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Review of the Second Sex by Simone De Beauvoir, Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier DePauw University Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University English Faculty publications English 9-2010 The Grand Rectification: Review of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. Meryl Altman DePauw University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.depauw.edu/eng_facpubs Part of the Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons Recommended Citation Altman, Meryl. "The Grand Rectification." Rev. of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. The Women's Review of Books 27.5 (2010): 3-6. Print. Obtained from JSTOR with permission from the author and the publisher and in compliance with JSTOR's terms and conditions. This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the English at Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty publications by an authorized administrator of Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Grand Rectification The Second Sex By Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010, 776 pp., $40.00, hardcover Reviewed byMeryl Altmm a confidence, enlightenment, and pleasure. Which is Many may wonder why the editors chose, not or a good thing indeed, because the challenges philosopher other Beauvoir scholar to translate Beauvoir issued to thinkingwomen everywhere are Vie Second Sex but rather, these two,who describe not only still relevant but more urgent than ever. I themselves as activists and language teachers, and hope this new translation will encourage scholars who don't seem ever to have taken on such an who may have hesitated to work with or quote ambitious project before. But in some ways I from a text thatwas known to be poorly translated think the choice was a good one, since Borde or and have no to revisit The Second Sex, perhaps to take it Malovany-Chevallier particular stake in what Beauvoir meant." seriously for the firsttime, and that itwill also give professional "really Beauvoir's a new afterlife for readers well Each of of wants to be as faithful as thought us, course, to Beauvoir?that is to to our beyond the academy. possible say, Beauvoir, ^The new translation isn't perfect. How could it be? But it's very much better and can be read with confidence, enlightenment, and pleasure." The integrityof this new translationmatches the for there are many Some (though not all) ofwhat earnest purpose with which the book was originally Moi, in her review, labels "errors" look like errors account about based on Moi's own of Beauvoir's written: to encyclopedically for just interpretation women and to a out of work?an I find but that's every impasse face point way interpretation brilliant, as to them, Beauvoir says, "towards independence." not the point. Beauvoir's theory is rich enough controversies about how to Parshley may have meant well; but he felthe knew have generated interpret more on a than Beauvoir did variety of topics, and it. (For instance, she has been accused both of paying Simone de Beauvoir in a Chicago hotel room, 1952. betrayed that condescension not only through cuts too much attention and of not paying attention to differences between men and and distortions but also in occasional knowing enough women.) at to based translators would It was a scandal ofmodern intellectualmisogyny. asides, totally cross-purposes Beauvoir's points. Academically undoubtedly in have been more and who teach For almost sixty years, themajor work by the Borde and Malovany-Chevallier, contrast, have opinionated, people a I have major feminist philosopher and thinker of our attempted to be faithful, down to microscopic The Second Sex regularly (as do) might on succumbed to the to Beauvoir out" time, Simone de Beauvoir, could be read by level. Their insistence minimizing the truth that temptation "help a translation involves reveals a word a there. Borde and Anglophones only in translation that silently every interpretation by inserting here, gloss some have remained and deleted some fifteen percent of the text; that of the impossible, intractable problems that Malovany-Chevallier admirably and sometimes made neutral carelesslymangled philosophical terms,garbling the any translator faces; they have responsibly throughout. on argument; and that distorted Beauvoir's position things unnecessarily harder for a number of other things that have turned out to themselves (and for readers). But their as choices were made with matter rather badly, such her attitude toward systematic an maternity, her acknowledgment of the historical integrityand are explained clearly in to contributions of women, and her attention honest and transparent way. seems material conditions. Now, thanks to agitation by It particularly praiseworthy scholars such as Simons and Toril the to Margaret Moi, that they resisted temptation journalists such as Sarah Glazer, and (I'd like to modernize and create a sort of "Beauvoir we nos "he" to think) feminist bookbuyers everywhere, at last pour jours"?by changing or or "sex" to for have the Grand Rectification. Translators Constance "he she," "gender" Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier have brought example. That would have damaged us an English version that, in theirwords, will "say our ability to read Beauvoir historically what Simone de Beauvoir said as close as possible to and to sift out what continues to be theway she said it." valuable. In addition, in the case of not over. "sex" versus it would not But the controversy is Toril Moi, who "gender," when to use did so much to alert us all to the flaws in H.M. always have been clear Pars hi ey's 1953 translation, has expressed her keen which term. While Beauvoir's work see disappointment with the new version in the London helped second-wave feminists the Review of Books (February 11, 2010). Other scholars difference between "natural" sex and common in as and constructed she herself and readers have weighed well, socially gender, by the time you read this, therewill undoubtedly never formulates the distinction in a those terms. To it anachronisti be sheaf of conflicting reviews. impose The new translation isn't How could it more than it perfect. cally would have obscured be? But it's very much better and can be read with would have illuminated. Women's Review of Books 3 This content downloaded from 163.120.69.225 on Mon, 21 Sep 2015 14:11:00 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ^Beauvoir's honest lucidityabout the way class and race loyalties are impediments to female solidarity is hardly outdated. Her discussion of the predicament of the adolescent girl,who is condemned to be seen rather than to do (and which includes a reflection on what we now call eating disorders), remains unparalleled." cultivate it as a source of self knowledge and vigor and energy to the text: I prefer "the principle use as to expression, and it the basis critique of marriage is obscene" to Parshley's "marriage is patriarchal institutions. obscene in principle," which leaves open the possibility that in practice theremay be nothing If that sentence ismeant to direct us to the "new obscene about it at all?which may be true,but if s French fen?nists" of a few decades ago, if s worth not what Beauvoir meant. remembering that Beauvoir lived long enough to Although I am very familiarwith The Second Sex, encounter, and dismiss, that rather dangerous bout the new translation freshens certain sections, of silliness. But Thurman is less interested in particularly that on myth. And our standpoint has arguing through any of these positions than in moved with time in curious and unexpected ways. establishing the book's appeal to a middlebrow The parts of the biology chapter dealing with audience, suggesting that younger readers might prenatal development and nonhuman animals, at best appreciate it as a "personal meditation." which my eyes used to glaze over, now looksmuch more interesting in light of the feminist science This is help The Second Sex does not need. studies of Anne Fausto-Sterling and Marlene Zuk. Young readers will find Beauvoir speaking Beauvoir's discussion ofwhat we would now call quite directly to questions they actually have, "intersexuality" no longer seems like a digression. for instance, "Is feminism over?" and, "Can I be a Another happy feature of this translation is that feminist without denying that being a woman is in restoring all the long quotations, it restores the Iwish I could say the same for JudithThurman's important to me, and that biology matters?" feeling of thinking-with, writing-with, Colette, a breezy and patronizing introduction,which seems Beauvoir's honest lucidity about theway class and Sophie Tolstoy, Wilhelm Stekel, and myriad of aimed at a popular audience. Thurman is the race loyalties are impediments to female solidarity is other creative and scientific writers. Pruning the author of Secrets of theFlesh (1999), a pretty good hardly outdated. Her discussion of the predicament quotations obscured the function of The Second Sex as a biography of Colette (and more recently of a of the adolescent girl,who is condemned to be seen minianthology and eliminated the feeling of a on on delightfully wry piece in a recentNew Yorker about rather than to do (and which includes reflection "thick description." In the chapter themarried we were shopping forwrinkle cream). Philosophers may feel what we now call eating disorders), remains woman, for instance, deprived of apt one of their number would have been more unparalleled. It is not superfluous to be reminded quotations fromVirginia Woolf, Gaston Bachelard, suitable.
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