A Very Easy Death

De Beauvoir' s Brutally Honest Memoir on Death & Dying I had never read any of De Beauvoir' s work before this one, though I certainly had heard of her pivotal Feminist work, "The Second Sex." This memoir us a painful, but necessary read which focuses on De Beauvoir' s painful experiences of watching her mother's decline and death. De Beauvoir' s writing us brutally frank as she describes her mother's death with devastating accuracy. Death is never pretty and De Beauvoir' s language is full of the ugliness of death, but gentle at the sa. A well-written memoir on the subject Priscilla Stilwell I am taking a class on death and this is one of the required readings. I found it well written and a fairly easy read since it's short, but even with the small size, it tends to drag on at times. My biggest disappointment is that I didn't really learn anything about the author. It's like she's holding us at arms-length the whole time.. I respect and like De Beauvoir's work but this book did not meet NinaBina There was something very adolescent about the writin stle that turned me off. That being said, I respect and like De Beauvoir's work but this book did not meet my expectations.

This is a difficult book to read as it must have been a difficult book to write Unsparing in its depiction of a human being in her inevitable encounter with extinction, it illustrates the general tragedy of the human condition through a particularized instance. A book of near despair, yet dignified.”—Library Journal. “This book is written with restrained emotion and a literalness, a faithfulness to fact, that is very moving coming from a woman whom we have known as dedicated to abstractions

Considered by many to be the master work by Simone de Beauvoir, A Very Easy Death focuses on death and the other limitations in one's life and with what attitude one approaches them. Like most people, they believed that it would be better to die than to continue to suffer, but their mother had a very different view of the matter. When her mother was in the hospital with terminal cancer, Simone had time to reminisce about her mother's early life, as Simone and her sister, Poupette, prepared to face the decision of whether to prolong a life when it is full of suffering. Francoise de Beauvoir had finally found happiness in her life, and she truly believed she could find happiness in her own suffering. Through her mother's beauty, her smile, and her pride in her life and in herself, Simone learned that to be human and to have individual choice are the most import