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The Blood of Others
Novel by the second most important figure in the existentialist movement after Jean-Paul Sartre. Thrilling narrative of the French Resistance in World War II. The story begins and ends at the bedside of a young Resistance worker, Helene, watched over by her lover, Jean Blomart, leader of her group.
288 pages, Paperback
Published October 3, 2024
About the author
Simone de Beauvoir
439 books12.1k followersWorks of Simone de Beauvoir, French writer, existentialist, and feminist, include
The Second Sex
in 1949 and
The Coming of Age
, a study in 1970 of views of different cultures on the old.
Simone de Beauvoir, an author and philosopher, wrote novels, monographs, political and social issues, essays, biographies, and an autobiography. People now best know She Came to Stay and The Mandarins , her metaphysical novels. Her treatise, a foundational contemporary tract, of 1949 detailed analysis of oppression of women.
Simone de Beauvoir, an author and philosopher, wrote novels, monographs, political and social issues, essays, biographies, and an autobiography. People now best know She Came to Stay and The Mandarins , her metaphysical novels. Her treatise, a foundational contemporary tract, of 1949 detailed analysis of oppression of women.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 25, 2025
Deși am citit cartea in limba engleza simt ca pot scrie mai bine despre ea in romana.
M-a străpuns. O carte de beletristica ca un jurnal. De parca in mintea autoarei existau mai multe tipuri de gânduri care au fost concretizate intr-o poveste cu mai multi oameni. Fiecare cu constiinta lui la inceput, iar la final toți parca împărțind aceeași conștiință. E ca si cum, in vremuri de război, sângele altora devine sangele nostru.
Desi la inceput fiecare persoanj avea o voința de sine stătătoare, iubea, simțea, gandea si acționa pentru sufletul sau, la final toți aveau același gand. Corpurile s-au dematerializat, rămânând o singura bucata de suflet, de durere si de speranta.
"We only exist if we act" a spus Jean la final. Ceea ce pare atat de in antiteza cu ce a gandea la inceput - cand isi spunea ca e doar papusa vieții, ca nimic nu contează si ca poate si minți atat timp cat minciunile lui aduc fericirea in jur. "Something will happen through me, and no longer in spițe of me; because I willed it"
Jean post - razboi considera ca inactiunea inseamna moarte spirituala.
"And it is war, a lost war. We did not dare to kill, we did not want to die, and those grey-green vermin devour our living bodies. Women and new-born children die in the ditches; on the soil that is already no longer ours, a huge steel net has fallen, caging Frenchmen by the million. Because of me. Each of us is responsible for everything. (...) Now his life was behind him, his wasted life. It was too late, everything was over. Because wanted to keep myself pure, when it was already within me, part of my flesh, my breath: the original rottennes. We are defeated; mankind is defeated."
Jean ante - război punea semnul egal intre inactiune si acțiune ("I am neither warmonger nor a pacifist. I am nothing at all. Gauthier was a pacifist. Paul was a Communist. Helen was in love. Laurent was a working man. And I was nothing").
Daca Jean este rațiunea din mintea autoarei, atunci Helen este empatie. Helen, la început o copila indragostita, nu vedea de ce este important sa ii pese de alții, vedea doar de cei dragi ei. In timpul războiului, Helen a gasit importanta empatiei. A inteles de ce si cum sângele altora, in sine, e doar sângele ei.
It's easy to pay with the blood of others - pana cand nu mai e si ajungem sa ne dam seama ca, de fapt, am plătit cu sângele nostru, al ascendentiilor si urmașilor nostrii.
Și încă cateva citate care au rămas cu mine:
1. 'What would become of the organization if something happened to you?
'I know. Generals die in their beds. I haven't the soul of a general'.
You'll have to buy one, says Denise. You know perfectly well that no one is capable of taking your place.
"You want me to send my pals to risk their skins while I stay sipping my coffee? I could hardly bear to live with myself.
Denise looks at me reprovingly. 'You're too interested in yourself.'
Those words strike home. She is right, It is perhaps because I am bourgeois that I must always be thinking about myself.
