in 

Simone de Beauvoir, modernité et engagement,

Simone de Beauvoir, modern and committed

Claudine Monteil,

Ed L’Harmattan ISBN 978-2-296-10025-1

   The second part of my book is called  “the literary project as the expression of freedom and social solidarity” and it develops a literary and academic analysis of her writings.

  I had the opportunity to talk about this matter in details with Simone de Beauvoir in the context of writing my PHD on her writings.  These pages in my book have been written when Simone de Beauvoir was still alive, and you will find her reaction to my comments. We did not always have the same approach on her characters in her novels and I had real fruitful and friendly discussions with her.

  Simone de Beauvoir read my PHD entirely before I received the best judgement from the jury.

  Hélène de Beauvoir, her sister, was at my PHD defence and supported some of my criticizing on her characters. As a result, the two sisters had quite a discussion about my comments after our return from the PHD defence.  Simone and I remained close friends until Beauvoir’s passing in 1986. Hélène used to stay at my apartment in Paris near the  Schoelcher street and these are happy moments I recount in Les Amants de la liberté,  Sartre et Beauvoir dans le siècle, Ed J’ai lu ISBN 978-2-290-31728-9  and  in The Beauvoir Sisters, Seal Press, Avalon group  ISBN 978-2-84612-2 vérifier ISBN

       I analyze the jobs and life attitudes of Beauvoir characters in the context of literary writing, and of the love of the male and female characters. There are between them striking differences which I detail. Creative women, in particular secondary characters, are criticized in Beauvoir’s writing.

      It was a frequent subject of discussion between Beauvoir and I. Despite the fact that I did make some remarks about it she would always answer me with warmth and affection. Walking me back to the entrance door of her apartment, she would blush and say to me these words I never forgot,  “Thank you for devoting time to my work.”

    I will never forget how humble she was as so few mention it nowadays. In a number of our meetings which were going to change women’s condition in France, she never mentioned her writings. She was too discreet and well educated.

  Simone knew that we all had read her writings and that they were an inspiration to me. This made our conversations even more interesting when we would chat on her writings, and I could feel she trusted me in spite of our age difference (forty two years).

 in

Simone de Beauvoir, modernité et engagement,

Simone de Beauvoir, modern and committed

Claudine Monteil, Ed L’Harmattan ISBN 978-2-296-10025-1 

    General de Gaulle and Beauvoir finally agreed on one point; the access to contraception for young women of my generation, and therefore to the pill at a time when women had to wait to be 21 years old. Beauvoir got very involved in this struggle of the French Movement for Family Planning founded in 1960. As a pioneer she supported the action of the Doctor Marie-Andrée Lagroua-Weil-Hallé.  

       Thanks to Beauvoir and to these women, we were the first generation of women to have access to the pill, which gave us the opportunity to put into practice our slogan, “Our bodies belongs to us.” 

     Beauvoir had mentioned to me the support of a well-known man in France, Doctor Lucien Neuwirth. At the time, Neuwirth was one of the most renowned French resistance activist with De Gaulle under World War II.  Neuwirth went to talk to De Gaulle, then president of France, to apply for free permission of the pill. It was quite a tricky moment for this renowned resistance worker and you will find all the details about it in my book.