The Woman Destroyed - Softcover

De Beauvoir, Simone

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0394711033 ISBN 13: 9780394711034

Publisher: Pantheon, 1987

Synopsis

Three long stories that draw the reader into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises.

About this title

Review:

"Witty, immensely adroit . . . These three women are believable individuals presented with a wry mixture of sympathy and exasperation."
--The Atlantic

"A remarkable feat of empathy."
--The Times Literary Supplement

"Brilliant craftsmanship."
-- Harper's

From the Back Cover:

'The Woman Destroyed' is a collection of three stories, each an exquisite and passionate study of a woman trapped by circumstances, trying to re-build her life.

In the first story, 'The Age of Discretion', a successful scholar fast approaching middle age begins to feel that 'life is going to take back everything it has given me' when her trouble-free existence is threatened by a double shock – her son's abandonment of the career she has chosen for him and the harsh critical rejection of her latest academic work. 'The Monologue' is an extraordinary New Year's Eve outpouring of invective from a woman consumed with bitterness and loneliness after her son and husband have left home. And finally, in the title piece, Simone de Beauvoir tells the story of Monique, trying desperately to resurrect her life (“I want to live a little for myself after all this time. I have plans by the dozen.”) after her husband confesses to an affair with a younger woman.

Compassionate, lucid, full of wit and knowing, Simone de Beauvoir's rare insight into the inequities and complexities of women's lives is unsurpassable.

“In these immensely intelligent stories about the decay of passion, Simone de Beauvoir shares with other women novelists the ability to write about emotion in the terms of direct experience. What is unique and supremely valuable in her work is the capacity to retain at the same time a coolness and critical detachment towards her material.”
SUNDAY TIMES

“Intensely readable, with the warmth and identification with the characters that made 'The Mandarins' so outstanding.”
NEW STATESMAN

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0394711033
• ISBN 13: 9780394711034
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256