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Cover of Les Mandarins

Les Mandarins

Simone de Beauvoir

First published 1979 · 890 pages

A smoky, intellectually charged immersion into the messy loves and political disillusionments of post-war Parisian existentialists.

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What it feels like

Reading this novel feels like pulling up a chair in a smoky Left Bank café at midnight, surrounded by brilliant, exhausted people arguing passionately about the future of the world. The pace is steady and immersive, demanding your full attention as it weaves dense philosophical debates with raw, messy romantic entanglements. It captures a deeply restless, melancholic mood, steeped in the hangover of war and the crushing weight of newfound freedom. The prose is analytical yet fiercely intimate, dissecting the characters' political ideals and personal betrayals with equal precision. It is a magnificent, sprawling experience that will delight readers who love mid-century European history, existential dread, and watching deeply flawed intellectuals navigate the agonizing gap between theory and reality.

Mood
  • smoky
  • melancholic
  • restless
  • intellectually charged
Tone
  • introspective
  • philosophical
  • passionate
  • cynical
  • earnest
Pace
steady
Themes
political disillusionment · the burden of freedom · messy romantic entanglements · existential dread · the role of the intellectual
The writing
Dense, analytical, and deeply psychological, blending sharp philosophical discourse with raw emotional intimacy.
The arc
Moves from the euphoric, idealistic hope of post-war liberation to the sobering, complex realities of political and personal compromise.
Who it's for
Readers who crave immersive, mid-century European atmospheres filled with brilliant, flawed people arguing about politics and love in smoky cafes.
Content notes
  • infidelity
  • suicidal ideation
  • depression
  • discussions of war and trauma

About the book

This information is part of the Rutgers Inventory of Machine-Readable Texts in the Humanities.

Title from bibliography of texts supplied by contact person.

Electronic text of: Beauvoir, Simone de,1908-. Mandarins: roman. Paris: Gallimard, 1954.

The ARTFL Project; American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language, Department of Romance Languages and Literature, The University of Chicago, 1050 E. 59th St., Chicago IL 60637; USA; artfl@artfl.uchicago.edu.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Description from Open Library.

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