Its SimoneDeBeauvoir so obviously is absolute genius. A rewarding exploration of girlhood, friendship, injustice, and love. Beautiful translation by Lauren Elkin.

The books tells the story of a deep friendship between two young women, both smart and capable but also constrained by the expectations of their family and society at the time. The writing is excellent, a pleasure to read. Considering that it is a story based on the Author's life and her friend Zaza, it's amazing how modern their ideas were and appalling how those young women were oppressed by their role. Overall an excellent read.

I discovered the work of De Beauvoir at university. Like most women’s studies students, I encountered her book The Second Sex as part of my studies. I must admit that I never got any further than that. Her work felt too foreboding. This year I resolved to put that right. Therefore, I was intrigued to find that another of her novels had been found. I was further intrigued to find out about its subject matter; a subject she could not write about, the death of a friend. So, this has a great biographical and literary importance. I was interested to know how it would read as a novel.

Therefore, I was excited to discover that it was on Netgalley. I was pleased when the publisher granted my request to see this book. I was surprised how readable it was. It is the tale of; two girls growing up in France, a tale of friendship and a tale of loss; interspersed with interesting discussions of the world in which these two lived and loved. As you can expect it provided the reader with an analysis of the role of gender socialisation, and class inequality, in their lives, loves and friendships.

I really loved this book and am excited to read the authors backlisted works. Like all classic literature it evoked another time. The author writes of childhood and loss of innocence without sentimentality. It was movingly written and highly readable.

In the words of Maddie Crum in The Baffer: "The book, in other words, is heavy-handed, schematic, and thin. It’s about the length and scope of de Beauvoir’s novellas but has been packaged as a complete novel, padded with a laudatory introduction, a defensive afterword asserting the project’s significance, and selected letters between de Beauvoir and Zaza. Still, it has obvious merits: most of all the prose and the psychological insights, which are wry and movingly direct in turn. “I admired her nonchalance without being able to imitate it,” Sylvie thinks of Andrée at one point, articulating the unscalable rift between desire and its fulfillment".

A very complex study of life in early 1920's France ,& especially that between the two female characters who are The Inseparables. It shows how complex women's lives were & the demands placed on them even from childhood to behave in a certain manner & not try to be individualistic in any way shape or form , but especially academically , where even if you got Top Marks ,a Boy or Man would be placed higher than you .
At the end of the day you were viewed as `Goods' to be shown off in society & then either married off or else sent to join a Convent !
The book is beautifully written & I highly recommend it & I shall be encouraging my granddaughters to read it .
#Goodreads, # NetGalley, #FB, #Instagram, #Amazon.co.uk #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/c566f42be23a0e25d120e78a3454e2d427c4beee" width="80" height="80" alt="50 Book Reviews" title="50 Book Reviews"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/ef856e6ce35e6d2d729539aa1808a5fb4326a415" width="80" height="80" alt="Reviews Published" title="Reviews Published"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/aa60c7e77cc330186f26ea1f647542df8af8326a" width="80" height="80" alt="Professional Reader" title="Professional Reader"/>.

Can one die of love? Of course it’s not possible, yet it’s the overlasting impression given by de Beauvoir’ tale of her childhood friend and the fate that befalls her. Lyrically descriptive, a beautiful tale of adolescent friendship in early-20th-century France.

This was a short and well written read. The writing is really accessible and it reads well. The pacing was good and I enjoyed it overall.

It's a personal story and it reads like one too. I felt like I knew the narrator.

Enjoyable.

A fascinating and hard hitting translation of previously unpublished work by Simone de Beauvoir.

This was a very challenging and complex relationship between two friends, Sylvie and Andree growing up together. There is a huge intensity to their friendship whenever they are together.

The Inseparables gives a enormous insight into the lives of women and girls friendships and the divide in social class. It is a real close friendship between the two and digs deep into the intricacies therein.

It was very emotional and intense in the way it was put forward. Hugely absorbing.

Having read many of Simone de Beauvoir's previous novels I was very excited to have the opportunity to read this lost novel.
A fascinating story of friendship. The story of a difficult and complicated relationship of growing up with a friend whom you admire but also grow apart from and come back together throughout life. It is a familiar feeling for so many people, and navigating it can be a minefield.
It is beautifully written, and a short read. I enjoyed reading the afterword and hearing more about the story behind the novel more than I enjoyed the book.

