Customer Reviews
Good Story, but too Long - By: Asp, 25 Sep 2008 
This is Simone's first book which took her about 1 year to write. - The fact that this is her debut is manifested through the somewhat mediocre & repetitive writing, but to make up for that she has a good story & some very good character desriptions.
Adept describing emotions, Simone brings to life some of the foremost persons of post WW2 Parisian intellectual circles in vivid detail. So if you can handle the rather long read odds are that you will find this book well worth your effort.
Morally Ambiguous - By: , 05 Feb 2002 
If you enjoyed Jean Paul Sartre's "Roads
To Freedom" existentialist novels, then
this book will also prove absorbing. The last
third seems to bring new depths & developments
to the characters & their situations and
it's almost like the reading equivalent of
peeling the onion. The way that France's
involvement with the Second World War
begins to permeate the idyllic (on the surface)
cafe lifestyle of Paris, more & more as
the book goes on is impressive. The ending
of the book is both grim & fascinating.
Depending on how you interpret it, it's
either a deeply disturbing & ugly end
to what's went before or it's a blackly
comic act of literary revenge/exorcism.
Dark, dazzling and infuriating. - By: , 24 Oct 2000 A menage a trois that is saturated with a bitter, disturbing jealousy. A beautiful narrative that weaves a web of assignations, petty truculence & ambiguous passion. Set in Paris Simone de Beauvoir captures the essence of the city & imbues it with the necessary haze of alcohol, smoke & sadness to set the scene for the ensuing nightmare of recriminations. De Beauvoir's characters are painstakingly depicted, each permeated with thier own aura of mystery & banality. A brilliant story, boldy told.
