De Kiti
Diciembre 2023

Ho trovato la mia edizione spulciando gli scaffali di una piccola libreria di libri usati e sono molto contenta del mio acquisto. Attraverso tre racconti, Simone de Beauvoir ci racconta di come tre donne completamente dedite ai propri mariti e figli entrino in crisi nel momento in cui si rendono conto che tale dedizione non è ricambiata.

Quando mariti e figli se ne vanno, infatti, a queste donne non rimane nulla se non un grande vuoto e una tremenda solitudine. Scrivendo nel loro diario, riflettono quindi sulla loro vita e sui loro sbagli, ma allo stesso tempo accusano l'incuria degli altri e si interrogano sugli effetti dei loro comportamenti.

Lo stile dell'autrice è ricco di riflessioni esistenzialiste e mette a nudo i pensieri più intimi di queste tre donne, anche i più sgradevoli. L'affresco che ne deriva è estremamente realistico e contiene una riflessione sulla condizione della donna che si dipana lungo tutti e tre i racconti. ( )

When the author is more clever than her characters.

Didactic essays [stories], which don't possess the iterative, self-aware-self-reflexive thoughts which are no longer acceptable omissions in a "modern" text.

Essay 1) Half-formed thoughts on aging/death; mediocrity of old age - what do they know about suicide.

Essay 2)"The monologue is a form of revenge." - Flaubert

Essay 3)"Dickensian" character confined within a circumscribed thought process. Lacks insight to say anything surprising. The "moral of the story" is stated explicitly.

"Unbelievable! You as a prosecuting counsel against me."

( )

Three novellas centering on the growing pains of middle-aged women as they suffer from perceived betrayals of their loved ones.

My favourite was The Age of Discretion where de Beauvoir expertly creates a complex, proud, flawed protagonist and her two key relationships. From between the lines of her own words charting her rage and disappointments, we can infer her pride and her follies. The years of history and context of relationships are succinctly and realistically brought to life. We fully inhabit her person, can understand her perspective, but also how each character was driven to each point in the story. I feel de Beauvoir's key strength is the thoroughness of her characterisations which allows her to simply place them in a setting and the events to organically develop.

An excellent psychological portrait of a character and her relationships. ( )

I rather liked the first story (The Age of Discretion) more than the last (TWD) and quite loathed the middle story. Simone de Beauvoir write devastating portraits -- the women are strong, proud, and ceaselessly good, and yet are failed and broken by the male figures in their lives. Most of all I appreciated how real the women's thought processes were -- de Beauvoir harvested her own emotional winds and ran them into these characters, and they were more real for it, and their troubles more painful for me to take in. ( )