Inseparable: A Novel

Living the beauty of Sylvie and Andree's (Simone and Zaza's) bond was a journey of self discovery. Each character, brilliantly brought to life, held a mirror up to me. The critiques of religion and the exploration of the meaning of freedom are important, but the critiques of myself the ideas inspired were truly scathing. Through her prose born from a beautifully tragic relationship de Beauvoir painted a picture of me that is as poignant as it is gut wrenching. I am each character. In some way Simone's words are inseparable to me. I'll reflect on this story for quite a while.

Inseparable, a heretofore unpublished novel by Simone de Beauvoir, is worth reading for Margaret Atwood’s introduction alone. There readers learn that de Beauvoir decided not to publish the book after the “great” Jean Paul Sartre dismissed its focus on the lives of young women as uninteresting and unworthy compared to existentialism’s significant themes. Sartre was wrong. The book IS indeed about the search for a raison d’être, among women living within the confines of religious, social, and intellectual expectations of post-WWI France. What transforms the book from didacticism into a moving novel is the story of the intense love the narrator Sylvie feels for her schoolmate Andrée, a lively rebel who is nevertheless bound by duty to her mother, social class, and God. The characters are barely disguised versions of de Beauvoir herself and her childhood friend Zaza. The novel captures the asexual passion that women carry for their girlfriends. Any woman who has been devastated by the end of such a relationship — whether from an irreparable rift, diverging lives, or death — will understand the enormity of the lingering fixation on the beloved and the pain of losing her. As a writer of historical fiction (see my Amazon author page www.amazon.com/author/asewovenwords), I admire how the picture of a particular place and time is balanced with universal portraits of unforgettable individuals. Just as Andrée (Zaza) stayed with Sylvie (Simone) for the rest of her life, so will the…

It is certainly not as well written as her later works. Sartre was right, it is inconsequential.

This is a semi-autobiographical story of de Beauvoir and her best friend, Zaza, starting at about ten years old. They met at an exclusive French Catholic school for girls from the ‘best families.’ They were the two best students and Simone was more dependent on the relationship than was the other girl who came from a large family with parents obsessed by their religion. Both parents were active in church groups and the family took an annual pilgrimage to the shrine at Lourdes. One daughter was already a nun, and one son a priest. The author wrote many autobiographical and semi-autobiographical novels and Zaza is featured in four of her novels. Even in this story, we learn more about Zaza’s family and life than that of Simone’s. The second half of the book becomes Zaza’s tragic story, not the author. (In the book Zaza is called Andree and Simone is called Sylvie.) Simone hung out with Zaza’s family. Zaza’s mother kept all her children occupied in an endless swirl of chores, visits to relatives, picnics and outings, so much so that Simone and Zaza seldom had a chance to converse together. (Idle hands are the devil's workshop, I guess.) The mother also feared Simone was a bad influence on her daughter because Simone drifted away from religious feelings very early in her life. It's amazing to me that this completed novel was only in 2020, given that it was finished in 1954. The author died in 1986. The introduction by Margaret Atwood tells us that it was thought ‘too…

This short novel was written in 1954 by acclaimed philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir but was never published until now. It is a fictionalized story of her close friendship with Zaza Lacoin, renamed Andrée here. Sylvie (de Beauvoir) meets Andrée when are young girls at Catholic school during World War 1. She’s intensely drawn to her. (Sylvie is obsessed with Andrée’s burned thigh.) They develop a close friendship that sustains them through romantic and familial difficulties. As the two girls grow into young women, they struggle with the rigid social and religious mores of the time. How can a young woman define her own identity in the face of such strict expectations? Andrée wrestles with the meaning of her strict Catholic faith and what it means for her own life. Sylvie wonders whether Andrée shares her all-consuming love. They strain to find time together in the face of the extensive family responsibilities Andrée’s mother imposes on her. In time, love and the question of marriage rears its troublesome head. Joy and sadness result. Through it all, their friendship buoys them. Inseparable is beautifully written. There are many lush descriptions of nature (“The wind enthralled me. I felt that from one end of the earth to the other, the trees spoke to each other and spoke to God; it sounded like both music and a prayer were piercing my heart before rising to the heavens”; emotions; amusing and pointed characterizations. de Beauvoir opens a window onto a time when…