Woman Destroyed (Pantheon Modern Writers)
These three long stories draw us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises. In the title story, the heroine's serenity is shattered when she learns that her husband is having an affair. In "The Age of Discretion," a successful, happily married professor finds herself increasingly distressed by her son's absorption in his young wife and her worldly values. In "The Monologue," a rich, spoiled woman, home alone on New Year's Eve, pours out a lifetime's rage and frustration in a harrowing diatribe. Enthralling as fiction, suffused with de Beauvoir's remarkable insights into women, The Woman Destroyed gives us a legendary writer at her best.
Woman Destroyed (Pantheon Modern Writers) Accessories
Woman Destroyed (Pantheon Modern Writers) Reviews
The title story teaches us: Nothing can destroy a woman but a man, or even better, a woman can destroy herself only because of a man!
There is no woman who will not identify with most of the story. I was clearly thinking - only a woman can write such a story, becuse a man would never get it. Getting so desparate as to do the handwriting analysis, reading the horosocpes, seeking advice from anyone, and NOT LETTING GO, becuse she lost herself in this marriage and she can't bear the thought of finding herself back. I felt for both women in the story and both were so real.
A woman who ever denies feeling even parts of what Monique is feeling is lying to herself and others.
This is so painfully realistic!
This book contains three short stories, each of them about a "Woman Destroyed." Two are utterly depressing, and one is incoherent. The middle story was stream of consciousness babbling by a mad woman character, and I couldn't even finish it. The first story was depressing, and compelling enough to finish. The third story, the title story, was very compelling, defintely a page-turner, but also depressing.
This third story, A Woman Destroyed," tells the tale of a woman whose children have left home, and she experiences empty nest syndrome, only to find out her husband has been having an affair for years, while discouraging her from seeking emplyment and encouraging her to put all her focus into the children and home. He is a real rat, but yet you can see that he is truly torn, taht he thinks he is somehow protecting his wife, while he is ultimately destroying her. The most compelling aspect is the wife her self, watching her slow demise.
This are three short stories potraying three middle class women who are past their prime and face crisis in their lives. Simone de Beauvoir - existentialist philosopher and feminist reflected the conditiion of her contemporaries with genuine insight and understanding. Written almost 40 years ago the book did not loose its actuality, to the contrary , it's very moving.
I would recommend this small masterpiece to anyone, but I think that mature women's audience is going to appreciate and understand it the most.
Three different stories in one book:
Basically, The Monologue: is the confusing diatribe of a spoiled rich woman on-the-edge -- with a lot of mental-baggage that needs unpacking -- alone [by design] in her apartment on New Year's Eve -- the holiday is irrelevant, it could be any evening -- while everyone else is out having fun. Her past, present and future are all fair game in this twisted ride with many turns and dead ends -- complete stops and bazaar imaginings. She blames everyone and no one for her current situation. Her daughter has committed suicide, her young son has been taken from her via divorce. It's filthy, it's clean. --Katharena Eiermann, 2006
A Woman Destroyed: How dumb (or in denial) can a woman be? Her husband has been having affairs with other women, on and off, for the past 10 years -- putting in all that overtime at work. All her friends know, her grown daughters know, the people her (highly-successful) husband works with know. The woman's husband finally tells her that he stopped loving her 10 years prior, but still likes her, wants her to have [his] dinner on the table in the evening, wants his laundry done -- that is why he kept living with her. He starts to tear the world she built around him (the only world she has allowed herself to know) down...feeding her imagination with well-placed destructive seeds. All his poisonous barbs on her fragile ego are calculated and exact. He knows what he wants, he wants her to give it to him -- her to do the dirty work -- her to cause their break-up. Huh? This is a very good story. Exquisitely written, realistic, existential, stays on track. --Katharena Eiermann, 2006
The Age of Discretion: Classic "but, that's not the way your Father and I raised you..." story, or, "a little too much time on my hands...so, let me dissect your life and all the reasons why". Heart warming, but not brilliant. --Katharena Eiermann, 2006, the Realm of Existentialism -- Presidential Hopeful
Good gods, how French women needed the feminism De Beauvoir sought to bring them. I wish I didn't sometimes think they still did....
When Monique in the title story reflects that she should have known her marriage was on the skids when her husband told her she should buy a one-piece bathing suit, she immediatley reflects guiltily that she has let her thighs get fat, that her stomach is no longer completely flat... If I were Monique, I might reflect that it was a missed chance to craquer cher Maurice on the head with a deckchair.
Instead, Monique immediately stops eating (quelle surpise) and the first thing her estranged daughter says to her is that her resulting weight loss suits her. It's no wonder that after fifteen years of this, Monique is gimpless when Maurice starts an affair with a younger woman.
Sans doute, de Beauvoir was attempting a critique of such overmastering dependency, but it's also very, very raw-feeling. The price paid by those chic women for thier polish and beauty is this overpowering, constant self-scrutiny; no wonder existentialism, no wonder a modern book like Thornytorinx (in case you think the problem is solved).
This is powerful, true stuff, then, which reminded me of some of Dorothy Parker's best stories (without the humour) but I also felt irrtated with the spineless protagonists of all three stories. Don't be so needy, I wanted to scream. Go to a bar. Go to a jardin. Go to a boulanger. Live a little, before you finally die. In other words, the book feels not so much dated as in need of contestation. I would have enjoyed it more if another character had voiced the limitations of the protagonists' viewpoints.
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