Much of the press unleashed violent sarcasm. Le Monde , with Josyane Savigneau, was nearly the only source to proclaim the interest of the Diary and the Letters , the freeness of their tone. I watched this deluge of mocking or contemptuous reactions with amazement. And also with some satisfaction: de Beauvoir was still troublesome.
Instead of looking at the Diary and the Letters in relation to their function β as is evidenced in the very genre of writing they fall into, writing the self and immediacy, places where another truth can be written β they were seen as proof of the lie of her life and her philosophy.
For me, Simone de Beauvoir β whether she wanted to be or not β was faithful to her project of demystification and provided, from beyond the grave, new proof of her freedom. Appearing on television is an ordeal I agree to as little as possible.
However, that day, I accepted without hesitation. In my diary, on February 24, , I wrote this:. Without her, without her image throughout my youth and my formative years, no doubt I would not quite be what I am. If I quote these sentences here, it is because to me they seem to sum up, with spontaneity and, I believe, sincerity, the role that Simone de Beauvoir had in my life and on the meaning I have conferred on the act of writing. I must say that I never met Simone de Beauvoir and I never tried to do so: out of shyness, because of distance β I lived far away from Paris β but mainly because I have always been convinced that seeing a writer or artist in person adds nothing to his or her work.
Like thousands of women, it was through her books and her public image as a committed writer that I experienced my relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. During the Easter holidays, I visit a friend from a middle-class background who has left school and whose father has a large personal library. I flip through it and my friend agrees to lend it to me. I also take Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. These upheavals of the self caused by a book are not the privilege of youth but when one is young, they possess a unique power and, I believe, a type of irreversibility.
