A Very Easy Death is a timeless classic, and I am extraordinarily grateful for the chance to read it. The deceptively-named memoir of Simone De Beauvoir's mother's drawn-out illness and painful death. The writing is eloquent and brutal, pulling no punches as she tells the detailed and terrifying truth of her mother's demise. A stark reminder that the worst can happen to anyone and that illness affects not just the patient, but all those that love them. This is a stunning memoir and, whilst definitely a difficult read, is an important work of literature and I am very glad to have had the pleasure of reading it.

In this raw and affecting memoir, de Beauvoir records her mother's final days, clinging to life in a clinic. Death is anything but easy for all involved, but de Beauvoir explores the ways we desensitise ourselves from death and how we process and habitualise end of life care to get through it.

O'Brian's translation captures the elegance of the original prose, but that doesn't make the content any less brutal in its honesty. The introduction from Ali Smith is another bonus: it enhances your reading of the essay by briefly situating it in its historical and personal context.

Unflinching and universal, A Very Easy Death is an important read.

Ali Smith’s persuasive introduction highlights how controversial Simone de Beauvoir’s account was when it first appeared, a brief, but detailed account of the last few weeks of her mother’s life – or maybe better described as her long, drawn-out death. At the time, 1964, De Beauvoir was accused by some critics of cashing in on her mother’s experiences. I don’t know what ultimately drove her to publish this all I can say is that it has an incredible force. De Beauvoir adopts a direct, immediate style, beginning by recounting the phone call telling her of her mother’s fall and subsequent admission to hospital. De Beauvoir’s mother, Françoise, was then 78, a little frail and arthritic with some gastric issues but otherwise apparently healthy. And even so, de Beauvoir tells herself, almost nonchalantly, “she was of an age to die.’ But the manner of the death and her mother’s treatment at the hands of a succession of arrogant, sometimes dismissive doctors proved an unexpected education both in the possible nature of death and in the reality of loss.

De Beauvoir’s relationship with her mother, famously documented in her early memoirs, was troubled, where de Beauvoir rebelled against social expectations, her mother embraced them, seeking refuge in convention. For de Beauvoir her mother seemed very much a creature of her time, brought up to be ‘dutiful.’ Sometimes aloof, sometimes controlling but often someone with very little control over her own life. Here de Beauvoir almost effortlessly captures the ambivalence that can exist between mothers and daughters, the awkward mix of intimacy and distance, years of difficult visits and strained conversations disrupted by sudden flashes of unanticipated tenderness.

De Beauvoir also exposes the harsher realities of the medical treatment of women – far too much of what she reveals could still be applied to their treatment today. Although de Beauvoir’s mother has been admitted for a broken leg, her ongoing, gastric problems, considered minor by her usual doctor and mere anxiety by later ones, are actually the symptoms of a major tumour. Even though it’s rapidly obvious Françoise’s survival is highly unlikely, her doctors insist on subjecting her to a series of painful regimes including invasive surgery. For them she’s more object than person. In addition, they advise her family against telling her the diagnosis – at the time a diagnosis of terminal cancer was commonly withheld from women, considered too fragile to deal with the truth about their illness, and unlike men not in need of making advance provisions for businesses or families. Yet this was a woman, as de Beauvoir points out, who at 54 left a penniless widow retrained and restarted her life as a librarian, learnt new languages, even taught herself to cycle.

The attitude of the doctors towards patients documented here would be absurd if they weren’t so tragic: drugs are rationed in case of future addiction, euthanasia is not a possibility nor palliative care so following procedures, however painful, pointless, or debilitating is what must be done. De Beauvoir is clearly, acutely, aware of this absurdity yet feels unable or powerless against the weight of the system in which she and her family are now enmeshed. Her thoughts reminded me at times of reading the surgeon Atul Gawande’s more recent Being Mortal on attitudes towards elderly care, partly inspired by his own father’s experiences.

De Beauvoir takes turns with her sister, and other family members, to sit with her mother in the six weeks between hospital admission and death. She records everything around her with a keen eye, from the small kindnesses of some nurses to the lack of concern for her mother’s dignity by others. The scene, every detail of the hospital room are imprinted on her, in a way I think many will recognise. Outside France is going through a period of industrial unrest and the war is raging in Vietnam but time slows down and the outer world seems either unreal or bizarre. Yet de Beauvoir’s politics still surface, she notes the distinctions between the everyday of the people dying on the public wards and her mother in her private room, the poor pay and conditions of the obviously overworked nurses. De Beauvoir’s experiences lead to a series of reflections on the nature of death in which she questions her earlier assumptions including her impressions about the death of the elderly, concluding that the value of any life is such that death is always a tragedy, and one too often accompanied by violence, drawing on Dylan Thomas it’s a cause for rage not submission. Urgent, hypnotic and devastating. Translated by Patrick O’Brian.

