In 1926, Simone de Beauvoir recorded in her diary an encounter with a book that illuminated her inner life:
A revelation, an immense help was this book already almost known and whose first half I feverishly devoured. I must finish it and then reread it and meditate on all its pages. No longer dead people like Gide or Barrès; a living example of fever, of ardor, and of beauty. There are things about me I have understood. There are words I would want to have written. There are some I have almost written. There are others I have so often thought. Through their lives, I have seen mine emerge, and desires, hopes, and promises were afloat in every corner of this room, deliciously overwhelming me.
The book was the Correspondance of Jacques Rivière and Alain-Fournier: a correspondence I have yet to read in the original French.
>I just read Alain-Fournier for the first time, and really loved it, and then in a discussion with someone a few days later, I learned of this book of Correspondance between him and Jacques Riviere. I really will need to see if I can get my hands on a copy.
>Michelle: Perhaps you have sufficient French to tackle Correspondance in the original, otherwise please let me know if you track down a translation.