Customer Reviews

Les Belles Images (Folio Series: 243) (French Edition)

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De Beauvoir's novel Les Belle Images is a wonderful work of fiction which simultaneously exposes and works to subvert mainstream social ideologies. It is representative both of her philosophical leanings toward existentialism as well as her commitment to feminism and of a new social role for women. The characters in the novel are passive, having accepted as necessary the roles society has decided for them. They are shallow, interested only in how they are being perceived by others. With the exception of Laurence (the main character), all the characters are complacent, content with living according to the goals and expectations of mainstream bourgeoisie society. Laurence struggles against this lack of morality, and is discontented by the passive role of woman that she has been forced to submit to.

I liked this book a lot, and it was fun to see how well the literature related back into the title. The book explored a lot of "beautiful images" which when further inspected are rather empty and unexceptional. I guess in a nutshell this book is about a woman in the upper class of French society who, because of innocent questions from her daughter, has somewhat of a mid-life crisis. She comes to realize that her and her family's wealth has made their lives devoid of pleasure and individuality. Of course, there's other great stuff in the book, but I leave that to you to find out. P.S. This book is in French - make sure you can read it!