THE SECOND SEX (732 pp.)Simone de BeauvoirKnopf ($ 10).
Numberless are the world's wonders, but none
More wonderful than man; the storm-grey sea
Yields to his prows, the huge crests bear him high . . .
Were Sophocles to croon this chorus (from Antigone*) below the boudoir of Existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, she would very likely fling wide her French window and bomb him with The Second Sex (weight: 2¾ Ibs.). For Sophocles' measures stand for just about everything that Author de Beauvoir considers most hateful in human life. As she sees it, the...