From our "guest blogger", Catherine Poisson (author of Sartre et Beauvoir: du je au nous / Sartre and Beauvoir: From the I to the We):
Reading Anne-Laure Fayard’s last blog entry, I learned the term “addressing mechanism” which, if I understand it correctly, could be translated in my environment (French studies) as the reader(s) of a text. Yet the very term “mechanism” is in fact particularly apt in translating the network of addressees in the work and correspondence of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
During their entirely life Sartre and Beauvoir established what they named a federative world that is a world common to both, yet a world in which they retained their very own existence and personality. A world, to say it rapidly, in which you can experience the other, be the other, establish a “we” while not losing the “I”. A lot can be said about the pitfalls of such a project but, to come back to the subject of writing and sharing, it might be interesting to take a look at a particular time in Sartre and Beauvoir’s life during the war.
Sartre has been drafted, Beauvoir is in Paris within their circle of friends. Both of them at the time are writing novels, which rely heavily on their personal life. They write to one another almost daily and also sustain correspondence with other friends or lovers. Moreover, they both write their own diary, which they exchange for mutual reading. In other words, one can find the narration of a particular event or the evolution of a thought in various forms depending on the time it was written and whom it was addressed to. What is most interesting is the fact that one cannot decide that the letter is systematically superior to the philosophical entry or the fictional account or vice versa. At one point in this network of reiterations (mechanism), something happens and the reader comes across the perfection of a thought.
It is tempting to think that it is precisely because the text is not quite what it seems to be that it manages to achieve more - to say more/go further - than others. The entry diary is not an intimate exercise as Sartre and Beauvoir shared them. Their personal letters circulate within friends and lovers, and one might think that Sartre, at least, knew at that point they would be made public later in his life. Can we speculate on the fact that the shifting nature of a text is what might allow for its richness but that there are no recipes for success in communication?
Thank you Catherine for sharing your thoughts on addressing (which indeed refers to the reader, real and imagined) and its role in the writing of Sartre and Beauvoir, and in particular in their correspondence and diaries.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to note that while we often tend to think of diaries and letters as private (or semi-private), they were for Beauvoir and Sartre quite public. It is worth acknowledging that this public (or semi-public) nature of letters is not an exception. In our book, Anca and I discuss in details the Republic of Letters, and the role of letters that were shared among members of the community. And the Republic of Letters is not the only case where letters were semi-public.
I find very interesting how you stress the fluidity and flexibility of writing (which can be enacted through various genres) and show how this allows the writer to multiply the expression of a thought. Through these multiple occurrences, as you note, the perfection of a thought might emerge. This points to a perspective on writing as a process (rather than a trace) through which thinking is enacted.
I need to ponder on your last question regarding the shifting of the texts and its implications for communication.
Thank you!
al