Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mr. Salt, and Mrs. Pepper

Simone de Beauvoir's centenary will be celebrated next week in France and The Guardian is worried that everyone will be talking about her sex life instead of her other accomplishments.  I'm just finishing up Hazel Rowley's Tête-À-Tête, the excellent biography of the relationship between Beauvoir and  Sartre (if you can call a book about a relationship a biography), and noticed that a remark from Rowley is featured in that article:

Hazel Rowley... said she was worried that next week's rush of debates would see the couple described as "monsters". She said it could set off a stream of pronouncements on De Beauvoir's sex life, including "cruel, sadistic, manipulating, lying and all these stupid words"."I don't think we should be trivialising this incredible figure by fixating on lascivious sex," Rowley said. "Why are we doing this? Are we puritanical? Do we think we're superior, and why?" She said she hoped the centenary year would "stop people mocking and belittling De Beauvoir".

I don't think Rowley means that people should stop talking about Beauvoir's sex life completely -- after all she wrote an entire book on the subject. I'm guessing that she wants people to genuinely try to understand it. It seems to me that Beauvoir's sex life was an important part of her work -- she and Sartre were attempting to create a new kind of relationship between men and women. And it seems that, as a couple, they were successful -- although I do wonder if Beauvoir sometimes felt that she simply had to make it work out of principle, the way traditionally married people often do.  And I  think that they failed their other romantic partners miserably, mostly because these other people weren't comfortable being third parties. As a result, Beauvoir and Sartre felt they couldn't be honest with them, which was a very strange stance for them to take considering their ideals. I've very much enjoyed reading about their relationships -- and I think it's been educational. One thing I've learned, for instance, is that I personally do not have the energy to engage in a love relationship with more than one person. Quite often, in fact, I don't even have the energy for that. Sartre took up to twenty uppers a day! Anyway, sexual relationships have always been and will always continue to be a fascinating and most important subject of study. Obviously. I mean Cosmopolitan magazine talks about them pretty much every month. And those magazines sell.

An additional note of interest: I have to admit that while I've been madly turning the pages of Tête-À-Tête, I've been letting Luke watch a little more television than usual. Blue's Clues was playing the background this morning as Luke played with his marble run and, in the context of my reading, I happened to take special notice of a relationship featured on that show. It is the relationship between Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper, a pleasant couple who live on the table in Blue's kitchen. Like the rest of us, Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper are just trying to make it work.   In some ways they're untraditional -- they're interracial, for instance, and it appears that she's kept her own name although she does still use the title "Mrs." That's probably for the sake of their kids, Paprika and Cinnamon. Things become somewhat less clear when we ponder these children. Now the eldest child, Paprika, could possibly be considered to share some of Mr. Salt's genes, however much she does favour her mother's side of the family. But the youngest, Cinnamon? I think not. And he's not adopted, either. Apparently Mrs. Pepper was visibly pregnant on the show for a time. And there was an entire episode devoted to his birth. The kicker? Both Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper have French accents.

Comments

[babelbabe]

the episode in which Cinnamon was born is a classic - it's actually very entertaining - we had it on tape for a while and used it to get the boys used to the idea of a new baby arriving. Unfortunately I lent it out and Terzo is just going to get the surprise of his life come February : )

did you ever figure out the story about the little girl and the pink sugar egg that de Beauvoir referenced? I asked a few French friends of mine, but no one had the foggiest idea...

and every single time I come read your blog, I am astounded that you don't have a gazillion readers. You should. I love your blog.

[Stephany Aulenback]

Aww, babelbabe, why would I need a gazillion readers when I have you? Thank you so much. I love checking in on your blog, too.

I never did figure out what story that was. It's a mystery. I'm hoping an expert in French children's literature will googlestumble (stoogle? gumble?) here someday and let me know...

Poor Terzo. We've never seen that Birth of Cinnamon episode. I'm going to keep an eye out for it.