First published in French in 1966, Simone de Beauvoir’s Les Belles Images has as its backdrop social unrest, the Algerian conflict, modernism and the Vietnam war. Now it has been treated to a new translation by the excellent Lauren Elkin (do try her own novel Scaffolding).
Laurence, successful in advertising, is married to architect Jean-Charles and has two daughters, Louise and Catherine. While she might appear to have it all, she is overwhelmed and distracted. She wonders whether other people feel as she does, that life has happened to her rather than being steered by her own hand. She sees Jean-Charles sometimes as joyless, others as reliable. She is dissatisfied but accepts as inevitable their being together forever. If not him, who?
Laurence is still a little intimidated by her elegant yet vain and domineering mother Dominique who is happy to leave her husband when he doesn’t live up to her ambitions for him but refuses to accept reality when jilted herself. Exquisitely self-centred, she does however give excellent advice on how to make a man lose interest. Rounding out Laurence’s family are her gentle, principled father and sister Marthe who has found religion and wants to press it on the girls.
Laurence wonders whether her life is too full, too empty, too full of empty things; she has forgotten what happiness feels like but an unexpected event is what really throws her off balance. The Image of Her is astonishingly fresh for something written and set in the 60s. It’s interesting enough as a glimpse of how the bourgeoisie lived in Paris, each character with a depth that makes them feel real, but it’s also an exploration of existence and thought and society.

Originally published in the 1960's, Beauvoir's The Image of Her has aged very well all things considered. Any newcomer to Beauvoir who may feel put off picking up her works of non fiction may find this novel far more approachable. Certainly there are some very familiar themes within the novel such as aging, beauty and consumerism.

As for the story itself, I found it very engaging but it was a quick read. Definitely recommended for someone looking for an accessible introduction to Beauvoir.
3.5 stars

With thanks to the publisher for the arc via Netgalley

This is a new translation of a somewhat obscure De Beauvoir novel from 1966 - and it is as specific to the sixties as tie-dye and flares.

The novel follows the confusingly-named Laurence who is an upper bourgeois wife and mother to two children and husband Jean-Charles. She has a career as an advertising copywriter and a lover. De Beauvoir’s interest here is in the roles and agency that women are afforded in their lives by a patriarchal society.

Laurence’s mother Dominique is spurned by a lover and is distraught at how society views older unattached women (not well). Her daughter Catherine, just old enough to take in news of riots, famines and oppression around the world, worries about what will happen to her and everyone in the future, despite the adults insisted optimism about Brasilia, monorails and other manifestations of a shiny western capitalist future.

Throughout the novel Laurence is caught in the middle, squashed between lover and husband, children and husband (chiefly over whether to medicalise Catherine’s worries), and ultimately between what she wants for herself and what she wants for others. The tensions all this causes ultimately are internalised in some devastating descriptions of anorexia.

It’s an elegant translation, and this is a short and sharp exploration of feminist issues in a fictional setting. Yes it is dated, and there’s little sense that the economic good fortune all the characters enjoy makes the ideas of freedom and oppression explored here a little one-dimensional. It still packs a punch, if you can look past the descriptions of Parisian elite life (or maybe that’s the most interesting part of the book).

I loved being immersed in Laurence’s world, even with the turmoil and inertia, the family secrets corroding their lives at the seams. It felt raw and real, tantalising on such a dysfunctional level. The writing style is magnetising and the atmospheric vibes ooze off the pages. I really liked Laurence and felt a real empathy for her.

At first I thought there were so many characters and they were introduced quite quickly for me to retain who was who, however, I managed to get to grips with them and found them well developed. There is a great mix of personalities exampling the realities of life.

I give this book 3.75 stars.

Thank you so much to the NetGalley and The Vintage Team for providing me with an ARC copy for an honest review.

Simone de Beauvoir's 1966 novel, Les Belles Images, has been given a beautiful translation by Lauren Elkin. This very French, very 1960s portrayal of Laurence trying to find her place in a rapidly changing world - she tries to please everyone and be the best version of what others want her to be - wife, mother and lover. Then her 10 year old daughter, whose awakening into an adult world, challenges Laurence's perspective on life and it becomes certain things must change.

Being written by an intellectual, philosopher and influential writer the stature of De Beauvoir, one expects greatness, and the intimate and focused nature of The Image of Her shows a different side to its writer, whilst retaining much of the societal and philosophical discussions which were the focus of her career. I enjoyed reading this one very much and found it's characters well drawn and engaging. It is a slim novel in size but manages to pack a lot in, but never feels overwhelming and never loses it's razor sharp focus. Having only ever read The Second Sex - her monumental work of feminist theory - reading The Image of Her makes me keen to try some of her other novels.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Laurence is a well-groomed woman with a good job in Paris, a husband, two daughters, a lover, and a home that people admire. She moves through a world of sleek surfaces—advertising offices, smart interiors, polite affairs—keeping everything in order, including herself. But something’s beginning to slip, her life feels “full of empty things.”

This is a short, subtle, and rather elusive novel—measured, precise, and quietly disconcerting. It moves with a composed elegance that lets you think, at first, that not much is happening. But there’s a steady undertow to it.