An intriguing exploration of de Beauvoir's early life, this is a bittersweet love story and a tenderly written memoir, I'm so pleased that this was found and can now be enjoyed. With a super translation that makes the story very readable. Sylvie and Andree grow up together and we see all the glamour and the duty as Sylvie strains to make sense of her feelings and to build the life she wants to live, and that she goes on to live in dependently. Andree's story take a different turn, and Sylvie absorbs that sadness as she turns to face the future. The writing, the style, the characters and the different settings come to live so vividly, this was a real pleasure to read.

I am so grateful to be given the chance to read this novella. The story is autobiographical. Describing relationship between Sylvie and Andree. Written in the first person, Sylvie being Simone de Beauvoir. A moving story of friendship. Giving an insight to the social and moral mores of the time.

I very much enjoyed this short novella. Though fairly light as an examination of friendship (whole years pass in the space of a paragraph), it’s easy to read and a good portrait of a time and place, I’m glad it’s finally been published and it deserved to be. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

An evocative, entirely absorbing novella that is reminiscent of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend. But better. I never expected this little work to impact me as much as it has. I would recommend this book to absolutely everyone I know, honestly, and I can’t believe I have never read any of de Beauvoir‘s work until now. I just inhaled this in one sitting and couldn’t put it down, and even now my thoughts aren’t in order! Stunning.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the privilege.

This is a great, short novel. The why and how was de Beauvoir persuaded not to publish it during her lifetime - I've read somewhere that it was too personal, that some of the material had already been used in the Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée, surprises me as this is a very different project. Its compression makes it particularly memorable, given it the urgency of a report written by an expert witness. No-one can read it without having to take sides and deliver judgement. The autobiographical element (the epigraph at the opening of the novel makes it clear) also adds to the political (yes, political!) import of what will follow.

The narrator, Sylvie, tells the story of her friendship with Andrée, an equally intelligent new pupil at her school. In a straightforward, wonderfully evocative and precise manner, we are witness to the story of these two girls and how their relationship evolves from childhood (they meet at nine) to their twenties. It is a tale of love, education, class, milieux (the two families prove to be very different)... of being a girl in the early decades of the 20c, but the narrative goes far beyond that particular time and mores exploring as it does how it feels to have a friend, to chime one's life in relation to that friend, and the realisation that the friend's life and aspirations. and obsessions are different from yours. Ultimately, Andrée becomes a cypher of the pressures and dilemmas faced by young women anywhere. I was hooked at how the story evolves and ends. A rare, intelligent and political look at growing up. Memorable.

I cannot but thank Vintage via NetGalley for letting me read and review this wonderful novel.

The Inseparables: The newly discovered novel
Simone de Beauvoir - Author
Translated by Lauren Elkin
Introduction by Deborah Levy
Afterword by Sylvie le Bon de Beauvoir


Publisher Random House UK,Vintage
Publication 2 September 2021
ISBN: 978-1784877002

“ They called us the inseparables”

Lasting friendships that were formed in early childhood are a fascination for me. What is it that brings individuals together, keeps them together and makes them inseparable? And for me, as an avid Francophile, add to that the “mystery” of why a novel by French writer Simone de Beauvoir should come to light years after the celebrated author’s death then I’m hooked.



Format
I had joined the member community at NetGalley, requested and was sent a pre-publication copy of The Inseparables. Long time aware of, but new to reading de Beauvoir, I was grateful for the introduction by Deborah Levy who rightly pointed out that her foreword contained spoilers. I decided to stay with that however as it helped provide context and has prompted me to read some of de Beauvoir’s other works. Then on to the novel itself, translated from the French by Lauren Elkin, only confirming the intention to read more. The text was accompanied by helpful footnotes explaining this or that term or historical background. And what about that mystery? The afterword, written by Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, explains how the work was found among de Beauvoir’s papers and came to publication. The afterword includes photographs of the people aliased in the book and some facsimiles of the original handwritten draft.

So in this small volume we get the story, the literary legacy and social context of the work. That impressed me and I liked it very much.

