7

The war years, 1939 – 1944

S

artre’s keen senseof the maneuvering, opportunism, occasional
heroism and frequent failure of nerve that marked European power
politics toward the end of the 1930 s was evident in his novelistic account.
As we retrace these steps in “real life,” we encounter Sartre playing his
own role in what he had reason to believe would be a published set
of recollections of memorable events: hisCarnets de la droˆle de guerre
(War Diaries).^1 Mobilized and posted in Alsace, private Sartre filled
fifteen good-sized notebooks with comments on his personal life, his
mates, the state of the world along with reflections on literature and
especially philosophy. In a letter to Beauvoir from a holding camp in
Baccarat, Lorraine, on July 22 , 1940 , he announced: “I’ve begun to write
a metaphysical treatise: L’Eˆtre et le Ne ́ant(Being and Nothingness)”^2
which will develop many of the thoughts expressed both in hisWa r
Diariesand in his letters from this period.

(^1) “Since I intend to have these notebooks published, it’s best to cross out these passages [that
are derogatory of Bianca Binenfeld and Wanda Kosakiewicz],” Oct. 26 , 1939 (CDG 621 ,
annexe I, fragment from Notebook 2 ). Lamblin (ne ́e Binenfeld) got even with an account of
her mistreatment by Sartre and Beauvoir. See Bianca Lamblin,A Disgraceful Affair, trans.
Julie Plovnick (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1996 ). After witnessing the
woman’s psychological state, Beauvoir wrote to Sartre in December of 1945 : “She moved
me and filled me with remorse – because she’s suffering from an intense and dreadful attack
of neurasthenia, and it’s our fault, I think...She’s the only person to whom we’ve really done
harm, but we have harmed her.” Simone de Beauvoir,Letters to Sartre, trans. Quintin Hoare
2 (New York: Arcade,^1991 ),^389 ; hereafterLS-E.
Jean-Paul Sartre,Quiet Moments in a War, trans. and introduction Lee Fahnestock and
Norman MacAfee (New York: Scribner’s, 1993 ), 234 ; hereafterQMW. Letter of August 12 :
“I’m still working on my philosophy book ( 76 pages written, it’s shaping up)” (QMW 242 ).
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