all men are mortal

so, it took a while, but i've finally finished simone de beauvoir's book.

all men are mortal.

a great existentialist in her own right, this book rivals the best of camus and satre, but from quite a different slant. whereas my periodic forays into existentialist fiction over the years have exposed me to protagonists that aim to derive meaning in the face of meaninglessness in their environment - whether family, occupation, society, or tragedy - beauvoir presents us with a narrator whose ill-accepted immortality embodies meaninglessness itself. she uses this device to show how the the secondary characters create meaning precisely because of their limited lifespan.

it's a fascinating, but extraordinarily depressing read!

anyway, my intention isn't to do a book review, but rather to compare some themes with a milan kundera book i read several weeks ago - entitled 'immortality', interestingly enough.

i had posted a quote from kundera contrasting paths to highways as analogues to ways of living one's life. highways lead us from one point to another, from one goal to another, not really allowing us to experience the joy in the moment. paths are made for us to, ah, meander. "a path is a tribute to space. every stretch of path has meaning in itself and invites us to stop."

now from beauvoir by way of a peripheral character, garnier, regarding inertia in the face of eternity: "we don't have to count on the future to give meaning to our acts. if that were the case, all action would be impossible."

it's in the present that we create meaning for our lives. if one is always looking towards the future, driving down that highway at full fucking speed, usually to the next societally dictated destination, we miss out on daily meaning and happiness.

it seems evident that beauvoir's goal in using immortality as the guiding gimmick was to portray the ultimate meaninglessness of grand schemes, plots, and designs. all of our petty ambitions, all desires to leave our legacy or mark on the world are for naught. with death, our ambitions die with us. kundera makes a point that our immortality can last for a generation or two, depending on our fame and the memory of us in others. beauvoir's response is to show her immortal man, fosca, eventually forgetting everyone because, eventually, everyone is forgettable.

one last quote from fosca before i go:

"now i understand them. it's never what they receive that has value in their eyes, it's what they do. if they can't create, they must destroy. but in any case, they have to rebel against what is, otherwise they wouldn't be men."

it all comes back to that, doesn't it? we have to create meaning for ourselves, in our lives. no one can dictate what sparks that fire within. we are our own gods, to create or destroy as we wish...

merry christmas, y'all.