'Your personal scruples do not interest us, she continues severely. 'We entrusted ourselves to you as a leader who puts the cause first, above everything: you've no right to betray us.
2. Now she was no longer ever alone, no longer useless and lost under the empty sky. She existed with him, with Marcel, with Madeleine, Laurent, Yvonne, with all the unknown human beings who slept in wooden huts and who had never heard her name, with all those who longed for a different tomorrow, even with those who did not know how to long for anything. The shell had burst open; she existed for something, for someone The whole earth was one fraternal unity.
3.For you, only an innocent stone- you had chosen. Those who will be shot tomorrow have not chosen; I am the rock that crushes them; I shall not escape the curse; for ever I shall be to them another being, for ever I shall be to them the blind force of fate, for ever separated from them. But if only I dedicate myself to defend that supreme good, which makes innocent and vain all the stones and the rocks, that good which saves each man from all the others andfrom myself- Freedom - then my passion will not have been in vain. You have not given me peace; but why should I desire peace? You have given me the courage to accept for ever the risk and the anguish, to bear my crimes and my guilt which will rend me eternally. There is no other way.
M-a străpuns. O carte de beletristica ca un jurnal. De parca in mintea autoarei existau mai multe tipuri de gânduri care au fost concretizate intr-o poveste cu mai multi oameni. Fiecare cu constiinta lui la inceput, iar la final toți parca împărțind aceeași conștiință. E ca si cum, in vremuri de război, sângele altora devine sangele nostru.
Desi la inceput fiecare persoanj avea o voința de sine stătătoare, iubea, simțea, gandea si acționa pentru sufletul sau, la final toți aveau același gand. Corpurile s-au dematerializat, rămânând o singura bucata de suflet, de durere si de speranta.
"We only exist if we act" a spus Jean la final. Ceea ce pare atat de in antiteza cu ce a gandea la inceput - cand isi spunea ca e doar papusa vieții, ca nimic nu contează si ca poate si minți atat timp cat minciunile lui aduc fericirea in jur. "Something will happen through me, and no longer in spițe of me; because I willed it"
Jean post - razboi considera ca inactiunea inseamna moarte spirituala.
"And it is war, a lost war. We did not dare to kill, we did not want to die, and those grey-green vermin devour our living bodies. Women and new-born children die in the ditches; on the soil that is already no longer ours, a huge steel net has fallen, caging Frenchmen by the million. Because of me. Each of us is responsible for everything. (...) Now his life was behind him, his wasted life. It was too late, everything was over. Because wanted to keep myself pure, when it was already within me, part of my flesh, my breath: the original rottennes. We are defeated; mankind is defeated."
Jean ante - război punea semnul egal intre inactiune si acțiune ("I am neither warmonger nor a pacifist. I am nothing at all. Gauthier was a pacifist. Paul was a Communist. Helen was in love. Laurent was a working man. And I was nothing").
Daca Jean este rațiunea din mintea autoarei, atunci Helen este empatie. Helen, la început o copila indragostita, nu vedea de ce este important sa ii pese de alții, vedea doar de cei dragi ei. In timpul războiului, Helen a gasit importanta empatiei. A inteles de ce si cum sângele altora, in sine, e doar sângele ei.
It's easy to pay with the blood of others - pana cand nu mai e si ajungem sa ne dam seama ca, de fapt, am plătit cu sângele nostru, al ascendentiilor si urmașilor nostrii.
Și încă cateva citate care au rămas cu mine:
1. 'What would become of the organization if something happened to you?
'I know. Generals die in their beds. I haven't the soul of a general'.
You'll have to buy one, says Denise. You know perfectly well that no one is capable of taking your place.
"You want me to send my pals to risk their skins while I stay sipping my coffee? I could hardly bear to live with myself.
Denise looks at me reprovingly. 'You're too interested in yourself.'
Those words strike home. She is right, It is perhaps because I am bourgeois that I must always be thinking about myself.
'Your personal scruples do not interest us, she continues severely. 'We entrusted ourselves to you as a leader who puts the cause first, above everything: you've no right to betray us.