Simone de Beauvoir’s 1964 memoir is a personal account on the author’s mother’s death from cancer. Within this slim but intense book de Beauvoir pores over the final weeks of her mother’s death as well as considering on her own relationship with her mother and that with her younger sister Poupette (who the memoir is dedicated to).

When I read A Very Easy Death a year after my mother died, this meditative piece of writing on death summarised many thoughts that I had about my own relationship with my mother and the process of death. What struck me was the detailed honestly with which de Beauvoir relays the final moments of her mother’s life. De Beauvoir’s compassionate, subjective viewpoint of her mother’s death is quite remarkable considering the complexity of their relationship.

Towards the end, de Beauvoir had struck a sympathetic tone towards her mother, stating, ‘I had grown very fond of this dying woman.’[18] De Beauvoir’s frankness made me feel that I was reading an honest appraisal of the process of death, the lack of romanticism was refreshing and finality of death was described with empathy.

A brilliant, visceral recount of grief, loss and the complexities of a strained mother-daughter-sister relationship. This is my first reading of any de Beauvoir and what a shame I haven’t engaged sooner.
This memoir-essay is fluid and open, and with unflinching honesty describes a feeling and thought that many are often too afraid to say - especially when it comes to speak of a loved one post-death.
de Beauvoir reflects in a way that makes it feel familiar and relatable — grief doesn’t project in some universal way but it still tugs at this familiar heartstring that makes you reflect on your own experiences with this tricky emotion.

“I was calmer than before Prague. The transition from my mother to a living corpse had been definitively accomplished. The world had shrunk to the size of her room: when I crossed Paris in a taxi I saw nothing more than a stage with extras walking about on it. My real life took place at her side, and it had only one aim - protecting her.” In her memoir-essay A Very Easy Death, in the initial translation from French by Patrick O’Brian, Simone de Beauvoir writes about the final few weeks of her mother’s life, as a fall at home and subsequent hospital stay unveil the aggressive cancer inside of her. It’s a reflection on all the horrors of bodily illness, and the extremities of grief, even after — maybe especially after — de Beauvoir and her mother had experienced such a strain within their relationship, caused by her mother’s Catholic opposition to her atheism. In the unspooling of her mother’s rapid decline, de Beauvoir reflects on this and other tensions that arose between them, as well as de Beauvoir’s sister, affectionately called Poupette. She also ruminates on womanhood more generally, not all that surprisingly, and seeing her mother more wholly and compassionately than ever: “Cut off from the pleasures of the body, deprived of the satisfactions of vanity, tied down to wearisome tasks that bored and humiliated her, this proud and obstinate woman did not possess the gift of resignation. Between her fits of anger she was perpetually singing, gossiping, making jokes, drowning her heart's complaints with noise.” It’s a really beautiful essay.

A Very Easy Death is a respectful and open account of the last months of Simone de Beauvoir's mother's life. It was written in 1964 but feels modern.

Françoise de Beauvoir, 77 and 'of an age to die', has fallen at home and broken her femur. Once in the hospital a large tumor is discovered and it is clear she has little time left to live. For Simone and her sister Poupette it is immediately clear that this truth should be hidden from their mother.

The two sisters take very good care of their mother in the hospital, insisting with the doctors she shouldn't suffer. They are confronted with familiar feelings of guilt mixed with relief, questioning how they should feel, asking themselves whether the suffering person in the hospital bed is still the same strong mother they know.

The title is cynical - there is no such thing as an easy death, neither physically nor emotionally. Françoise clings to life and so does her body. She wants to make the most of every day she has left on earth, but she is also suffering from pain as the days and weeks progress.

An impactful little memoir (or maybe rather an early example of French autofiction) that I am glad I read.

This was an interesting read. I have read a number of death and dying books, having had a career in end of life care, and there was nothing particularly remarkable about this.

An excellent translation of a timeless classic. Deeply moving, this is a truly insightful account of a death which cannot fail to make the reader reflect on life and death.