Force of Circumstance 2 - After the War 1952-1962 PDF
Preview Force of Circumstance 2 - After the War 1952-1962
I THE UTOBIOGRAPH O F ARD TIMES FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCE, II G 9 5 2 1 9 With a New Introduction by TORIL MOI a) HARD TIMES FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCE U52-|!l THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JeSeauioir iffione HARD TIMES FORCE OF CIRCUMSTANCE '952-196 With a NewIntroduction by TORIL MOI Translated From theFrench by RICHARD HOWARD Q PARAGON HOUSE NEW YORK 1 FirstParagon Houseedition, 1992 Publishedin the UnitedStatesby Paragon House 90 FifthAvenue New York, N.Y. 1001 Copyright© 1963 byLibrairieGallimard Introduction © 1992 byToril Moi Allrightsreserved. Nopartofthisbookmaybe reproduced, inanyform, withoutwritten permission from thepublishers, unlessbyareviewerwhowishes toquotebriefpassages. English translationcopyright© 1964, 1965byG.P. Putnam'sSons Originallypublished in Francein 1963 underthe titleLaForcedesChases. Manufacturedinthe United StatesofAmerica Beauvoir, Simonede, 1908-1986 [Forcedeschoses. English] HardTimes: ForceofCircumstance,Vol. II:theauto—biographyofSimonedeBeauvoir/ translatedby PeterGreen ; introductionbyToril Moi. 1st Paragon Houseed. p. cm. Translationof: Laforcedeschoses. Englishtranslationoriginally published: Putnam, ©1963. With new introd. Contents: v. 2. Hard times. ISBN 1-55778-524-4 (v. 2) — 1. Bea—uvoir, Simone—de, 1908-1986 Biography—. 2. Aut—hors, French 20thcentury Biography. 3. Feminists France Biography. I. Title. PQ2603.E362Z46713 1992 — 848'.9i409 dc20 [B] 92-15064 CIP INTRODUCTION "/ am an intellectual: I take words and the truth to be ofvalue," Simone de Beauvoir declares in this volume ofher autobiography. The truth she has in mind is the truth about the war in Algeria (1954-62). Writtenfrom i960 to 1963, thesecondhalfofThe Force ofCircumstance isaboveallan account ofthatwarasseen byaFrenchwoman ashamedandoutragedby thebehaviorof her countrymen: "/ could no longer bear myfellow citizens," she comments. "WhenIdinedoutwithLanzmann orSartre, wehidaway ina corner; evenso, wecouldnotgetawayfromtheirvoices."Sickwith disgust, andviolently angry, Beauvoir in fact ends up penning a remarkable chronicle of one woman's personalexperience ofpolitical conflict. AyoungAlgeriangirl,DjamilaBoupacha, wasviciouslytorturedandraped byFrench militarypersonnel:Beauvoircollaboratedwith GiseleHalimi on the book about the girls life (1962). Frenchmen buriedAlgerians alive with bull- dozers. They starved Algerian women and children in desolate concentration camps. They shot thousands ofArabs in indiscriminate reprisalsfor Algerian bombings. Soon the war invaded the streets ofParis; at one point Arabs were roundedup andherded into a sportsstadium. Some werefoundfloatingin the Seine; it became clear that the French metropolitan police participated in beatings, tortureandkillings. Byforcingherreaderstofacesuchfacts,Beauvoir isdoingherbesttofulfilherfundamentalintellectualcommitmenttowordsand thetruth. Heranalysis issimple: to massacre and torture anotherpeople in the name ofracism and colonialism is absolutely evil. By consentingto suchpolicies, the French in hereyes were no betterthan theNazis. Even thefew who opposed the warcouldnotescape the collective burden ofguilt: "Now we know what it was liketobea GermanundertheNazis,"onepoliticiancomments. Outofthiscrisis Sartresplay The Condemned ofAltona (1959) was born: in this haunting " " INTRODUCTION vi evocation oftheproblem ofindividualandcollectiveguiltinpostwarGermany thecentralcharacter, anex-SS officer, iscalledFrantz, anamewhichinFrench comes across as a transparentpun on "France. Toherhorror,BeauvoirrealizesthattheveryfactofbeingFrenchmakesher responsiblefor crimes she abhors: "whether I wanted to be or not, I was an accomplice ofthesepeople,"she writes. "Ineededmyself-esteem togo on living, andI wasseeingmyselfthrough the eyes ofwomen who had been raped twenty times, ofmen with broken bones, ofcrazed children: a Frenchwoman." Torn between heridentity as aFrench intellectualandherabsolute opposition to the war,Beauvoirfeelsmorealienated, moretrulyexiledthaneverbeforeinherlife: "Westoppedgoingout,"she writes. "Justhavinga coffee ata counterorgoing intoabakerybecameanordeal. Ihadlikedcrowdsonce;noweventhestreets . . . were hostile to me, Ifelt as dispossessed asI had when the Occupation began." 1958turnsouttobethedarkestyearofBeauvoirsnarrative:itistheyearin which the Fourth Republic collapses, De Gaulle seizes power and the war in Algeria reaches thepointofno return. Whenshe learns thatalmost 80percent ofthe French voted infavour ofDe Gaulle in the September referendum, she burstsintotears: "Fdneverhavebelieveditcouldaffectmesomuch,"shewrites in her diary. "I stillfeel like crying this morning. . . . Nightmares the whole night. Ifeeltornto bits. . . . It'sasinisterdefeat. . . arepudiation by 80percent oftheFrenchpeople ofall that we had believed in and wantedforFrance. . . . An enormous collective suicide. In thisperiodBeauvoirtraveledextensively, aboveall in China, the Soviet Union, Brazil and Cuba. She was constantly meetingsome ofthe world's most influentialpoliticians and intellectuals: Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, Al- bertCamus, AlbertoMoravia,JorgeAmado, Nicolas Guillen andmany others defile through herpages. Beauvoir isparticularly impressed by FrantzFanon, the author ofBlack Skin, White Masks and The Wretched ofthe Earth. BorninMartiniquein 1925, andeducatedinFrance,FanonsettledinAlgeria, andinthelate1950shehadbecomeoneoftheleadersoftheAlgerianrevolution. WhenBeauvoirmethiminthesummerof1961,hewasmarkedbyillness,yetshe foundhim "intenselyalive."PraisingFanon's "wealthofknowledge, hispowers ofdescription andthe rapidity anddaringofhis thought,"Beauvoirtestifies to hisintellectualstature.—"Hewasanexceptionalman,"shewrites, "endowedwith agrimsense ofhumor everythinghe talkedaboutseemedto liveagain before oureyes." "Whenonewaswithhim,"sheadds, "lifeseemedto beatragicadven- ture, often horrible, but ofinfinite worth, They were never to meet again: in December1961BeauvoirnoteswithsorrowFanon'stragicallyprematuredeath fromleukemia. BeauvoirneverwaversinhercommitmenttotellingthetruthaboutAlgeria. " INTRODUCTION vii InheraccountsofCubaandtheSoviet Union, however, thetruth becomesmore elusive. HavingmoreorlessreluctantlyalignedherselfwiththeSovietcausein 1952, Beauvoir now sticks to her positions. Courageously attacking th—e per- secution—of gay men in Cuba, for instance, she nevertheless accepts and excuses Castrospoliticalpurges in theearly 1960s. Even harderto reconcile with her commitment to truth is her upbeat account of the Soviet system, includingits continueduse oflaborcamps. At the end ofa longjourney in the Soviet Unionin 1962,Beauvoirconcludesthatinthe Westautomatizationand rationalization makes life absurd. In the Soviet Union, however, man is being created in a new image and, as a consequence, "all the things that happen to himareheavywithmeaning."TheCold Waraside, onlyawishtoretainatleast some illusions in an intolerably evil world, can explain such moments of blindness in a work otherwiseso committed to lucidity. If1958 was a depressingpoliticalyearfor Simone deBeauvoir, it was no betteronthepersonallevel. For1958wastheyearinwhichsheturnedfifty, and herrelationshipwithClaudeLanzmann, ajournalistseventeenyearsherjunior (latertogainfameasthedirectorofShoah),finallycametoanend. Whentheir relationship started in 1952, she hadshed tears ofjoy: "'Lanzmannspresence besidemefreedmefrom my age,"she writes. "Thanks tohim, a thousandthings wererestoredtome:joys, astonishments, anxieties, laughterandthefreshnessof theworld.Aftertwoyearsinwhichtheuniversalmarasmahadcoincidedforme withthebreak-upofaloveaffair[withNelsonAlgren]andthefirstwarningsof physicaldecline, Ileaptbackenthralledintohappiness. Lanzmann, then, became her bulwark against thefear ofgrowing old. When the relationship disintegrates, the horrors ofold age close