2. Now she was no longer ever alone, no longer useless and lost under the empty sky. She existed with him, with Marcel, with Madeleine, Laurent, Yvonne, with all the unknown human beings who slept in wooden huts and who had never heard her name, with all those who longed for a different tomorrow, even with those who did not know how to long for anything. The shell had burst open; she existed for something, for someone The whole earth was one fraternal unity.
3.For you, only an innocent stone- you had chosen. Those who will be shot tomorrow have not chosen; I am the rock that crushes them; I shall not escape the curse; for ever I shall be to them another being, for ever I shall be to them the blind force of fate, for ever separated from them. But if only I dedicate myself to defend that supreme good, which makes innocent and vain all the stones and the rocks, that good which saves each man from all the others andfrom myself- Freedom - then my passion will not have been in vain. You have not given me peace; but why should I desire peace? You have given me the courage to accept for ever the risk and the anguish, to bear my crimes and my guilt which will rend me eternally. There is no other way.
April 20, 2026
I think I have not read a book which had a writing style this beautiful. It was also a book where I for the first time ever I really read it as in, I read every single sentence. 1 because it was so beautiful, 2 because it was also a really hard read and the books needs you to focus.
The perspective between characters switches every chapter but it doesn’t state who is speaking which was confusing in the beginning. Besides there are italics in the book of which I have to say I am still nog fully convinced I understood those, but I think these refer to another past.
Then within the changing perspectives also the time of which Jean speaks changes without warning. He switches between begin besides Helene’s bed to going in the past meeting her.
Last things that made it confusing or hard in the start is that he will change from ‘I sad by her bedside’ to ‘and he was weeping’ which is said by Jean and it both means Jean.
So as you can imagine, figuring out how this book is read and who is who and who is saying what, is a challenge when you start but once you figure it out it is the most beautifully writting roman.
‘We are defeated; mankind is defeated. In its place a new race of animals proliferate over the earth; the blind heartbeat of life will no longer be distinguishable from the decomposition of death; life swells, teems, and falls asunder in an even rhythm-muscles, blood, spermatozoa, and writhing heaps of satiated worms. Without a witness’.
The perspective between characters switches every chapter but it doesn’t state who is speaking which was confusing in the beginning. Besides there are italics in the book of which I have to say I am still nog fully convinced I understood those, but I think these refer to another past.
Then within the changing perspectives also the time of which Jean speaks changes without warning. He switches between begin besides Helene’s bed to going in the past meeting her.
Last things that made it confusing or hard in the start is that he will change from ‘I sad by her bedside’ to ‘and he was weeping’ which is said by Jean and it both means Jean.
So as you can imagine, figuring out how this book is read and who is who and who is saying what, is a challenge when you start but once you figure it out it is the most beautifully writting roman.
‘We are defeated; mankind is defeated. In its place a new race of animals proliferate over the earth; the blind heartbeat of life will no longer be distinguishable from the decomposition of death; life swells, teems, and falls asunder in an even rhythm-muscles, blood, spermatozoa, and writhing heaps of satiated worms. Without a witness’.
June 25, 2026
Scratched my little brain. Loved the existentialism especially for this political climate its still so relevant and this book is 80 years old. She knows how to write
"Once, he has also dreamed of insuring his actions by fine resounding reasons; but it would have been too easy. He has to act without an insurance. It was an impossible undertaking to value human lives, to compare the weight of a tear with the weight of a drop of blood; but he no longer set a value, every coin was current, even this one: the blood of others."
"Once, he has also dreamed of insuring his actions by fine resounding reasons; but it would have been too easy. He has to act without an insurance. It was an impossible undertaking to value human lives, to compare the weight of a tear with the weight of a drop of blood; but he no longer set a value, every coin was current, even this one: the blood of others."
November 12, 2025
Gut. Letzte 30 Seiten aus Angst / Misstrauen nicht gelesen. Jean und Paul als Love-Interests ist insane!
February 7, 2026
Liebe alles daran
January 12, 2026
"I've learned from this war they there's as much guilt in sparing blood as in shedding it."
February 12, 2026
I judge books by their covers.
