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Toril Moi on Simone De Beauvoir

最近老沒事去看中學時候的老書、老作者，到底是人生轉了幾個彎才轉到這個地步，想來挺奇妙的。想當初是看西蒙波娃的第二性，然後自己決定要變成女性主義者，奇怪的是接下來也不太看了，大概是覺得人生比書本有趣太多，在自己的經驗裡，發現有些事情多說無益，更何況，很多概念只存在書本裡，如果要這樣在平常日子過活，很折磨人的。

忽然想到西蒙波娃，就去翻了本書Toril Moi的Simone De Beauvoir: The Making of an Intellectual Woman。

I just don’t believe, and unwillingly to believe. how can a woman I admire so much in high school, a writer of The Second Sex, which enlighten me to be a sort of feminist then struggle through the idea for more than a decade, could act in this way in her own life? I could feel Moi’s anger towards Satre and her disappointment to Beauvoir directly from the pages. These personal comments indeed make the book much more palatable in one aspect, but I wonder if it could really stand out as a serious academic publication.

But for me, or many other readers out there, I don’t think they read this book for academic purposes. More likely they feel attached to Beauvoir in some certain ways, even the author herself speaks in a very intimate tone as what we will read in Marie Claire columns. The fact sadly illustrates what Beauvoir faced half a century ago is still happening today. Moi indeed said, she really wishes, an intellectual woman like Beauvoir, could have abandoned Satre the womanizer, could be a lesbian openly, could have seeked for help from counseling, could have moved to Chicago (hmm, Chicago) and stayed with the lover Nelson Algren, could have got married and had children, could have lived happily ever after without being tortured by her depressions from the loneliness in that in/famous relationship.

Now I realize I really had no idea of what she says in The Second Sex many years ago. How could I have any ideas, about the real struggle we will encounter everyday? How could I get a picture of degradation, happiness, lust and needs, would take in each various forms in which we have to find our own ways out day in and day out? I couldn’t have a vaguest idea at that time. And it is like this, Moi says at the end of her book, life is hard, but we cannot give up, have to go on trying, and it made her suffering half a century ago, and our suffering, or hopefully not suffering, meaningful. Keep trying. It’s the only way.

由 chitse 發表於 January 16, 2005 10:33 PM