Simone de Beauvoir: Main Page | Thought Provoking Quotes by Simone de Beauvoir | join Simone de Beauvoir discussion Group on FaceBook | Simone de Beauvoir Life and Times 1 | Simone de Beauvoir Life and Times 2 | Jean Paul Sartre -- Beauvoir's Lifelong Companion | join Realm of Existentialism discussion Group on FaceBook

A Very Easy Death

This is not the waxing-poetically, sugar-coated, we'll all be together again someday version of dying and death (for that, head on over to Aspirennies.com. (for the observer) Dying is ugly, smelly, painful, dreadful, stressful, emotional, real -- watching one die is absolute Hell. Thus, it is depicted by Simone de Beauvoir in A Very Easy Death.

"For indeed, comparatively speaking, her death was an easy one. "Don't leave me in the power of the brutes.""

It all boils down to have an operation and perhaps live a bit longer or euthanatize and be done with it. The subject is death and dying is a main theme of Existentialism, as it deals with the individual and reality. Simone de Beauvoir's mother is 78 and lives alone -- by choice. She has broken the main femur (A bone of the leg situated between the pelvis and knee in human beings. It is the largest and strongest bone in the body. Also called thighbone.). While in the hospital, it is discovered that this is the least of her problems, as she has peritonitis, a blockage in her intestine, a tumor, cancer. She will surely die (almost immediately) without an operation. Simone must decide. Very well written, A Very Easy Death takes place over a 4 week period -- that is how long de Beauvoir's mother lived, after the operation -- cramming as much life and reality between the book covers as possible, without being sappy or tedious.

"I thought of all those who have no one to make that appeal: what agony it must be to feel oneself a defenceless thing, utterly at the mercy of indifferent doctors and over-worked nurses. No hand on the forehead when terror seizes them; no sedative as soon as pain begins to tear them; no lying prattle to fill the silence of the void."

This book is about as real as it gets! --Realm of Existentialism --Katharena Eiermann, 2006