Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir and Me – a Memoir

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I was very close to her for 26 years and she trusted me; despite the age difference we were friends, equal friends. There was love, a very strong love, and obviously for my part there was also huge admiration for her.” It was going to be rounded to a 3, but I do like intelligent people and - Deidre Bair, I see what you did there. I see how, by the end of the book I have decided to finally read Murphy that has been languishing for years on my bookshelf and also some of SDB. Always putting the subjects first. It would appear a biographer is the closest thing to a selfless martyr in the literary world. The story of how the celebrated feminist thinker, then in her 50s, met and became attached to a young philosophy undergraduate from Rennes 33 years her junior is in itself worthy of a novel. Le Bon was 17 and still at high school when she wrote to De Beauvoir, expressing her admiration and asking if they could meet. Later, after she moved to Paris to study, De Beauvoir invited her to her home, a two-floor artists’ studio in an art deco building in Rue Victor Schoelcher, in Paris’s 14th arrondissement. The start of the book is catchy without trying to be too engaging. It’s clear that the writer is both experienced and knows rhythm; if writing a book is similar to pacing oneself for running a marathon well, this one holds up almost throughout.

When she is again in dispute with her harassing mother and wishes to get out of a tedious family engagement, Andrée cuts a deep wound into her foot with an axe while chopping wood.

The content of Parisian Lives also offered reliable insight into the life of a writer and professor. Although she wrote for such big names, it was by no means glamorous work. Again, she approaches this subject with authenticity, not to mention with a whole lot of helpful advice on how to go about writing and researching. Sylvie is endearingly vulnerable because she risks loving Andrée. The idolised subject of her affection does not reciprocate the strength of her feelings, nor does she believe herself to be lovable. What I find most touching in The Inseparables is the description of Sylvie losing her faith. In various interviews, De Beauvoir described the experience of suddenly not believing in God as “a kind of awareness”.

In all of this intrigue, Bair retained a reporter’s savvy, as well as an academic’s rigour in getting near the truth. As a younger woman, all she had ever wanted was to be a journalist. By her mid-20s, trying to cope with deadlines and two small children, she determined her second vocation. She originally thought of calling this book The Accidental Biographer. The story was never published in De Beauvoir’s lifetime, not, Le Bon de Beauvoir insists, because it was “too intimate” – as was suggested when it came out in France last year – or even because Sartre was sniffy and dismissive of it, but because the writer wanted to move away from fiction to concentrate on her memoirs. Police said officers opened fire after the 38-year-old woman didn't respond to their warnings on the service near Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand station. It is believed she sustained stomach wounds.Although philosophers and scholars of French literature have recognised Beauvoir’s intellectual importance and independence for decades, representations of her life have often focused disproportionately on her early adulthood, when she formed her legendary romantic “pact” with Sartre. One day in 1929, near the Carrousel du Louvre, they decided theirs would be an open relationship, forsaking no others: they were “essential” to one another, they said, but would keep “contingent” lovers on the side. In 1929, this was a curious arrangement – and it has continued to intrigue readers.

I began to make stuttering conversation, starting with my thanks that she would give me time on her birthday. Her quizzical look as she replied let me know I was not making a very positive first impression. “Why not?” she said. “What is a birthday anyway but just another day?” I didn’t know what to say to that, but she didn’t pause long enough to let me answer as she asked, “Shall we get to work?” Simone de Beauvoir, centre, alongside Sylvie Le Bon at a demonstration for women’s abortion rights in Paris, c1972. Photograph: Sipa Press I like tweeds and strong colours and white. White’s especially good on older women. I love yellow most of all and it suits me. Blue suits me too but I don’t like it because of its associations – except good bright electric blues and then they don’t suit me. I get one dress – not two or three – and wear it the whole season. The rest of the time I wear a skirt and shirt or a sweater. Armed officers arrived at the station soon after 8.30am, and the woman – who was dressed in an Islamic veil – "threatened to blow herself up," said a source. She is also said to have shouted "Allahu akbar" – Arabic for "God is the Greatest".Yes,’ I said. Andrée’s confidence and rapid, precise speech unnerved me. She looked me over warily. And she did. The academics and book reviewers who would decide her fate were by and far mostly male. Bair would remark they could ...disappear into their own assholes… I also loved what Bair wrote about writing a biography and trying to stay level-headed in some way: