Women and Men: A Philosophical Conversation - Hardcover

Text: English
Original Language: French

This translation of the 1993 French best-seller that sold 80,000 copies in a single week is unlikely to achieve that kind of success in the U.S., but it should, nevertheless, find plenty of readers. After all, it's about sex, jealousy, fidelity, marriage, and human love. And, like Louis Malle's fascinating film My Dinner with Andr{‚}e, it's set in the form of a conversation between two appealing, extremely well-read people who punctuate their ideas with a wide variety of intriguing references--in this case, quotes from, mainly, French philosophers, literary types, and well-traveled politicians. Expect readers to stay with this conversation from beginning to end, partially because of the aggressively opinionated talkers and partially because of the underlying premise--the state of affairs between men and women today has evolved to a point that's distressing to both sexes. According to Giroud, journalist, author, former government minister, and cofounder of L'Express, men are suffering because they've been "thrown off balance by dynamic, victorious women." Further, there are fewer of these sufferers in France than in the U.S., where men are "really unhappy." In France, she claims, "relations between men and women are and remain the best in the world, even if it isn't always paradise." As for L{‚}evy, philosopher, homme de gauche, and author of Barbarism with a Human Face (1985) and The Testament of God (1981), he agrees but stresses at one point that the "only thing [men are] interested in is the difference between the sexes." And on and on they circle each other, agreeing, contesting, postulating. How will it all turn out? Women and Men, it's still the same old story. Or is it? Bonnie Smothers