Originally published in France in 1948, and here translated for the
first time into English, this captivating journal records American
culture as seen by the young, fiercely intelligent Beanvoir. Her
observations rove in topic from "the dream of rootedness" to "the
giddy exhilaration of the car and the wind," and from the American
obsession with material satisfaction to the nature of individual
freedom. Beauvoir lands in New York in January of 1947, equipped
with four flexible months, a promising letter of introduction from
her companion, Jean-Paul Sartre, and The Second Sex not yet
written. Though she's a literary sensation, she's anonymous on the
street, which proves to be a huge advantage. Beanvoir travels from
New York to Los Angeles and back by car, train, and Greyhound,
relishing the "lavish monotony" of a landscape unlike Europe in its
"splendid stubbornness." She's enchanted by the optimism and
affability she finds around her, by "the specific American
poetry"of the drugstore. She wanders into Chicago's bar-hopping
morphine underworld with her lover Nelson Algren; she also mingles
with the dreamy and disillusioned youth of America's Ivy League. As
the Red Scare accelerates, she grows preoccupied with the American
fixation on liberty. She's struck by our passion for solitude,
coupled with our voyeuristic interest in the lives of the rich and
famous. Sometimes she rants, clinging to her identity as a French
intellectual while condemning the "ghastly opulence" of the US.
Beauvoir remains both "dazzled" and"disappointed" by the
extravagance of her subject, by "the battle it is waging with
itself, in which the stakes are beyond measure." Brainy and
imaginative, critical and rhapsodic - and not to be missed. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Here is the ultimate American road book, one with a perspective
unlike that of any other. In January 1947 Simone de Beauvoir landed
at La Guardia airport and began a four-month journey that took her
from one coast of the United States to the other, and back again.
Embraced by the Conde Nast set in a swirl of cocktail parties in
New York, where she was hailed as the 'prettiest existentialist' by
Janet Flanner in "The New Yorker", de Beauvoir traveled west by
car, train, and Greyhound, immersing herself in the nation's
culture, customs, people, and landscape. The detailed diary she
kept of her trip became "America Day by Day", published in France
in 1948 and offered here in a completely new translation. It is one
of the most intimate, warm, and compulsively readable texts from
the great writer's pen. Fascinating passages are devoted to
Hollywood, the Grand Canyon, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and San
Antonio. We see de Beauvoir gambling in a Reno casino, smoking her
first marijuana cigarette in the Plaza Hotel, donning raingear to
view Niagara Falls, lecturing at Vassar College, and learning
firsthand about the Chicago underworld of morphine addicts and
petty thieves with her lover Nelson Algren as her guide. This
fresh, faithful translation superbly captures the essence of Simone
de Beauvoir's distinctive voice. It demonstrates once again why she
is one of the most profound, original, and influential writers and
thinkers of the twentieth century. On New York: 'I walk between the
steep cliffs at the bottom of a canyon where no sun penetrates:
it's permeated by a salt smell. Human history is not inscribed on
these carefully calibrated buildings: They are closer to
prehistoric caves than to the houses of Paris or Rome'. On Los
Angeles: 'I watch the Mexican dances and eat chili con carne, which
takes the roof off my mouth, I drink the tequila and I'm utterly
dazed with pleasure'.
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