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Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter

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For people who are already familiar with Beauvoir's writing, this autobiographical writing is maddeningly dense. It's almost entirely unleavened with the lightness or spaces you'd expect from prose, even autobiographical prose, and this can make it very hard to read in places.

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.

Simone de Beauvoir, Parisian pioneer in existentialist philosophy and author of feminist theory in "The Second Sex", tells all in the first of a four part autobiography, "Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter".

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.

An intriguing and fascinating look into the first years of and intellectual and a woman of genius. By reading this book you
will be taken on a tour of young Simone's wishes, hopes, illusions, disappontments, strength and weaknesses. You will also get a living potrait of French society in the first part of the XX century. Are you curious about who were the friends
of this great artist and philosopher, how she formed her character, what shaped her life and destiny? You will find it all here. Beware that Simone's mind had a strong tendency for
abstraction so you won't find here lots of juicy details, or a sequence of emotional adventures like in Rousseau's Confessions.
Principles, abstract thinking and reflexion had a great weight
in Simone's life and this book is principally the biography of her mind. The force of Simone's drive to be someone, to find something important and meaningful to do, her stubborn desire to find a sense for her existence, her need to "tell to everyone what she felt she had to say" glows throughout the book and is probably its principal beauty.

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter is the first in a series of autobiographies by Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir tells the reader of her early days as a child and she concludes while she is a young women with the loss of her beloved friend Zaza. The memoir is at times a bit dry, and dull, but I dont think it was the intent of Beauvoir to write an exciting tale of her childhood. Instead I believe that the book was written more to show the path Beauvoir took in being an intellectual and why. Many times in the book French bourgeios soceity is criticized by Beauvoir because there was a double standard that exisited. For instance as Beauvoir writes about her mother "Convention obliged her to excuse certain [sexual] indescretions in men; she concentrated her disapproval on women; she divided women into those who were 'respectable' and those who were 'lose" (38). All throughout the book the reader is presented with a double standard-- men do what they want have carrers, jobs etc. while women must be pure and stay at home to have children. Not only is bourgeois society criticized, so too is the Catholic church in its regards to French private and public education. Besides the main themes Beauvoir talks about her childhood recolections-- her visiting relatives, her love of books, and her friends which culminates in the death of her life long friend Zaza. Beauvoir sees Zaza death as the fault of the French bourgeois system becuase Zaza died died of a broken heart at not being able to marry her love. The book is full of criticisms, and odinary tales. The best atribute of the book is that it presents the reader to the world of early 20th century French bourgeois society.

It is interesting that a previous reviewer at the site called this the most accessible volume of Simone's memoirs while another wrote that this is not the best place to start with Simone. I agree with the latter. I have come to the conclusion that Simone's own diligence sometimes brought her to her knees. This was a woman capable of working for hours on end. . .and drinking just as hard. Clearly, she was ambivalent about herself:she knew she was of superior intelligence -- she finished her aggregation at the age of 21 -- yet she maintained a position that she was second to Sartre. She said that she never felt handicapped as a woman and yet she suffered from many of woman's woes -- crying and jealousy. I started with Simone's war-time memoirs -- Force of Circumstance -- which are so riveting that they draw you immediately into them. I expected the same sort of lush and wonderful writing here. I may have approached this volume with my hopes too high. A word of warning: Catholicism obviously made quite an impact on the young Simone. Readers who are not Catholic maybe mystified by this book.

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

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.

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.

and I was amazed at her perception, her understanding of what it is to see as a child and how ones relation with ones parents changes. This is must reading for anyone who has been a child or is a parent. Her intelligent articulation of our experience is a gift.

I'm just about to re-read it, and I bet I'll have more to say then.