, as nine-year-old schoolgirls, and the friendship ended tragically with Zaza’s sudden death of viral encephalitis right before her 22nd birthday.
“I suddenly understood, in a joyful stupor, that the empty feeling in my heart, the mournful quality of my days, had but one cause: Andrée’s absence. Life without her would be death.”
Beauvoir penned this short, poignant novella after winning the prestigious Goncourt literary prize in 1954. It was left in a desk drawer until her adopted daughter, Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, decided to publish the manuscript. There were speculations in the French press that the book was deemed too “intimate” to be released during her lifetime, or that Jean-Paul Sartre, Beauvoir’s partner (they had a 50-year open relationship, she was cool like that), disapproved of her work. Le Bon de Beauvoir argues the feminist writer wanted to move away from fiction to concentrate on her memoirs, but this doesn’t sound like a plausible explanation either, since “The Inseparables” is, after all, a true story. Whatever the reason, having access even to a fragment of Beauvoir’s relationship with Zaza is in itself a privilege.
“Secretly I thought to myself that Andrée was one of those prodigies about whom, later on, books would be written.”
There is an exploration of unrequited love, filled with regret and grief, but above all, this is about a triumphant coming-of-age friendship. The plot is deceivingly simple, and leaves room for the reader to make up his/ her own mind about what was left unsaid. Before meeting Andrée, Sylvie lived a dull life; Andrée becomes her spark. Sylvie finds Andrée fascinating for the way she mimicks teachers, her talent for literature, or how she plays the violin. Behind this confident and, at times, rebellious allure, Andrée struggles to belong. She loves her mother, despite her conservative attitude towards marriage, and she doesn’t want to disappoint her. In conversations with Sylvie about god, justice, or love, Andrée finds freedom. In Sylvie’s eyes, Andrée is more than a friend, but at no point in the book she will express this. The intensity of this friendship is even more compelling given they would maintain the boundaries imposed by their formal education and would call each other “vous” – the French polite form.
“No, our friendship was not as important to Andrée as it was to me, but I admired her too much to suffer from it.”
Zaza was Simone de Beauvoir’s both inspiration and motivation. Beauvoir graduated college at 17, got an advanced degree from the Sorbonne before 20, and at 21 became the youngest person to pass the agrégation in philosophy (an extremely competitive exam to become a teacher in France), with the second highest score, after Sartre.
Later on, through her writing and activism, Beauvoir would redefine what it means to be a woman, and the role of women in sociey at large. She sold newspapers in the streets and joined Sartre in support of Algeria’s struggles for independence during the 1950s; she sided with the student rebels in May 1968 during the French riots, and campaigned for the legalisation of abortion in France (which happened in 1975).
Was Simone de Beauvoir’s radical life a tribute to Élisabeth Lacoin? Maybe. Or at least the stepping stone to freedom of expression, justice, and equality. No wonder that when she died in Paris in 1986, French newspapers blazoned her name to the entire world: “Women, you owe her everything!”
We most certainly do.
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📣 Coming up:
News on Ocean Vuong, Richard Osman, Emily Ratajkowski, and more. Plus, why you should consider moving to Portugal, and the hunt for chips in Wetherspoons.