At the time, I was reading Soldiers of Salamis and wandering the gift shop at the Civil War exhibition in the Palau Nacional, Barcelona. That’s when I spotted this beautifully designed novel that happened to be about the French Resistance. I had no choice but to bring it home. Little did I know I’d stumbled upon one of the great existentialists and feminists of the twentieth century.
If you want to understand existentialism (coming from someone new to existentialist thought), not just through theory, but through lived experience, this is the book for you.
Beauvoir vividly paints a picture for us of what happened when centuries of religious beliefs were challenged by the Enlightenment, and we were left questioning existence. In the wake of the Nazi occupation from which Simone writes, her characters spend as much time making sense of their own responsibility as being paralysed by it. Action to them seems unbearable, believing every personal decision risks spilling “the blood of others” (by far my favourite book title). Progressing through the book, they come to realise that refusing to act does not keep their hands clean. Inaction is itself a choice.
The ending is one of the most gut-wrenching I’ve ever read. After a heartbreaking portrayal of Helene’s death, Jean decides to continue the fight against Nazism, understanding that the blood of those he loves is inseparable from the blood of others. Stopping would be a moral failure. This is where I prefer Beauvoir’s existentialism to other philosophers. Freedom of choice doesn’t mean an absence of ethics. Quite the opposite, it means that “each of us is responsible for every human being.”
At the time, I was reading Soldiers of Salamis and wandering the gift shop at the Civil War exhibition in the Palau Nacional, Barcelona. That’s when I spotted this beautifully designed novel that happened to be about the French Resistance. I had no choice but to bring it home. Little did I know I’d stumbled upon one of the great existentialists and feminists of the twentieth century.
If you want to understand existentialism (coming from someone new to existentialist thought), not just through theory, but through lived experience, this is the book for you.
Beauvoir vividly paints a picture for us of what happened when centuries of religious beliefs were challenged by the Enlightenment, and we were left questioning existence. In the wake of the Nazi occupation from which Simone writes, her characters spend as much time making sense of their own responsibility as being paralysed by it. Action to them seems unbearable, believing every personal decision risks spilling “the blood of others” (by far my favourite book title). Progressing through the book, they come to realise that refusing to act does not keep their hands clean. Inaction is itself a choice.
The ending is one of the most gut-wrenching I’ve ever read. After a heartbreaking portrayal of Helene’s death, Jean decides to continue the fight against Nazism, understanding that the blood of those he loves is inseparable from the blood of others. Stopping would be a moral failure. This is where I prefer Beauvoir’s existentialism to other philosophers. Freedom of choice doesn’t mean an absence of ethics. Quite the opposite, it means that “each of us is responsible for every human being.”
June 15, 2026
Bloody hell this book packs a punch. In the beginning it is hard to follow as you are getting your head round who is speaking to who and inner thoughts of the first person spoken in third person. Set during the beginning of the second world war where Parisians were devoting minds and lives resisting the uninvited occupiers. This book explored not only fidelity and romance but history, morality, heavy political issues and a hell of a lot of philosophical musings that leave you thinking long after you have put the book down. The story evolves existentialist theory by the evolution of those characters and asks questions like should we consider the impact we have on others and to what extent? Is that guilt to heavy to bear? Duty and morals over individual need? Words or actions? Is being tolerant towards others beliefs morally correct? And if so is there a line when this becomes complicity? Pacifism vs fascism. How violent it is not to act, to stay silent, to move aimlessly through history, to only consider the effect on oneself. The guilt of living as privileged and seeking a justifiable life where ones actions and non actions won't result in another being suffering and death in a time of war and resistance.
"the effort of living is too obvious, too noisy; she is struggling, her light is failing; at dawn, it will be out"
"Did other men weigh less heavily on the earth than I? Or were they less concerned with the traces they left behind them? Everywhere I beheld the uneasy signs of my presence. Or Perhaps it was a curse that has been put upon me; each of my actions, like each of my refusals, carried with it a mortal danger."
