December 3, 2012
Groult, a proud, sassy feminist, is well known in France forâamong other ouvresâher then-racy novel Salt on Our Skin and her widely-read Ainsi soit-elle, which alerted many French readers for the first time to the practice of female genital mutilation. Whether one is familiar or not with Groult's work, this book is delightful for its frequently beautiful prose, and appealing for how it deals with controversial subjects (abortion, female subjugation, sexism in language). Intimate memories of the author's childhoodâskiing with her father, wonder-gawking at her motherâand adulthood are fraught with struggle and questioning, as are her loves and love affairs. Misgivings about daughter-, mother-, grandmother-, and wife-hood decorate Groult's story, to which she adds interviews as well as analyses of women's treatment both in literature and in society at large. She endears herself to readers through profound insights and a generous sense of humor; her honest and occasionally bawdy style is a major plus. Though the book is not always seamless in its construction, it is clear that what Groult remembers and contemplates matters deeply to her. In that sense this book embodies what an autobiography should be: a careful selection of memories, anecdotes, and observations that gives the feeling of having conversed with a wonderful and memorable person.
November 1, 2012
Frank, no-nonsense reflections by the French novelist about her gradual road to feminism through World War II, three husbands and the embrace of the writing life. Describing herself as docile and untalented as a child, Groult became a "timorous teenager" by 1939. She writes that it took the next 20 years for her to awaken the "deep sleep of [her] intelligence" and sexuality. In these warm, outspoken reflections on her coming-of-age and maturity, Groult blames the deep-seated misogyny of the time for her early feelings of insignificance: the patriarchal Catholic schools, the lack of strong female role models, the pressure on young women to find husbands, the lack of meaningful careers and derision generally held for women with education. Like her literary model, Simone de Beauvoir, Groult was bookish and conflicted continually by the tension to achieve as well as be attractive to men. Confined to occupied Paris with her family, she writes unreservedly about French anti-Semitism ("The Jews had their own fate which didn't concern me"), her brief first marriage to a dying consumptive poet and her sexual enlightenment thanks to a newly liberated Paris full of American soldiers. Her marriage to the dashing journalist Georges de Caunes opened doors as a radio journalist during a frightening time when she had to seek abortions every few months. A new marriage and the women's movement spurred her breakthrough best-seller Ainsi soit-elle in 1975, inspired by stories of female circumcision. A question-and-answer format with journalist and biographer Josyane Savigneau marks the later chapters. A cleareyed memoir by a writer resolved to claim her "place on the battlefield of feminism."
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