Preview of Les Belles Images Summary:

In Les Belles Images, de Beauvoir's social concerns coincide with the themes of the novel. While The Mandarins (1954) portrays the intellectual milieu of postwar France, Les Belles Images describes the affluent bourgeois society of the 1960s. The people in the novel have glamorous positions with high incomes. Their concern is no longer focused on how to create a better and more just world, but on how best to display their wealth, how to present "beautiful images." Lifestyle becomes all important: the house in the country, the parties, the travels. Problems are banal: with whom to have an affair, what presents to give — not too expensive so as not to offend, yet expensive looking. The characters in Les Belles Images pursue trivia for lack of any true values.

De Beauvoir, whose own world was far removed from the social milieu she describes, surprised her...