down on her again. To compoundherdistress, thefinal break-up with Lanzmann coincides withaserious decline in Sartre's health. When Sartre barely escapes astroke in 1954, Beauvoirfelt the chill of her own mortality: "Sartre recovered. But somethingirrevocablehadhappened; deathhadcloseditshandaroundme; . . . itwasanintimatepresencepenetratingmy life, changingthetasteofthings, the quality ofthe light, my memories, thethingsIwantedtodo: everything." When hefallsillagain in 1958, shefeelsthatherwholefuturehasbeenerased: "From nowon,"shewrites, "deathpossessedme. . . .Basically, therewasnothingforus to lookforward to except our own death or the death ofthose close to us." At the end of The Force of Circumstance Beauvoir isfifty-four. Her autobiographies are best-sellers in France; she enjoys international success as oneoftheworldsforemostwriters;sheiscertainlyoneof—themostfamouswomen in the world. Yetshe tirelessly insists thatherlife is over "Yes, the moment has cometosay:Neveragain!"shewritesin theepilogue. "ItisnotIwhoamsaying good-bye to all those things I once enjoyed, it is they who are leaving me; the " " INTRODUCTION Vlll mountain paths disdain my feet. Never again shall I collapse, drunk with fatigueintothesmellofhay. NeveragainshallIslidedownthroughthesolitary morningsnows.Neveragainaman.Now, notonlymybodybutmyimagination too has accepted that." In France in 1962 the social convention concerning women in theirfifties probably differedfrom those ofthe United States in the icjcjos.Evenso,Beauvoirsrenunciationofliferemainspuzzling: mostreaders ofThe Force ofCircumstancefind ithard not to ask whyshe isso eagerto embracedeathanddeclineatsuchanearlyage. WhatisitthatdrivesSimonede Beauvoirheadlonginto renunciation and an obsession with death? Thefact that Sartres illness makes Beauvoir reflect on mortality is hardly surprising. Her complaints, however, do not simply signal the usual human concern with our inevitablefate: in her memoirs herfear ofold age and her obsession with death surface too early and too insistentlyfor that. Throughout her adult life Beauvoir suffered occasional bouts of uncontrollable crying accompaniedbyintensedistressandanxiety.AsateacherinRouenattheageof twenty-seven, for instance, Beauvoir regularly experienced such crises: "IfI drankalittletoomuchoneeveningIwasliabletoburstintofloodsoftears,"she writesin The Prime ofLife, "andmy oldhankeringaftertheAbsolutewould be aroused again. Once more I would become aware ofthe vanity ofhuman endeavourand the imminence ofdeath. In the very next paragraph she complains that she "had another worry besides this: I was getting old." The main symptom ofthe agingprocess, she adds, is not to befound in her health or herfacial appearance, but in thefact that "from time to time Ifelt that everything was going grey and colorless around me, and [I therefore] began to lament the decrepitude ofmy senses. Insteadofblamingherownemotionalstateforthepeculiardiscoloration ofthe world,Beauvoirchoosestoblamehersenses:inthispassage, ageisclearlymade tostandinfordepression.Asmightbeexpected, hermelancholiaresurfaceswith particularvirulence every timeshe experiences a loss oflove. Theanxiety crises inRouen,for instance, actually occur exactly at a time when Sartre is looking aroundfor new experience, only tofind it in the shape ofayounggirl named Olga. (A vividaccountofthe triangularrelationship thatensuedcan befound in The Prime ofLife, and also inBeauvoirs novel She Came to Stay.) In thesame way, the break-up ofher affair with Algren, Sartres serious involve- ment with Dolores Vanetti (both ofwhich are chronicled in thefirst volume of The Force ofCircumstance), andthe endofherliaison withLanzmannall bringonparticularlypainful bouts ofdepression. As longas hersexuality is reaffirmed by thedesire ofa man, Beauvoirfeels protected against the threat of old age. Or to put it differently: under such circumstances she does not feel depressed. The presence of Lanzmann, for
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