Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me: A Memoir

by Deirdre Bair

“So you are the one who is going to reveal me for the charlatan that I am.” It was the first thing Samuel Beckett ever said to me on that bitter cold day, November 17, 1971, as we sat in the minuscule lobby of the Hôtel du Danube on the rue Jacob.

At Columbia, professors seldom required routine papers and tests. Students were expected to do their course work and, when ready, to present themselves for exams, written and oral. This atmosphere led to an urban legend about the English and Comparative Literature Department, of the student who had just finished his fifteenth year and still believed he didn’t know enough to answer questions on the two-hour oral exam that was the prelude to writing a dissertation.