America Day by Day [Hardcover]

Simone de Beauvoir (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 1999

Here is the ultimate American road book, one with a perspective unlike that of any other. In January 1947 Simone de Beauvoir landed at La Guardia airport and began a four-month journey that took her from one coast of the United States to the other, and back again. Embraced by the Condé Nast set in a swirl of cocktail parties in New York, where she was hailed as the "prettiest existentialist" by Janet Flanner in The New Yorker, de Beauvoir traveled west by car, train, and Greyhound, immersing herself in the nation's culture, customs, people, and landscape. The detailed diary she kept of her trip became America Day by Day, published in France in 1948 and offered here in a completely new translation. It is one of the most intimate, warm, and compulsively readable texts from the great writer's pen.
Fascinating passages are devoted to Hollywood, the Grand Canyon, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and San Antonio. We see de Beauvoir gambling in a Reno casino, smoking her first marijuana cigarette in the Plaza Hotel, donning raingear to view Niagara Falls, lecturing at Vassar College, and learning firsthand about the Chicago underworld of morphine addicts and petty thieves with her lover Nelson Algren as her guide. This fresh, faithful translation superbly captures the essence of Simone de Beauvoir's distinctive voice. It demonstrates once again why she is one of the most profound, original, and influential writers and thinkers of the twentieth century.
On New York:"I walk between the steep cliffs at the bottom of a canyon where no sun penetrates: it's permeated by a salt smell. Human history is not inscribed on these carefully calibrated buildings: They are closer to prehistoric caves than to the houses of Paris or Rome."
On Los Angeles:"I watch the Mexican dances and eat chili con carne, which takes the roof off my mouth, I drink the tequila and I'm utterly dazed with pleasure."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It has been a good year for the French existentialist and feminist, with the recent publication of de Beauvoir's love letters to Nelson Algren and now this account, published in the U.S. for the first time, of her four-month tour in 1947. De Beauvoir can be facile and condescending, as when she compares the "strained coldness of white American women" to "lively" black women, or writes: "And when you see these men dance, their sensual life unrestrained by an armor of Puritan virtue, you understand how much sexual jealousy can enter into the white Americans' hatred of these quick bodies." Often, however, de Beauvoir is more clever and subtle: "I sense that America is hard on intellectuals. Publishers and editors size up your mind in a critical and distasteful way, like an impresario asking a dancer to show her legs," she writes, and elsewhere, "Los Angeles is vast but porous. [Chicago] is made of a thick dough, without leavening." De Beauvoir's itinerary, set by lecture dates, is a bizarre combination of the banal (hotels, drugstores), tourist traps (Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas) and the dark underbelly of slaughterhouses, drug addicts and Bowery bums. But she inevitably returns to the same themes: black/white relations, political commitment and comparison of the U.S. and France. While she mentions Algren by initials, de Beauvoir gives no inkling of her passionate interest in him, attesting to her ability to compartmentalize romantic and intellectual pursuits. There is a natural cerebral quality to this book that prevents it from becoming ponderous. It will easily attract those interested in de Beauvoir, travel writing and the intersection of American intellectual and popular culture in the postwar years. First serial to Conde Nast Traveler. (Jan.) FYI: The New Press has published de Beauvoir's letters to Algren as A Transatlantic Love Affair (Forecasts, Sept. 7).
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) spent four months in the United States in 1947. Traveling by car, train, and bus, she lectured from coast to coast at the most prestigious colleges and universities, immersing herself in the wonders and woes of American culture. This is the first American edition of her journal, published as L'Amerique au Jour le Jour in France in 1948 and translated and published in England in 1952. Writing from notes, letters, and memories, de Beauvoir details with vivid insight aspects of American life and culture including the New York Bowery, slaughterhouses and burlesques in Chicago, African American church services, racism, politics, films, jazz, Muzak, marijuana, and cocktail parties. She provides sharp sociological perspective on American women, adolescents, college students, public and private higher education, and the inertia of the late 1940s. Impressive, compelling, thought-provoking, and highly recommended.?Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, NJ
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 408 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (January 5, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520209796
• ISBN-13: 978-0520209794
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #897,114 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brainy French existentialist explores 1940s America., September 4, 2004

By 

G. Merritt (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America Day by Day (Paperback)

French existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86), was both enchanted by and highly critical of life in America. She was comforted by American cemeteries which, she observed, have more personality than some towns, and offer a final escape from the banality of daily life in America (p. 80). Originally published in France as L'AMERIQUE AU JOUR LE JOUR in 1948, AMERICA DAY BY DAY details the four months she spent traveling the United States anonymously (but with a letter of introduction from her companion, Jean-Paul Sartre), from New York to Los Angeles and back, by car, train, and Greyhound bus, while lecturing at colleges and universities along the way. Published in the form of her January 25, 1947 through May 20, 1947 travel journal, AMERICA DAY BY DAY reveals de Beauvoir's fascinating insights into post-war American culture, including its consumerism and "superabundance" ("too much noise, too much perfume, too much heat, too much luxury," p. 118) and obsession with big cars and celebrity, its church services, politics, fashion, movies, and music, and tourist attractions like Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, and Las Vegas. "Many things would change among Americans," she writes about American psychoanalysis, "if they were willing to accept that there is unhappiness on earth and that unhappiness is not a priori a crime" (p. 64). Always fiercely independent and intelligent, de Beauvoir also reveals her perspective on American women, black/white relations, intellectuals, education, and college students in her wandering, thought-provoking travel memoir. Highly recommended.

G. Merritt

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This time, a frenchWOMAN visits america, July 17, 2000

By 

"really-siobhan" - See all my reviews

This review is from: America Day by Day (Hardcover)

I never met Simone but the visit to America that resulted in this book ended the day I was born and we knew people in common, including Nelson Algren. This book is fun. We think of Simone as the woman who initiated the second wave of feminism with her book, "The Second Sex;" as the companion of Jean-Paul Sartre, a man plagued by lobsters and his own sense of self; as the globe-trotting political activist. Some may know her as the author of the frightening novel, "She Came To Stay." The Simone who wrote this book was the best part of Simone de Beauvoir. The book is a snapshot of America, entering the center stage of world power, taken by a native of a country whose time of leadership has passed. It is also the story of a middle-aged woman falling in love. This book was unavailable for many years but it is important both as a view of America in mid-century and as an insight into one of the most important women of the 20th century.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Portrait of America, April 23, 2007

By 

GG - See all my reviews

This review is from: America Day by Day (Paperback)

Simone de Beauvoir writes America Day by Day as a daily journal, although she actually wrote it after her return to France. Her casual tone allows the reader to travel along with her journey across America. Beauvoir seems enthusiastic about America and does not focus on stereotypes, despite coming with some preconceived notions from movies and friends. Beauvoir also talks about the variety of people in America, which anti-American authors often overlook. The book portrays America well, while highlighting some social problems of the early 1950's, some of which no longer exist. Through her travels she speaks of the rising problems of the fear of communism, the semi-equality of women, and the segregation of Blacks. Other main themes she contemplates through her experiences are religion and democracy. Beauvoir also mentions her views on the American university system and on American intellectualism in general. Despite her relatively negative themes, Beauvoir's admiration for American friendliness and trust shows through. Her love for America is clearly seen. On the last page she describes her arrival in France and how dull it seems compared to America; she says, "Over there in the night, a vast continent is sparkling" (390). America Day by Day is a beautifully written and interesting book.