With every year that passes, the work of the French existentialists seems to slip another notch lower in the literary canon; the novels of Jean-Paul Sartre, for example, once required reading for a whole generation of university students, are now regarded with something akin to rueful embarrassment. The non-fiction writings have fared better - but still, it would be ironic (and, for a female reader, irresistibly gratifying) if one of the most enduring products of that pipe-smoking philosophy turned out to be Simone de Beauvoir's perceptive and uncannily prescient study of the condition of women.
It was way ahead of its time when first published in 1949, and while a good deal of happy progress has been made in the interim, many of de Beauvoir's gloomier pronouncements are still, alas, all too relevant. Her unwavering directness could still serve as a model to aspiring social commentators of both sexes, however - and her occasional flashes of grim humour add to the text's piquant flavour.
