Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The ideas of French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir ground the advice in this thoughtful guide by philosopher Cleary (Existentialism and Romantic Love). To be authentic as de Beauvoir understood it, Cleary suggests, one must "create our essence through our choices" and think critically about "mystifications," or the common cultural narratives that shape how people view and interpret the world: "It can be exceedingly difficult to tease apart what is influenced by outside forces and what one authentically wants." Cleary updates de Beauvoir's critique of instant gratification for the digital era, lambasting "fast fashion, slot machines, social media feeds" for providing fleeting satisfaction that leads to enduring discontentment, and she urges readers to instead "take control of our own projects so that we can be free to create our own happiness." References to Lizzo and The Good Place help make de Beauvoir's jargon-heavy philosophy accessible to lay readers, but some of Cleary's colloquialisms might elicit some groans ("Gouges foresaw that the haters were going to hate"). This lucid introduction to de Beauvoir and existentialism has some worthwhile insights. (Aug.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy has lately fallen out of fashion, but Cleary (Existentialism and Romantic Love) is interested in showing her as a thinker in her own right, whose ethics are a guide for life. For Beauvoir, authentic living is a matter of creating oneself by one's own free choices rather than striving toward some idealized image. Two principles guide this process: that one may transcend one's physical and social state by being for oneself, and that genuine freedom depends on our being for one another. The latter marks Beauvoir as a distinctive and innovative ethical thinker among existentialist philosophers. Focusing on the mutuality found in friendship, romance, marriage, and parenting, Cleary navigates between shoals of objectifying the other and losing oneself by trying to find meaning in that other. She then outlines the dispositions and structures that thwart authenticity and must be thrown off. Cleary celebrates Beauvoir as a woman who rebelled against the structures she confronted, but also criticizes her inability to see those we now confront. VERDICT Cleary brings a modern and neglected voice in applied ethics to a level that readers have recently seen with Aristotle and the Stoics.--James Wetherbee
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Can a person try to be authentic? Contrary to its popular characterization, existentialism has never been a philosophy of darkness and despair. Its preoccupation with death is better understood as the background that enables a passionate embrace of life. What, after all, is more life-affirming than the notion that a person can, within certain limits, make of herself what she will--that we can all be, in Simone de Beauvoir's phrase, "poets of our own lives"? As in her previous books Existentialism and Romantic Love and How To Live a Good Life, philosopher Cleary investigates existentialism as part of a long tradition of individual empowerment. Centered around the life and writings of Beauvoir, Cleary's latest offers life advice so practical that at times it can be difficult to tell the philosophical from the common-sensical. What Cleary and Beauvoir ask us to do is, first, acknowledge facticity--that is, the givens of our life (where and when we were born, and so on)--and, second, exercise our freedom to take responsibility for everything else: who we are and what we do. The challenges lie in the application of this framework. In chapters devoted to marriage, aging, death, and the like, Cleary shows what it entails to take Beauvoir seriously. Some of the most moving passages in the book involve the author assessing her own life in these terms. In the chapter on self-sabotage, she describes turning "down being a guest on an important podcast because I'm afraid I won't know what to say, or the words won't come to me, or I'll forget important points, or I'll just sound stupid." How refreshing to read a philosopher who achieves such vulnerability. Critical readers may object to Cleary's overly broad conception of facticity and her superhero-strong sense of agency, but if they are wise, they will note these objections and then proceed to the business of taking good advice where they find it. An informative book that inspires readers toward their authentic selves. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
