Hey? I'm connecting you with Sartre.

Author: (French) Germaine Salibert
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: This is a heartfelt memoir by Germaine Salibert, the female secretary of the Modern magazine who worked with many famous French modern intellectuals like Merleau-Ponty for years. She does not repeat the countless legends already told; instead, she recalls the interesting, candid, amusing, and touching daily anecdotes she witnessed and heard, filled with nostalgia. Madam Salibert's little book, Hello? I'm Answering for Sartre, is truly entertaining. The stories, joys, sorrows, and frustrations are told in a vivid manner, and in her description, figures like Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty are no longer so unapproachable—they are flesh and blood human beings. Merleau-Ponty was moody, and it wasn't easy to get along with him. However, Salibert had a trick: whenever he was about to lose his temper, his right eye would slightly squint. Judging his mood from this detail always worked. de Beauvoir refused to shake hands with Salibert when she was acting as a grandmother and had the smell of a child's urine on her. But seventeen years later, when both were nearly sixty, Salibert introduced her tall and handsome grandson to de Beauvoir. de Beauvoir chatted happily with the boy but coldly said to Salibert, "Now you should be happy!" Cleaning up after Sartre was even more difficult. Salibert sometimes had to pay "" ( refers to compensation for breaking up with women) for him. When she grew tired of it, she told Sartre, "Don't bother with them—they won't really commit suicide." Sartre replied, "I think so too, but what if just one of them really does?" When Sartre, de Beauvoir, and many intellectuals called on French soldiers to defy orders in the Algerian War, many young men actually deserted and came to the Modern magazine for help. Sartre told Salibert on the phone, "They're really foolish! They should have thought of an escape plan before acting!" "That is Sartre: he cries out from the depths of his heart—‘Rise up, comrades, rebel against tyranny, children must have courage!’ But when reality suddenly confronts him, he is dumbfounded." Salibert wrote. Sometimes, being a scapegoat was unavoidable. Sartre asked Salibert to drive away some annoying visitors who came to see him, so she told some of them that Mr. Sartre had gone on a trip. When a writer encountered Sartre in a restaurant and was furious, Sartre had to appease the wounded soul by saying, "Madam Salibert sometimes has poor eyesight and lacks discernment." Salibert often called herself a "sheep," which had a sense of being a sacrificial lamb. However, she wasn't particularly unhappy because everyone had an unspoken understanding. But after working for thirty years, when her request for a raise was rejected, she was truly upset. Fortunately, the "sheep" left us this little book, otherwise it would have been a great pity.