Until next Friday …
Happy reading, happy learning,
Teodora x
🥁 📚 The latest in the literary world
I bet you missed some Sally Rooney drama. 👀 After she refused to have “Beautiful World, Where Are You” translated into Hebrew out of solidarity with the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, two Israeli bookshop chains have decided to stop selling any works by the Irish novelist. 😶
“BRO, WTF?” 🙊 | An excerpt from Ocean Vuong’s 2019 novel “On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous” was part of this year’s Australian HSC exam [A-level equivalent]. Some students thought of messaging the Vietnamese-American poet over Instagram and complain about the hidden symbolism and abstract ideas in the text: “We’re failing cause you decided to write about how you plucked your grandmas hair.” In return, Vuong wrote a series of hilarious responses and a piece of advice: “Yikes, next time quote from the opening chapter of William Empson’s ‘Seven Types of Ambiguity’ on the slipperiness of language and its destabilized meanings as a convincing and robust alternative answer. Good luck, blokes.” 💁♂️ This is so evil and so beautiful at the same time, I could cry. 🥲 Long live literature! 🙌
Let’s stick around for some more Aussie news as Christos Tsiolkas wins the $60,000 Melbourne prize for literature! 👏 🎉 The writer was honoured for his “outstanding contribution to Australian literature and to cultural and intellectual life.” If you don’t know where to start with Tsiolkas, “Loaded,” “Damascus,” and “Barracuda” are among his bestsellers.
From Israel to Australia, this week’s literature roundup is truly global! Let’s stop in Canada for a moment and celebrate Omar El Akkad for winning the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel, “What Strange Paradise”! 🙌 🏆 The $100,000 prize, the biggest in Canadian fiction, was awarded at a gala in Toronto hosted by Rupi Kaur and Paul Sun-Hyung Lee. Margaret Atwood and John Irving were in the audience too and, frankly, that’s enough to watch the entire ceremony. 👀
Back home in the UK, Richard Osman is still in the news … 🙄 I guess there’s no surprise for “The Thursday Murder Club” to win the Readers’ Choice at the Books Are My Bag Readers Awards! The sales have passed 2.5 million copies! The sequel, “The Man Who Died Twice,” doesn’t do too badly either: half a million copies in the UK after just eight weeks on sale. 🤯
BONUS: This Christmas, why don’t you get a personalised, handwritten postcard from your favourite author? 🎄🎅 ✉️ The Common’s Author Postcard Auction is open until noon on December 1! Joy Williams, Maggie Shipstead, Alexander Chee, Anthony Doerr, and Amor Towles are among the writers featured. Even better, all proceeds go to The Common Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to publishing and promoting art and literature from global, diverse voices. ✨
🎧 📰 👀 My media diet this week
For the November “power issue,” Marie Claire featured Alicia Keys on the cover of the magazine because she is, indeed, a powerhouse woman. “Alicia Keys gets what she wants,” says Jessica Herndon in the interview with the R&B artist. Why read this? Learn about Keys’ upcoming album, her new lifestyle and beauty brand – Keys Soulcare, and the release of “Girl On Fire,” a graphic novel based on her single of the same name. 🔥🔥🔥
This episode with Emily Ratajkowski on Today in Focus. Why listen to it? Hannah Moore discusses Ratajkowski’s debut essay collection, “My Body,” her career in the modelling industry (kickstarted by her appearance in the “Blurred Lines” music video), being sexually harassed, and her experience of pregnancy. BONUS: Check out the model/ influencer’s essay for The Cut that went viral: Buying myself back – When does a model own her own image? [To me, this all looks like performative feminism whilst posting another semi-naked photo on Instagram with her incredibly tiny waist… but what do I know?!] 🤷♀️ 🤐
This interview in the New York Times with Yuval Noah Harari. Why read this? Harari talks about Silicon Valley, gives his solution to the climate crisis, and explains the anxiety over future transhumanism or the true human potentional. 💡 🤔
📌 Random news in brief
In Portugal, it is now illegal for your boss to call you outside of your contracted office hours. *checks flights to Lisbon* 👩💻 🇵🇹 ✈️
Soon it won’t be only billionaires that make it into space... Heinz revealed its first “Marz Edition” ketchup with tomatoes produced on Earth in Mars-like conditions. 🍅 🚀 👨🚀
If you were running low on ideas for new hobbies … Why not join this man on his mission to collect one chip from every Wetherspoon pub in the UK? With 925 branches in total, this should keep you busy for a while… 🍟
You’ve made it through another week! Here’s something to cheer you up:
Before we say goodbye… 🥺
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