Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir’s early novel, written in 1954. The book describes her first love, a classmate named Elisabeth Lacoin ("Zaza") who died before age 22, and had as a teenager a "passionate and tragic" relationship with Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty, then teaching at the same school. Disapproved by Sartre, the novel was deemed "too intimate" to be published during Beauvoir's lifetime.

The Inseparables

I wasn’t jealous. Since that night in the kitchen at Béthary, when I had confessed to Andree how much she meant to me, i had begun to let go of her a little. She was still enormously important to me, but now the rest of the world is opening up to me; she was no longer everything.

“Bernard was the only person in the world who loved me for myself, exactly as I was, and because I was myself,” she said fiercely.

“What about me?“ I asked the words had just fallen out of my mouth; I was revolted by how unjust it was.

Andre stared at me and surprise. “You?”

“Didn’t I value you for who you were?”

“Of course,” Andre said, in an uncertain voice.

The worth of the alcohol in my indignation made me brave. I wanted to say to Andre the kind of things you only say in books.

“You never knew it, but from the day I met you, you were everything to me,” I said. “I had decided that if you died, I would immediately die as well.” I spoken the past tense, and try to make my voice sound detached. Andre continued to look at me, perplexed.

The whole house was quiet; from the basement window came the distant sounds of the kitchen; the delphiniums and the honesties bordering the wall barely moved. But I was afraid. I didn’t dare seize the seat of the swing, or beg her too strongly, but I thought that the swing was going to go over or that Andrée would be overcome with dizziness and let go of the ropes; just watching her swing back-and-forth into the sky, like a pendulum gone mad was making me nauseous. Why does she keep at it for so long? She passed by me, her lips pressed together. Maybe something had broken inside her mind, and she couldn’t stop. The dinner bell rang, and Mirza began to howl. Andrée went flying up into the trees. “She’s going to kill herself,“ I thought.

Would Andrée have been sad if we have been prevented from seeing each other? Less than i would have been, to be sure. They called us the inseparables, and she preferred my company to that of the other girls.

We spoke in banalities, like grownups, but i suddenly understood, in a joyful stupor, that the empty feeling in my heart, the mournful quality of my days, had but one cause: Andrée’s absence. Life without her would be death.

Nothing so interesting had ever happened to me. It suddenly seemed as if nothing had ever happened to me at all.

Kat Albanese

I find happiness on every page. Happiness in bigger and bigger writing.

The grave was covered in white flowers. In some strange way, I understood that Andrée had died, suffocated by that whiteness.

At every instant, blessed eternity was in play, and no clear sign was given to indicate if you were about to achieve it or lose it.

Do I have to spend my life fighting with the people I love?

I like roses. They are ceremonial flowers that die without fading, in a curtsy.

dima

IM REALLY SAD. Everything's just so tragic and it's not anybody's fault.

Bibi

This is such a beautiful book, made even more special when I found out that it is based of of true events from De Beauvoir’s own life. Themes of girlhood, religion, morality and mortality are explored through a complex narration of two best friends. I thoroughly recommend and will be reading again myself most likely time and time again.

Lily Cooper

Tragic and dear. Beauvoir’s internal conflict and clarity of mind, in the 1950’s no less, on matters of societal, familial and religious repression is a strong little flame that I feel like I’m taking with me. 🌹

hera

** spoiler alert **
           i cried 

"Simone feels guilty because surviving, in a way, is a failing. Zaza was the ransom; she even goes as far in her unpublished notes as to describe Zaza as “the sacrificial victim” of her own escape. But for us, does her novel not fulfill the quasi-sacred mission that she entrusted to words: to fight against time, to fight against forgetfulness, to fight against death, “to justify the absolute importance of the moment, the eternity of the moment that would last forever”?"

Prashant Prasad

Nina

riya ☆

Maria Langdon 

'Life without her would be death' The lost novel from the author of The Second Sex published in English for the first time. The compulsive story of two friends growing up and falling apart. INTRODUCED BY DEBORAH LEVY When Andrée joins her school, Sylvie is immediately fascinated. Andrée is small for her age, but walks with the confidence of an adult. Under her red coat, she hides terrible burn scars. And when she imagines beautiful things, she gets goosebumps... Secretly Sylvie believes that Andrée is a prodigy about whom books will be written. The girls become close. They talk for hours about equality, justice, war and religion; they lose respect for their teachers; they build a world of their own. But they can't stay like this forever. Written in 1954, five years after The Second Sex, the novel was never published in Simone de Beauvoir's lifetime. This first English edition includes an afterword by her adopted daughter, who discovered the manuscript hidden in a drawer, and photographs of the real-life friendship which inspired and tormented the author. 'Gorgeously written, intelligent, passionate, and in many ways foreshadows such contemporary works as Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend' Oprah Daily TRANSLATED BY LAUREN ELKIN. WITH AN AFTERWORD FROM SYLVIE LE BON DE BEAUVOIR

The Inseparables

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