In an article that most likely would’ve sent her into a rage, and most certainly sent me into one, the NYT Style Section decided to boil down all of Simone de Beavoir’s literary accomplishments into one shallow question: Was Simone de Beauvoir beautiful?
I seriously almost puked when I read that. Give me a break! When I lived in Paris I was inspired by my location to read a ton of de Beauvoir, and subsequently fell in love with her writing. The Mandarins is one of my favorite books at all time, and provides a detailed glimpse into the intimate lives of people struggling with romantic entanglements and political involvements following WWII. It’s an incredible book, as is, of course The Second Sex, which–with a recent reprint–is supposedly the impetus for this absurd NYT piece. It’s the Style Section, so I know that they’re not going to give her the ol’ Kakutani literary treatment; but this is also the New York Times, not Cosmopolitan, so the fact that they crystallize all of de Beauvoir’s amazing philosophical and literary thinking into an analysis of her wardrobe is just upsetting. They would never do this to a male writer. Imagine a feature on Hemingway’s wardrobe.
Yeah, not gonna happen.