Tete-a-Tete: The Tumultuous Lives and Loves of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre
By Hazel Rowley
4.5/5
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About this ebook
“Enthralling . . . Here we find an ugly, walleyed existentialist philosopher, the elegantly beautiful author of The Second Sex and the Gallic equivalent of a bevy of young starlets who share the bed of one or the other--or sometimes both. Readers will turn these pages alternately mesmerized and appalled.” — Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World
Passionate, freethinking existentialist philosopher-writers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre are one of the world's legendary couples. Their committed but notoriously open union generated no end of controversy in their day. Biographer Hazel Rowley offers the first dual portrait of these two colossal figures and their intense, often embattled relationship. Through original interviews and access to new primary sources, Rowley portrays Sartre and Beauvoir up close.
Tête-à-Tête magnificently details the passion, daring, humor, and contradictions of a remarkably unorthodox relationship.
Hazel Rowley
Hazel Rowley is the author of two previous books: Christina Stead: A Biography and Richard Wright: The Life And Times. She has been a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow and a Bunting Institute Fellow at Radcliffe College, and has taught at the University of Iowa and at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. She lives in New York and Paris.
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Reviews for Tete-a-Tete
10 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A very well-written book based on the long-accomplished relationship between Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Quite an amazing story of collaboration detailing their mutual pursuit of every experience including writing, travel, politics, love, deceit, and sexual conquests. A very insightful and enjoyable read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This story of the relationship of Sartre and Beauvoir and their circle was a marvel of research and story-telling. Fascinating lives, well told.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Okay - I'm not going to write a proper review of this (after all, I struggle to review fiction - I wouldn't know where to begin reviewing non-fiction) but Tete-a-Tete only deepened my fascination with Sartre and de Beauvoir. If you're a fellow devotee, I can't recommend this book highly enough.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An very worthwhile biography..... very interesting on so many levels (psychological, historical/context, ethical/moral, spiritual/existential). As Irvin D. Yalom has so well pointed out, all of us struggle with some basic existential issues (e.g., life, death and anxiety), and Simone and Jean Paul were no exception. In fact, it seems they struggled with these universal questions more than most of us. I found the book exceptional and many of the critics come to the biography with what seems so clear to an outsider - preconceived notions and biases about these 2 extraordinary people. I found it interesting that Sartre struggled with "guilt" over the suicide of one of his girl friends. He was also very "deceitful" (intentionally choose to not be completely honest) when it came to his concurrent lovers.In the end, I found Simone's life story to be the much more interesting.... as one of the first feminists of her generation. Just goes to show you what an education in philosophy can do...... powerful individuals, powerful message and an excellent author. This review is for the 2006 paperback edition by Hazel Rowley. 4 1/2 stars. Paul Floyd, Mpls, MN
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read this after reading Carole Seymour-Jones's similar book A Dangerous Liaison. Both are well-written, informative books, and neither leaves me terribly impressed with Sartre and Beauvoir. In contrast to this book, A Dangerous Liaison weighs the moral character of the two subjects, finding them lacking in their propensity for seducing their minor students; their failure to put up a meaningful resistance to the Nazis (while afterwards claiming to have been defiant heroes); their willfully blind support of the USSR; and the lies and harm to third parties required to maintain their pact. With the exception of their behavior during World War II, which is dealt with only briefly, Hazel Rowley discusses these things, but pretty much without passing judgment.I don't regard philosophers and intellectuals as people who necessarily deserve reverence. Like everybody else, they are as they do. They seriously undercut their moral pronouncements when even they can't live by them. Both of these books make it clear that Sartre and Beauvoir were liars and hypocrites, and their pact has only novelty to commend it. In fact, their freedom came at the cost of deceiving their "contingent" lovers, and the whole polyamorous throng was roiled by jealousy and back-biting. Asked how he dealt with his various women, Sartre admitted that he lied to all of them, especially to Beauvoir.An interesting look at the realities of a much bally-hooed partnership.