Plot
The book recounts the story of two young women, Sylvie and Andrée, who meet in primary school at a very young age. We learn from the opening dedication For Zaza that the story was inspired by the relationship between the young Simone in whose name Sylvie speaks and Elisabeth ‘Zaza’ Lacoin represented by Andrée. The two become friends and rail against the prevailing orthodoxies of the time; they discuss God, religion, philosophy and then ultimately face a final reckoning.

Language
I was captivated by the language in the book. Yes there were all those discussions but they were essential to a sense of movement in the text; a dramatic tension drawing us to an anticipated but nonetheless abrupt conclusion that still leaves a sense of inseparability.

Looking back over the text, there are several places where I have highlighted phrases and sections that stopped me short and made me think. I love it when a book does that. For example in describing one of the adults, Sylvie/Simone writes “His silky hair and Christian virtue feminised him and lowered him in my estimation.” That from a central figure in Feminism? And from the socially engaged woman describing their respective freedoms, Sylvie writes that she ‘had often envied Andrée her independence, but suddenly she seemed much less free than I was’. A sense of foreboding comes in a section where there is a description of a sculpted wooden clock, ‘which held...all the darkness of time’. Foreboding reprised when ‘Andrée placed the violin in its little coffin’ after practising her music during which,’she seemed to be listening prayerfully to the voice of the instrument on her shoulder’. There are many such examples, skilfully inserted throughout the text.

One for the shelves?
Definitely! I am delighted to have read the ebook sent by the publisher through NetGalley but this a novel I would also like to have on my bookshelves so I have ordered a physical copy and will certainly reread.

This is my first book of Simone de Beauvoir and I’m thankful to the publisher and the netgalley for the opportunity to read it.
It is such a beautiful tale of friendship and it is Written in the first person, Sylvie, the narrator (Simone) pictures of her childhood friendship with Andrée.

3.5 rounded up

"Life without her would be death."

This slim but affecting auto fictional novella was written by Simone de Beauvoir in 1954, some five years after The Second Sex was published. The manuscript was found hidden in a drawer by de Beauvoir's adopted daughter and has now been published 67 years later (and 34 years after the author's death) in English.

This is a barely obscured retelling of the author's tumultuous relationship with her close friend Andrée (Elisabeth Lacoin/Zaza in real life) who she met aged 9. De Beauvoir herself is portrayed as Sylvie, and we get a first person account of their close relationship which changes the course of both of their lives, culminating in Zaza's death at 21 of encephalitis.

This was my first experience of De Beauvoir's writing and I found the book to be a compelling portrait of a relationship and I'm keen to check out more of the author's work.

Short and written in a rater simple language, but so emotionally charged that it kept me spellbound from the first page until the end.

Story wise, the synopsis is clear enough, and in this case you do get what the book says you'll get. The only thing I would like to add regards the commentary about the effects of society and societal norms on women. I understand to a certain degree this modern obsession with liberating women from the shackle of expectations both at the micro level of family and the macro one of society, but I feel that looking at Andree only from this perspective is simplistic and limited. To me Andree is a rather complex character. She is a victim of the opposing forced battling insider her and sadly not strong enough to accept one or the other and fight for whatever or whomever she things she is. On the one hand she wants to be the daughter her family expects her to be: dutiful and proper, but she also wants to be able to explore and experiment things that are forbidden: like loving a cousin or smoking or studying. She wants to marry her lover but she doesn't want to wait, she wants freedom but when it's offered to her she doesn't have the strength to give up on everything she knows for it. She was a whirlwind and I completely understand Sylvie's fascination with her childhood friends, her first love. But at the end of the day Andree is a fictional character and I feel that so is Zaza, because when tragedy strikes at such a young age everything takes on mythological proportions.

A beautifully written novella about an unusual friendship between two very individual girls, exploring how the friendship can mean such different things to the people in them. The story challenges the expectations that society had for women at this time.

I was given a copy of The Inseparables by NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

It feels like a real privilege to read this previously unpublished novella, which gives further insight into the life of the iconic Simone de Beauvoir. It’s a work of fiction inspired by a real friendship and the true depth of feeling is really captured in the writing. De Beauvoir has crafted this novella very cleverly and the language used is a plot device in itself. At the beginning, the writing is free and spirited, but as Andree becomes more and more trapped by her life, the language becomes tighter and far more formal. It’s a book that is also a work of art. An incredible novella from an incredible woman.