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Becoming Beauvoir: A Life Paperback – August 20, 2020

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 113 ratings

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“One is not born a woman, but becomes one”, Simone de Beauvoir

A symbol of liberated womanhood, Simone de Beauvoir's unconventional relationships inspired and scandalised her generation. A philosopher, writer, and feminist icon, she won prestigious literary prizes and transformed the way we think about gender with
The Second Sex. But despite her successes, she wondered if she had sold herself short.

Her liaison with Jean-Paul Sartre has been billed as one of the most legendary love affairs of the twentieth century. But for Beauvoir it came at a cost: for decades she was dismissed as an unoriginal thinker who 'applied' Sartre's ideas. In recent years new material has come to light revealing the ingenuity of Beauvoir's own philosophy and the importance of other lovers in her life.

This ground-breaking biography draws on never-before-published diaries and letters to tell the fascinating story of how Simone de Beauvoir became herself.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A book to be read slowly and savoured. There's too much detail to gulp it down. But it is worth the time it takes to read a fascinating portrait of a woman who inspired women around the world and who changed the way many people think.” ―The Sunday Times

“[Kirkpatrick] gives more space to De Beauvoir's contrary relationship with feminism, and the discussion here is helpfully rich ... The letters to Lanzmann do constitute a major new resource ... Where Kirkpatrick's biography is strongest is in clarifying and showing the strength of De Beauvoir's ethical commitments, and how these were transformed into political commitments after the war.” ―
The Guardian

“4 stars ... Illuminating.” ―
The Daily Telegraph

“Kirkpatrick's biography is an exercise in meticulous research. Using newly published diaries – only recently made available to researchers – it refuses simple characterisations and reveals de Beauvoir in all her brilliance and complexity ...
Becoming Beauvoir is a beautiful tribute to a remarkable woman.” ―Times Higher Education

“Fascinating and deeply researched.” ―
Daily Mail

“Kirkpatrick offers a far more detailed and analytical account of de Beauvoir's philosophy than any previous biography ... Kirkpatrick's essential achievement here is to have related Simone de Beauvoir's logic to her life ... This is the best Beauvoir biography yet.” ―
Standpoint Magazine

“In her excellent new biography, Kate Kirkpatrick [..] shows us why we've much more to learn from Beauvoir.” ―
New Statesman

“In Kirkpatrick's biography, Beauvoir is restored to her full body of work, her full complexity, her full bravery – so much more than one misquoted line.” ―
Literary Review

“An admirable biography probing beneath the surface of misogynistic predecessors and exposing the complexities and contradictions of this extraordinary woman.” ―
Irish Examiner

“While she advocates for de Beauvoir, contesting various criticisms, she allows complexity...Meticulously and engagingly, Kirkpatrick catches myriad "instants" of the flux behind the icon.” ―Felicity Plunkett,
The Australian

“Kirkpatrick has trawled fastidiously through her commentaries, diaries and, significantly, the interviews she gave towards the end of her life. The result is a rich rediscovery of this inspirational feminist, philosopher and existentialist. It will spark a whole new love affair since such politically-aware feminists remain thin on the ground – and more needed than ever.” ―Samela Harris,
SA Weekend Magazine

“[An] accessible and enjoyable resource for a wide audience …
Becoming Beauvoir gives sensitive treatment to issues that have troubled feminists: Beauvoir's polyamory; the damage caused by her early liaisons with younger women; and her ambivalent attitude toward the philosophical content of her own oeuvre. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.” ―CHOICE

“A comprehensive and revealing approach to the life of the French philosopher and writer” ―
Philosophy (Bloomsbury Translation)

“This powerful, important book offers a necessary and radical, new, evidence-based reading of Simone de Beauvoir's life and work. It unpicks and undermines the extraordinary torrent of belittling and sexist criticism that has been directed at Beauvoir, both in her lifetime and since, and recovers her from Jean-Paul Sartre's shadow to bring her to stand in her own light. This haunting, scholarly, and compelling biography lingers long in the reader's mind.” ―
Suzannah Lipscomb FRHS, Professor of History, University of Roehampton, UK

“Do we need another biography on Simone de Beauvoir? Definitely! Here we finally have a biography that makes Beauvoir's philosophical ideas the focal point – not her love life. Based on new material, and written with insight, respect and sympathy, Kate Kirkpatrick re-examines Beauvoir's life and demonstrates how it was guided by her own existentialist ideals as well as twisted by her circumstances. A timely and fascinating book!” ―
Tove Pettersen, Professor of Philosophy, University of Oslo, Norway. President of the International Simone de Beauvoir Society

“Beautifully written and meticulously researched, Kirkpatrick draws on new material to find contradictions in previous accounts of Simone de Beauvoir's biography, including those from Beauvoir herself. Becoming Beauvoir is essential reading for anyone interested not just in Beauvoir's life, but the philosophy within it.” ―
Fiona Vera-Gray, Assistant Professor in Sociology, Durham University, UK

About the Author

Kate Kirkpatrick is Fellow in Philosophy at Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, UK. She is the author of several books on Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Academic (August 20, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1350168432
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1350168435
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.4 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.64 x 1.39 x 8.51 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 113 ratings

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4.5 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2019
    I read parts of Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography recently - in the old Dutch translation. I loved volume 1, but I got stranded in volume 2.

    Not so this biography. I liked it a lot, and it is very much the 'me too' interpretation of this classic feminist. If anything, the book is too short and doesn't get into the heart of the lady enough.

