A Very Easy Death: A Memoir

by Simone de Beauvoir

Book Overview

A Very Easy Death has long been considered one of Simone de Beauvoir's masterpieces. The profoundly moving, day-by-day recounting of her mother's death "shows the power of compassion when it is allied with acute intelligence" (The Sunday Telegraph). Powerful, touching, and sometimes shocking, this is an end-of-life account that no reader is likely to forget.

Translated by Patrick O'Brian

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394728998
• ISBN13: 9780394728995
• Release Date: February 1985
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Simone,Simone,Simone

Simone,Simone,Simone. Whenever someone asked me "did you read Sartre?" ,I usually intend to say "yes,lots of books of him ".but actually other than 1-2 books,I heard Sartre a lot from Simone.Anyway,I read this book 10 years ago probably,and as for the other books of her I enjoyed much.It is about the death of her mother.I remembered that in one part of the book ,her mother wanted to hear that Simone becomes religous,but Simone still defended her believes about being a nonreligous woman,eventhough her mother was dying.I really like that ,because no matter what ,she was always behind her ideas,believes,feelings.She was a strong woman.She was smart.I do not admire people,but if I would, I would admire to her.I remember a saying of her which I want to be :"Being a woman,who thinks like a man,and who feels like a woman".In short,in this book you can see her strength as an independent woman again.Enjoy her ,and start to think independtly.Thanks to my dad for putting Simone's books in his library so that I could discover it.

Forget Sartre; De Beauvoir by way of Camus

While enjoyable, this isn't a particularly great memoir. I find it to be a bit choppy, and most of the characters (including De Beauvoir herself) come off as exceedingly unlikable. Still, the subject of death is an interesting one, and the novel is short enough that anyone who is interested enough to consider reading it really has nothing to lose.What I do find most interesting, however, is how De Beauvoir (who consults her over-rated companion Sartre in the memoir) seems to be preaching Albert Camus' concept of the quantitative life, and living life with full consciousness. Ultimately, the memoir is rather tragic because De Beauvoirs' dying, once inauthentic mother realizes this on her death bed, when it's too late. It's an excellent message, and although it's better from Camus' pen, it is interesting hearing it from De Beauvoir as well.

Death Comes Not So Easily

This is a book I would put on a must read list. Death has been spirited away behind closed doors, and banished from our thoughts until it forces its way through, as it always will. This is a must read for anyone working in "Health Care" or with the elderly, also anyone counseling families and the dying. I would hope to find it on a required reading list for medical schools as well. de Beauvoir gives an honest, raw account of her thoughts and fears as her Mother dies; it is a bit reassuring to see that not all of those thoughts are pure and idyllic. She gives any ethics committee a firm reference point in the consideration of assisted death vs. assisted living. Read this book, it will enhance your life.

I LOVE MY MOMMY!

The connection we have with our mothers is sacred. They are what brought us into this world, but the only thing that could separate us tighter is death. Our spirits and memories are ours to keep, but there is no longer any physical connection. In "A Very Easy Death", a relationship with a mother and daughter had gotten closer because of a death. In this death is what bonds the daughter to give full dedication and devotion to be with her mother. Unfortunately, the death that is connecting both daughter and mother is the death of her mother that is about to occur. Cancer is what is taking her mother away from her. While her mother is suffering and fighting against the cancer, the daughter is there by her side. She notices, "a full-blooded, spirited woman lived on inside her, but a stranger to herself, deformed and mutilated (Beauvoir 43)." Simone, the daughter, sees her full-hearted, spirited mother inside, but the cancer is the stranger of her body that is deforming and mutilating her. Although, Simone shows no suffering when she's around her mother, but she is indeed disturb when she's alone. Her mother is leaving her. Simone state "everyday had an irreplaceable value for her. And she was going to die. She did not know it: but I did. In her name, I revolted against it (Beauvoir 83)." Simone is spending precious time with her mother - spending valuable time, but the cancer is what is stopping her mother to notice it. The cancer has taken over her mother's life. This still does not stop Simone from being with her though. There is nowhere in doubt I'll leave my mother while she's miserable and suffering all at once. I cannot bare to think my mother actually leaving me, but it has to happen eventually. In "A Very Easy Death", Simone's mother demonstrates a role model on her own daughter and me. She displays a true role model that is fighting against her death. I enjoyed this novel dearly. It showed me that I should always keep that connection I have with my mother until the day "I" die.

An eye-opening experience of losing a mother to cancer

DeBeauvoir writes so that each word holds as much importance as each drip of life-sustaining solution pulsing into her mother's withering limbs. A Very Easy Death leads readers through the changing labyrinth of emotions surrounding the graphically-described death of the author's mother while undergoing care in Paris. On eloquent display is DeBeauvoir's heartache, anger, and confusion regarding the painful treatment of her cancer-ridden mother by two unrelenting doctors. Readers become DeBeauvoir's confidants, as through her torment she reveals her questioning of religion and the human body,as well as society and class issues. An expressive tale that challenges and explores cultural perspectives on death and dying.