In each story, the purpose and meaning of marriage, relationships, love, and life are drawn into question as their chloroformed contentment painfully unravels. Each woman and each reader participating in her journey struggles with the question: Upon the book’s 1969 publication in English, The Sunday Herald Times(London) wrote: “In three immensely intelligent stories about the decay of passion, Simone de Beauvoir draws us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises … suffused with de Beauvoir’s remarkable insights into women, The Woman Destroyedgives us a legendary writer at her best.” Book Genre: Classics, Cultural, European Literature, Feminism, Fiction, France, French Literature, Literary Fiction, Literature, Philosophy, Short Stories, Womens

Tragedies are all right for a while: you are concerned, you are curious, you feel good. And then it gets repetitive, it doesn't advance, it grows dreadfully boring: it is so very boring, even for me.” that's enough for me to read anything in and of itself, including but not limited to golf magazines, industrial catalogs, and the grocery lists of my least favorite neighbor (WHY ARE YOUR PARTIES ALWAYS ON WEEKDAYS, YES I KNOW I SOUND LIKE A GRUMPY OLD MAN IN THE FIRST HALF OF A FEEL-GOOD FAMILY FILM)...but in addition to that, simone de beauvoir is a stunning writer with a true sense of people. After reading On the Beach it was I guess inevitable that any half way reasonable book would stand out as an easy four star read, the intensity of the characters presented means that you don't suspect that they would be ruined or flop over if exposed to the rain of the Paris basin. Indeed the Monologue with it's use of punctuation and paragraphs seems a little old fashioned even for 1967 in its presentation of a continuous stream of consciousness embittered monologue, but then I'm not an upper middle class Parisian woman in the late 1960s perhaps they did think in sentences and paragraphs. Generally while intense and humane, the writing doesn't have some hard to describe additional quality that would lead me to want to force the book in to every one's hands as one might, if moved by a five star read. MONÓLOGO “Los niños nunca son otra cosa que semillas de canallas.” Un monólogo interior durísimo, devastador, fruto de la rabia, de la angustia, de una mujer de mediana edad afectada por serios problemas psicológicos y que se siente sola, abandonada y culpable. Una mujer con una infancia difícil, que, gracias a su belleza ahora marchita, ha vivido a costa de hombres ricos desde que su madre la arrojó en los brazos de su propio amante, y que, intentando no caer en los mismos errores con su hija, cometió otros de terribles consecuencias. “…hubiera merecido que me amaran. ¡Ah! he sido asquerosamente frustrada la vida no me ha hecho regalos.” suo figlio Philippe, di fatti, tradisce le sue aspettative e allo stesso tempo la sua stessa carriera subisce un imprevisto arresto...In earlier days I never used to worry about old people. I looked upon them as the dead whose legs still kept moving.” One of the most influential thinkers of her generation draws us into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises in these three “immensely intelligent stories about the decay of passion” ( The Sunday Herald Times). de beauvoir writes these existential narratives in a bleak tone that feels suffocating—there is no real happy ending in sight, and it is clear from the get go. it seemed to siphon from the collective despair that we go through living in society as women, and while this may have been written decades ago, much of women’s default social dependence on men have not changed. Moglie di un medico, ha immolato tutta la sua vita per dedicarsi alle figlie ed al marito finché un giorno lui le confessa di tradirla e, da lì, si scoperchia un doloroso vaso di Pandora. En la actualidad, existe una alta demanda de heroínas, personajes de mujeres (jóvenes por lo general, curiosamente) descritas como fuertes, modelos a seguir. Desde el mundo anglosajón nos llega el "girl power", las "badass female characters": con arcos, domadoras de dragones, supercerebros varios.

De Beauvoir did this by design. The first line of the story reads “The Monologue is her form of revenge.” She knows how agonizing it must be to endure the seemingly endless soliloquy, so she employs it to make a point. De Beauvoir demands the attention of the reader, challenging her to persevere through an avalanche of disarrayed thoughts and words. She claims space for herself, knowing that she deserves it. Alexander Thorp Alexis de Tocqueville, the French thinker who keenly chronicled early American society, described the consequences of ever-increasing choice more than 170 years ago:

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The Woman Destroyed is Simone de Beauvoir’s beguiling fictional analysis of womanhood’s complexities. The work is a collection of three novellas, each featuring a different woman in crisis and trapped by circumstance. “The Age of Discretion” recounts the desperation of a successful professor and writer who feels her power and influence over her newly-married son slipping. “The Monologue” centers around an aging, rich woman sits at home, alone, and pours out her bitterness in a stream of consciousness diatribe. In the title story, an older heroine struggles to rediscover happiness after her husband confesses to an affair. The three stories, each captivating in its beautifully profound exploration of the woman’s mind, center around individuals battling the unstoppable passage of time, the inevitably of age, resounding loneliness, the indifference of loved ones, and the unfortunate decay of passion. Kids & husband gone leaving a 44-years old Monique absolutely with nothing just to mention one example.

What we have is a collection of three short stories The Age of Discretion, The Monologue, and The Woman Destroyed. They are all in the tragic mode, I apologise if you saw the title of the collection and imagined something different from a not exactly cheerful but well observed depiction of unhappy states of mind. They don't like being seen through: as for me I'm straight I don't join their act I tear masks off.” Despite the brevity of the book, many readers, both female and male, leave long, thoughtful musings on how the book has resonated with them. It could be that Simone de Beauvoir was tapping into a fictional form of confessional angst that was a bit before its time, and that has aged well.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

it's a collection of three stories about women past youth who, in short, are having lives they thought were settled suddenly cleaved into before and after. the first one was my favorite, five stars for it, but all three were clever and captivating and it's 4.5 altogether. A couple who go on living together merely because that was how they began, without any other reason: was that what we were turning into?”