Beauvoir rejected the roman à clé reading of The Mandarins

Evidence

Beauvoir insists that “contrary to what has been claimed, it is not true that Th e Mandarins is a roman à clé” (FC, 267; FCh, 366, my translation). Neither roman à clé, nor thesis-novel; neither autobiography, nor reportage, Beauvoir describes Th e Mandarins as “an evocation” (FC, 270). It is an evocation in which fi ction is used as a tool to present complexities of life that mere reportage could not capture. I think Beauvoir must be taken at her word: Th e Mandarins is not a roman à clé. Th e fi ctitious characters do not align neatly with the actual dramatis personae of Beauvoir’s circle, and although the novel treats of the impact of actual political events of the late 1940s, the chronology is not accurate. Yet as an evocation, Th e Mandarins is also grounded in lived experience, and its “fi ctions” are in large measure woven from the autobiographical. — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 483

Categorization

• QUESTION: Whether The Mandarins is a roman à clé — and how much the characters map onto Beauvoir’s real circle — is a live historiographical question worth chasing.
• XREF: Connects to the broader Beauvoir-Sartre authorship/influence debate and to genre questions about roman à clef shared with her autobiography volumes.