Second Round for The Second Sex: A New Translation of de Beauvoir's Masterpiece

Back when I read Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, in the very early days of this website, I had this to say about it:

This book is peculiar and dense--heartening and illuminating at points; at others odd, what with its 50-year-old biology. Also strange is the experience of reading a book that I've already read so much about; I almost felt like I already had an opinion about it before I opened its covers. I'm still working on reading de Beauvoir for herself, outside of (her) cultural weight as a historical icon ... But the fact is, this woman is brimming with ideas, and she is clearly taking pains to explore her questions deeply. She begins with her hook--"What is a woman?"--and doesn't let go.

A huge portion of that "peculiarity" was due to the fact that the single English translation of de Beauvoir's masterpiece is generally considered to be very, very poor. While the author's brilliance can't be masked even by a patchy translator, crucial pieces of de Beauvior's philosophy--and all-around coherence--were lost when a Smith College zoologist took to rendering her book in English. The existentialism that was a key part of de Beauvoir's thinking (she was, incidentally, married to involved for decades with Jean-Paul Sartre) was lost by a translation process that simply didn't get it. The reason a zoologist was recruited to translate it was because folks thought The Second Sex was a popular sex manual for young women--a sort of female version of the Kinsey report. Also? The translator cut 20% of the book.

Given this, many feminist scholars in particular requested the opportunity to do a new translation of The Second Sex, one that is more accurate and more nuanced. Knopf said no, believing its audience to be too limited (never mind that this book is a mainstay on college syllabi). So those of us who don't read French were stuck with the shards of de Beauvior's philosophy buried in the English version. Until now.

The new English translation of The Second Sex was published in the UK last week by the publisher Jonathan Cape--just in time for the sixtieth anniversary of the book's original 1949 printing. The American edition is set for publication in April 2010. The new translators are Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier.

Why the change of heart? Sarah Glazer, whose writing did much to renew the momentum for a new translation, offers an overview in Bookforum. Le Monde has another, more recent, one. But the gist is that the anniversary of the book's publication, combined with the passion Jonathan Cape and the translators brought to the project, made it work.

So what's the new edition like? I have yet to see a copy myself, and I can't wait for it. But here's what Siobhan Murphy has to say in a British paper:

For its 60th  anniversary, Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier have created an unabridged and unsimplified translation revealing de Beauvoir's intelligent examination of the question 'what is a woman?' in all its glory.

Even when it was ill-served by its translator, The Second Sex profoundly resonated--as Toril Moi put it in her great profile of it in The Guardian--and earned descriptives like "groundbreaking." It pulses with energetic philosophy in her discussion of the limits of abstract freedom, of the difference between the "One" and the "Other," the strange weight put on behavior and social allegiances, and it was ahead of its time on challenging the gender binary: "One is not born, but rather becomes a woman," she writes.

Now that there's a new and more accurate, nuanced, clear version of de Beauvoir's vision, now that it is amplified, I can't wait to see its influence renewed, reshaped, and initiated all over again.

UPDATE: At BBC4, journalist Janine di Giovanni discusses the significance of The Second Sex, this new translation, and its relevance for contemporary readers.

Comments

[twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte]

Minor quibble: I don't think she and Sartre were married. They never lived together, but were lovers with a lot of tumult, from what I understand.

[Anna Clark]

Ooh, important clarification. Thank you, Amanda!

[Douglas James]

Please - Who holds the copyright to this photo of Simone De Beauvoir? What source did it come from? I would very much like to use this photo as a source to paint from (a favorable hommage painting) and seek permission from the copyright holder. The use would not be for commercial, political, negative, nor repetitive purposes - only to express my honor to this writer.
I would hope the administrators of this website might answer me. I have begun a series of hommage paintings of artists and writers who influenced me. I can supply more information upon request. - Douglas James

[Anna Clark]

I love the picture too, Douglas. But this photo was taken in Paris 1944 by KIKO DELGADO, according to this site: http://www.elcorreogallego.es/index.php?idEdicion=818&idMenu=11&idNoticia=275166