Sartre et Beauvoir: du Je au Nous by Catherine Poisson (review)

Book Reviews155 Catherine Poisson. Sartre et Beauvoir: du je au nous. Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi (Faux Titre 225), 2002. Pp 211. ISBN: 90-420-1470-9. (Paper) $40.00. The myth of the Sartre-Beauvoir "monument" persists after the deaths of these highly respected writers. Poisson reexamines the myth, tracing the formation ofthe "official" portrait that Sartre and Beauvoir chose for themselves . "Toute ma vie, j'ai vécu public," Sartre wrote in his Carnets (19). Densely written, and drawing on overly disparate critical models. Poisson's book nevertheless avoids jargon, while focusing minutely on the texts ofthe early novels and letters. The issues pivotal to Sartre's and Beauvoir's writings and their rapport littéraire grew out ofself-scrutiny and scrutiny ofthe other. Poisson postulates that separation during the Phony War, ten years into their relationship, formed their commitment. Not until they began to write each other did they begin to discuss and analyze, on a daily basis, the nature oftheir nous. This became the "mise en place non-dite d'un rapport à l'autre et à l'écriture du nous qui durera cinquante ans" (53). As one writes, the other reads, and vice versa. The significant and novel point made by Poisson is not that this relationship with the other —the privileged nous—merely informed their writings, but rather that their writing grew out ofthat commitment. "La relation Sartre-Beauvoir fonctionne à partir du rapport que chacun entretient à son écriture, mais aussi à partir du rapport que chacun entretient à l'écriture de l'autre" (160). Sartre and Beauvoir never published anything the other had not fully critiqued. Each played for the other the double role of muse and censor, with the judgment ofBeauvoir, the correctrice, seeming to prevail for Sartre. (In the opening scene ofL 'Invitée, Pierre appears content to have Françoise rewrite his play!) The concept of a nous was not original to either of them. It antedated their meeting and was not originally sexualized. Sartre and his mother formed a couple, as did he and Paul Nizan. Beauvoir had her friendship with Zaza (Elizabeth Lacoin). To say nous means to link the other with oneself, recognizing his or her equality. But there is tension. Saying nous risks drawing theje (or self) out ofthe other, thus diluting or exploiting it. In his letters to Simone Jollivet, Olga Kosakiewicz, and Beauvoir, Poisson sees Sartre reverting to an elitist "we," writing, for example to Jollivet, "si tu nous écris," referring only to himself(76). The use ofnous also bolstered the Sartre-Beauvoir couple, permitting them to maintain others in a position of dependence. Beauvoir appealed to Sartre's sense of solidarity, stating that compared with other of their women acquaintances, who were weak, "nous sommes solides vous et moi" (73). Next, Poisson examines, in a long chapter entitled "Transpositions et fictions du nous," the two early, parallel novels ofBeauvoir and Sartre, L 'Invitée ( 1 943) and L 'Age de raison ( 1 945). Both use a technique Poisson calls mentirvrai . Poisson scrutinizes the real-life trios formed with Olga and Nathalie Sorokine. The trio implies issues of sexuality, seduction, and the untenable 1 56Women in French Studies position of the third person vis-à-vis the couple. L 'Age de raison betrays Sartre's doubts about the theoretical elaboration ofthe couple, while Poisson thinks L 'Invitée translated more faithfully the structure of the trio Beauvoir experienced, reclaiming herself via the mechanism ofthe murder-transfer of Xavière. Poisson illuminates that period in ways overlooked by critics who credit Beauvoir with all the originality in the couple's thinking. She centers it in Sartre's philosophical obsession, "le regarda'autruiG As he says in L 'Etre et le néant, it suffices for two lovers to be seen together by a third person for each member of the couple to feel "objectified," not only vis-à-vis him- or herself but vis-à-vis the other. Such objectification can threaten the nous. Poisson cites Emile Benveniste: "Le nous ... est non pas une multiplication d'objets identiques, mais une jonction entre 'je' et le 'non-je,' quel que soit le contenu de ce 'non-je'" (71). Finally, Poisson notes that both their nous...