    But it does make a very good case against Simone de Beauvoir's detractors. The people (mostly men of course) who saw her as a derivative of Sartre. This biography portrays her in a way that is, in my view, quite consistent with her autobiography. She was passionate, hard working, seriously smart and willful. She cared about people - men and women - and had a full and successful life as author, editor and activist. Sartre played a big part in that life, alongside other lovers she had. Ultimately, her life was primarily her own. And that is how it should be.

    I am a bit surprised to read that people weren't aware of her lesbian relationships: I thought the first volume of her autobiography quite clear and explicit on the topic.

    This book is described as focusing more on her philosophy than on her personal life, but it doesn't do more than scratch the surface in that respect as well.

    In short: a readable and accessible introduction to Simone de Beauvoir that has me wondering what translations of her work I should get - since my French is no good and the book is clear that her work has been censored.
    18 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2020
    In this monograph, Kate Kirkpatrick offers a complex and nuanced window into Simone de Beauvoir's life and her philosophical writings, painstakingly addressing the controversies, contradictions, and conditions that shaped her life. What I found truly admirable about this biography was the author's application of Beauvoir's philosophy in recounting her story. By this I mean that the author clearly details Simone de Beauvoir's life as a process of irreversible becoming, showing the ways in which over time Beauvoir evolved as a person and as a philosopher and making clear the interrelationship between the two. This is critical, because as Beauvoir once said, 'there is no divorce between philosophy and life. Every living step is a philosophical choice.' This becoming, as the author also makes clear, was informed by Beauvoir's lifelong questioning: How could a person live a life of devotion to others and live a life for oneself, i.e. how could one maintain one's agency and freedom and also love another? And how was this question informed by one's situational context, i.e. one's class, one's gender, one's ethnicity, the time and place in which one live, and the nexus of one's relationships. For no one exists in isolation, and the process of becoming is continuous. As such, this biography also serves as a poignant reminder about the dangers of reducing a person to a single moment in their life, because in Beauvoir's words, 'there is no instant in a life where all moments are reconciled.' Thus, while the younger Beauvoir failed to recognize that she was a 'token woman' and thus did not see tokenism as problematic, a much older Beauvoir did. This recognition in the 1970s led Beauvoir to use her voice to amplify the voices of others. In a special 1970s issue of Les Temps modernes, a journal that she co-founded with Sartre in 1945, she acknowledged that she had 'more or less played the role of the token woman,' because she had believed that it was the best way to overcome barriers of sexism. But younger feminists had made her realize that this stance inadvertently made her complicit in perpetuating inequality and so she was now calling out tokenism and herself for having taken part in in. This is not to say that Beauvoir recognized all her failings and the author in no way suggests that she does. Instead the author sensitively and critically notes both her successes and her failures in translating her philosophical values into an ethical life. By doing so, the author escapes the trap of mythologizing Beauvoir. We have instead a biography that captures the ambiguity of a life lived.

    "The history of my life itself is a kind of problematic, and I don't have to give solutions to people and people don't have a right to wait for solutions from me." -- Simone de Beauvoir

    Highly recommend this biography for the glimpse it gives you of Simone de Beauvoir's continuous process of becoming and for the questions in the telling that the author implores the reader to ask of themselves.

    I would like to thank the author, the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
  • Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2020
    "America by Day" is an interesting introduction of Beauvoir, the mature woman. It recounts her trip the the US and it exudes here general distaste of the common American. As such it can be a backbone to this biography. I read Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus, and others in the late 50s as they were reaching a level of peak in the States. Beauvoir's Second Sex was an interesting and eye opening view of the second phase of feminism. My grandmother as a Suffragette had been in the first phase, where the right to vote, equal respect and opportunity, and the like were predominant, whereas in Beauvoir in the Second Sex, sexual relationships had a more dominant role.

    The author does a good job in presenting the details of her life, the intermittent relations with Sartre, her many other liaisons, and her writings on a variety of topics. One can follow her through her youth, her education, and her attempts to be her own person by expanding beyond the intellectual halls and bistros of Paris. The author lets you see Beauvoir as a person, and in a sense a liberated Parisian woman, set loose to discover her own meaning of life.

    However the critical sides of Beauvoir analyses are missing. For example the work of William Barrett, referenced in the book, give a brief but useful window on her character. In her book "America by Day" one sees a highly critical person who fundamentally misses the point of America mid-century. She resonates with sycophants and misses the whole point of the changing "existence' of these post war Americans.

    Also missing is the love affair she, Sartre, and others had with Communism, especially the Stalinist school. One wonders if they ever grasped the reality of the massacres of Stalin and the illogical elements of some of the Marxist principles.

    Overall this is a good biography however there are corners of Beauvoir's world that could have been better explored.
    4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Bookworm
    5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommend
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2022
    A well written and interesting biography of an interesting and very clever woman who clearly outshone Sartre.
  • rebecca sury
    5.0 out of 5 stars Feminism
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 10, 2020
    I enjoyed this book which I read in a discussion group. It made for some lively conversation. A lot of new research Into de Beauvoir’s life and work on display
  • C. F. Hankinson
    5.0 out of 5 stars am only halfway through...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2019
    ...and am thrilled with this book.
    Excellent, it is lucid compassionate and informative. ... more later
  • Mr K.
    3.0 out of 5 stars Arrived early, but cover scuffed and a bit grubby
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 30, 2021
    The book arrived a day earlier than expected, which was good, but the cover had not been handled very well before it was packed, with greasy marks and scuffs on the outside. This may be how it came from the publisher, but it was a bit disappointing as it was a birthday present for someone who is sensitive to things which don't look so good.