Elkin’s translation is particular, deliberate, and cool without being cold, and it builds mood through suggestion more than action.

Beauvoir is circling something—identity, appearance, what we present to others and what we hide even from ourselves. She doesn’t name these things outright, rather she lets them surface and submerge, repeatedly, in slightly different forms.

There’s a sense of emotional drift throughout. Characters don’t collapse or erupt—they adjust, they rearrange. Everything happens in minor key: a pause, a look away, something not quite said. It’s a novel about compromise, in the broadest and most mundane sense.

Beauvoir doesn’t moralise, and she doesn’t offer answers. What you’re left with is a steady accumulation of tension and contradiction—lives that work, technically, but still feel somehow hollowed out. It’s not a sentimental book, but it isn’t cynical either. It just holds the discomfort and leaves you to sit with it.

Quietly impressive.

It an honour to read something early from someone as influential and powerful as Simone de Beauvoir in the feminist narrative. Whilst short, this is strong and powerful, showing generation of women at different stages of life.

Interesting, and thought provoking.

The Image of Her by Simone de Beauvoir offers a poignant exploration of the complexities faced by women striving for perfection. Set in 1960s Paris, it follows Laurence, a woman who seemingly has it all—a handsome husband, two daughters, a successful career and a lover. Yet beneath this veneer of success, Laurence is burdened by the expectation of perfection, which has long suppressed her happiness.

As Laurence navigates the demands of family and work, she finds herself increasingly overwhelmed. Her daughter, Catherine, begins to question the world’s unfairness, prompting Laurence to reflect on her own life and the labels she carries. The unraveling of her mother's life, following the departure of her lover for a younger woman, forces Laurence to confront her own discontent.

De Beauvoir’s focus on three generations of women offers an intimate and thought-provoking look at the challenges of self-realisation and societal pressure. The rich descriptions of place are vivid, almost making the setting a character in itself. However, the heavy and often bleak themes of the book make it a challenging read, far from a light-hearted escape. The Image of Her is a deep, reflective work that will resonate with readers who appreciate complex portrayals of women’s lives.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

In *The Image of Her* (originally *Les Belles Images*), Simone de Beauvoir crafts a sharp, introspective critique of bourgeois femininity in 1960s Paris. Through the lens of a seemingly successful woman balancing career, family, and an affair, de Beauvoir exposes the glossy illusions of modern life and the quiet despair beneath them. Elegant and unsettling, the novel probes the disconnect between appearance and authenticity, making it a subtle yet powerful exploration of existential and feminist themes. It’s a brief but incisive portrait of a woman questioning the very image she's meant to uphold.

This was a heavy read for a such a slim book.

Laurence has it all - a good marriage, two children, money, a great job and a lover. Yet still Laurence is struggling with life. As an copywriter at an advertising agency she finds herself mentally writing copy as she goes about her home life and daydreaming about home while she's at work. Life is just ticking along when suddenly it starts to unravel. Daughter Catherine starts questioning why people exist, specially the sad ones. Perplexed as to how to answer her daughter, Laurence begins to contemplate the labels she wears as a wealthy woman in 1960's Paris. Then her mother's lover leavers her for a (much) younger woman and Laurence is even more perplexed by her mother's unravelling before her eyes.

With the focus here very much on the three generations of women and how they react to the things that happen to them, we see the world through Laurence's eyes. She begins to question everything herself and only when her daughter is sent to a Psychologist does Laurence decide to free herself from her constraints and put her foot down.

This is a story that is rich in detail, places are described evocatively and almost become characters too. However, it is a story that is weighed down by it's heavy and depressing content and is not a light read by any stretch.

Fans of Simone de Beauvoir will love it but if it's your first of her novels then I would give it a miss and start with 'The Inseperables' which was brilliant.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a new translation by Lauren Elkin of de Beauvoir's 1966 [book:Les belles images|1202728]. Drawing broadly on her [book:Le deuxième sexe, I|21124]/[book:The Second Sex|8500], it's indicative of second-wave feminism, fictionalising the fate of a woman who realises that she has been forced into a series of postures or images labelled 'woman'. Her bourgeois comfort, her career as a copywriter, her husband, lover and two children are supposed to be all she needs for spiritual well-being, and her discontent is pathologised as 'depression' - a mild form of the 'madness' that is so often the diagnosis of women who do not conform to the feminine 'images' of their time.

Importantly, de Beauvoir shows here three generations of women: Laurence's mother who is set adrift when she is abandoned by her lover (who, of course, at 56 decides he'd rather have a 19 year old...), Laurence herself as that mediating generation of women of around de Beauvoir's own age, and her daughter Catherine, who is being sent off to see a psychiatrist when Laurence intervenes to give her child a liberation that she never had. In that sense, this is an optimistic narrative of feminist progression, written at a time when de Beauvoir might well have been shocked and despairing at the current roll-back of basic female rights over our bodies that was in her future.

As a novel this feels like fictionalised political philosophy - perhaps targeting an audience who might not have chosen to read The Second Sex - it's palatable, it's still relatable (even if there's little new here for today's women), it's a salutary reminder of where feminism has come from. It's a quick read and still has things to say to today's feminists.