"the effort of living is too obvious, too noisy; she is struggling, her light is failing; at dawn, it will be out"
"Did other men weigh less heavily on the earth than I? Or were they less concerned with the traces they left behind them? Everywhere I beheld the uneasy signs of my presence. Or Perhaps it was a curse that has been put upon me; each of my actions, like each of my refusals, carried with it a mortal danger."
June 1, 2026
I have to give a five stars since I was entirely in love with the writings.
It was very challenging to read in the beginning since there is no heads-up of who was speaking to who. It was a beautiful flow. You jumped to one character to another and also the inner thoughts of this person spoken from a third person, yes, it is possible to read as a third person instead of first person. The change of character's perspectives is remarkable.
Set during the early beginning of second world war, the novel recalled the events where the Parisians who devoted their minds and lives resisting the uninvited occupiers. The women (as we may all know how de Beauvoir would depict them) were courageously participating in the resistence both openly and in disguise. This book is not only exploring the fidelty and romance but also political issues.
A small romance was present where one's love might not be returned after many years of togther. What a waste! But, that was the society constructed back then, I supposed. Freedom of choice, freedom to choose. Abortion was mentioned, and can we all appreciate the courage of de Beauvoir to mention such topics back then in the 40s?
Though the story went up and downs both for its romance and political alliance, the end of the novel was a realistic and open. I do think somehow, this is what we can get from its title. The blood that you cannot replace for others or to others.
It was very challenging to read in the beginning since there is no heads-up of who was speaking to who. It was a beautiful flow. You jumped to one character to another and also the inner thoughts of this person spoken from a third person, yes, it is possible to read as a third person instead of first person. The change of character's perspectives is remarkable.
Set during the early beginning of second world war, the novel recalled the events where the Parisians who devoted their minds and lives resisting the uninvited occupiers. The women (as we may all know how de Beauvoir would depict them) were courageously participating in the resistence both openly and in disguise. This book is not only exploring the fidelty and romance but also political issues.
A small romance was present where one's love might not be returned after many years of togther. What a waste! But, that was the society constructed back then, I supposed. Freedom of choice, freedom to choose. Abortion was mentioned, and can we all appreciate the courage of de Beauvoir to mention such topics back then in the 40s?
Though the story went up and downs both for its romance and political alliance, the end of the novel was a realistic and open. I do think somehow, this is what we can get from its title. The blood that you cannot replace for others or to others.
May 21, 2026
i found and stole this book from a hotel in italy. had no idea what it was about, never seen it before, just saw it was a penguin modern classic and HAD to read it. jesus christ was i pleasantly surprised. it has the same ideology as me on the topic of death, existence and love, but rapidly the book changes. the way it’s written is so unique but did get some getting used to, after the first chapter i really loved it. i recommend this to everyone
September 15, 2025
Incredibly moving. What starts as a tale of morals, unrequited love, and fate turns subtly into the unavoidable collective responsibility under fascism. I have never read fiction by de Beauvoir, and her surreal influences definitely seep through. Although I’m not sure why I keep doing this to myself because French literature just makes me long for Paris even more.
May 22, 2026
for a writer that redefined feminism, i’m a bit surprised that helene is lowkey one of the most pathetic female characters i have encountered in a book.
love a story that’ll motivate me to start a revolution, and am kinda moved by the parallels between this book and the present day
love a story that’ll motivate me to start a revolution, and am kinda moved by the parallels between this book and the present day
March 19, 2025
Calm down Jean, wake up Helene (oh wait).
November 12, 2025
Gut.
Letzte 30 Seiten nicht gelesen, weil Angst.
Jean und Paul als Love-Interests macht mich fertig!
Letzte 30 Seiten nicht gelesen, weil Angst.
Jean und Paul als Love-Interests macht mich fertig!
February 8, 2026
3.5 For most of the story I was getting really frustrated with the main characters. Good messages throughout the entire novel!!! However, I’d say the last few chapters carried the entire book.
June 21, 2025
Dove in without much expectations, and was suprised by how much I enjoyed it. Probably just a skill issue, but the narrative was a bit confusing to follow sometimes. Nonetheless, a compelling story with beautiful moments.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews