Annie Ernaux Books

Exteriors is Ernaux for Ernaux fans - this is not a narrative but rather a collection of entries regarding every day life observed closely. This is also the first book I read by Ernaux - I was hooked by the writing style. Ernaux has the unusual ability to write prose that appears on the outside to be highly descriptive of the exterior of events. Yet in this careful observation, she portrays a highly interior response to the externals.

The description of the clerk in the shopping mall has remained in my memory for years as has her description of the changing landscape of transit stations. Few authors could make such details interesting, even fewer make them significant. Ernaux succeeds at both.

A Woman's Story is an account of Ernaux's mother from her beginnings on a Normandy farm, through working in a factory and running a store with her husband, to trying, as a widow, to live with her educated daughter and her family. Mother was a woman of thwarted ambition who hoped to fulfill her ambition through her daughter. Ernaux captured well the friction that arose between them both as a result of the ambition and the resulting class conflict its fulfillment brought. In contrast to Positions, Ernaux's portrayal of her father, this book spends more time on the relationships of her mother to her husband and daughter. As in most of Ernaux's work her ability to use a direct style and very specific details to reflect human nature as a whole is the prime reaason for reading the book.

My favorite book. It honestly explores the effects of passion, and does so with total economy.
It is both dramatic and zenlike at the same time.
Most writers believe in the "show don't tell" aproach, but only the best writers, most of them being in my opinion, French, have a way of telling that exceeds the showing. Ernaux, like Gide and Duras, offers a very processed view of a relationship which becomes an intellectual experience --despite it revolving around a physical love affair. Ernaux transportes her readers, not necessarily into the moments, but into the DRAMA of them --getting us inside this woman's mind and body and feeling the pain and exstacy of the many stages of obsession.
While reading this book, I often had to pause and just sigh. And when I completed this slim novel, just a couple hours later (I really took my time), I began it again.

My relationship to this book became very intimate after translating it from French to English for a college course. I really appreciated the subtlties of language that Ernaux mastered in Passion Simple. The French is marvelous, and the subject itself, passion/obsession, is pertinent. Most people reading this book are quick to judge the narrator's attitudes and actions. She, herself, is unwilling to do so in this book. Instead, she simply relays the facts. It is amazing how well she is able to do this so beautifully.

You wait for the phone to ring. That's your life, waiting. You never know when he'll call, so you leave your home as little as possible. Hair dryers and vacuum cleaners make noise that could drown out a ringing phone; you use them sparingly. And then, without warning, there's the voice you crave --- he can be free for a few hours without his wife getting curious.

In a panic, you bathe. Frantically clean your home. File your nails so there's no chance you'll leave a mark on him. Lay out drinks, ice, his favorite snack. And then the door opens and your life begins. You barely speak, this isn't that kind of relationship. Later, he looks at his watch. You sigh. He showers, dresses. A final touch, and he's gone. And your life once again turns to waiting.

That's a woman's story. (It's the rare man whose life revolves around an unavailable woman who has trouble finding a moment to call and has an even harder time arranging a rendezvous.) Indeed, it's Annie Ernaux's story --- a lightly fictionalized account of a two-year affair she had with a married Eastern European diplomat. The whole story takes just 64 pages. And nothing really happens; it's mostly waiting. But the waiting is so acutely observed that in France --- Ernaux lives in a suburb of Paris --- 'Simple Passion' was the #1 bestseller for 8 months, with more than 400,000 copies sold.

The appeal of the book is, if you will, how manly it is. How matter-of-fact. Writing, Ernaux tells us at the start of the novel, should be like sex. That is, there should be "a feeling of anxiety and stupefaction. a suspension of moral judgment." So you won't get any speculation about his feelings. Or if he'll leave his wife. No, this affair is about sex. It's about "lying in bed with that man in the middle of the afternoon."

The man, like the woman, is nameless. He's 38. He likes "Yves Saint-Laurent suits, Cerruti ties and powerful cars." He watches bad TV. He drinks. But these preferences hardly matter. For the narrator knows at the beginning of the affair something that most woman only learn at the end: "The man we love is a complete stranger." As is, perhaps, the woman. Something happens at the end of the book --- nothing dramatic, like a murder or even a confrontation, but I don't want to spoil the experience for you --- and we're forced to consider her anew.

Who is Annie Ernaux? You've probably never heard of her, but she's one of the biggest names in French fiction. Born in 1940, she grew up in a small town. She became a literature teacher in Paris. And, from her first book to her most recent, she had her style down pat: short, autobiographical books, so honestly told you feel she's scraping off skin with every word. She never presents herself as a victim or a hero; she just is. Her books win prizes. And, though they're chilly, they sell. Her humanity --- that honest expression of desire and weakness --- only looks simple. It's a bitch to write.

Ernaux says that passion is the luxury of adults. I think I understand what she means: It's time out of time, a shared secret, a deep and wordless acknowledgment of need and a gloriously hot way of satisfying that need. I think that's why women, in particular, gravitate to Ernaux's short, disturbing books --- they know they're real. How? Because, at one point or another, they've been that woman looking at her phone, praying for it to ring.

SIMPLE PASSION is a woman's story of her affair with a married man. It is a short book which I read in one sitting. What makes the story special is that it only tells what her life is like when she is not with him. From the time he left her side until the next time she saw him she says she did nothing else but wait for him. She describes in detail her obsessive thinking about her lover. So although she never describes her time with him, all her time away from him is spent thinking about him, planning her next meeting with him, waiting for him to call, fantasizing about him. As she goes about her daily life, her mind never strays from him. It is as compelling a story as her obsession was to her.

One review on the cover of this book says it is "a monument to passions". I believe it is an inconsequential anthill. This tiny little book, is in actuality simply an overpriced pamphlet. It consists of 64 pages but in large print and much doublespacing and footnotes at the bottom of some pages. Having just gone through the painful experience of wading through the 827 page Underworld by Don Delillo I decided to pick up this little book. It was a bad choice. There is nothing redeemable about the boring lackluster prose. The subject of love has been rhapsodied on for thousands of years and this boring little assemblage of pages adds nothing to its mystery. If anything, it cheapens it. With its emotionless tone, it resembles the side of a cereal box. Actually, the cereal box would be more entertaining. Ernaux could have minimalized her book even further by limiting it to two sentences: "Woman loves married man. Has affair with him that ends." Actually, these lines are good representatives of the prose style in Simple Passion. I could go on but then the review would be longer than the book.

Typically, stream-of-consciousness type fiction picks at my nerves, but Ernaux's version of this style stays largely connecte. You aren't forced to jump around within the narrator's mind, instead the thoughts meld together in a pattern fairly easy to understand.

Her memories (I've read that this is largely autobiographical) of school & her parents shop, are absorbing & powerful- her blatant admittance of shame regarding the juxtopositon between life at home & life at school (the extreme difference in class status)- is brave as well as cringeworthy.

I admire Ernaux's ability to create a character that is in many ways unlikeable, yet at the same time understandable. She does an amazing job getting into the confused mind of a growing girl & the hypocritical shameful thoughts one is prone to at that age.

It was wonderful to read a not quite coming of age story set in France- the only reason it escapes the 5 star rating was due my boredom with the narrator's sexcapades- certainly a large chunk of a teenaged girls fixation in life- but I just didn't care that much about her 'redheaded boy'.

Recommended!

Ernaux writes in an amazingly real, raw, "in your face" style which is not for the faint of heart...this is what draws me to her works. Ernaux's descriptions utilize all of one's senses, making you feel truly part of the story. Her description of the main character in the book, with all of her flaws and charms, is extrememly rich. This book is an exploration of gender and class, and about the inner dialogue of a woman trying to figure out who she is and where she fits in life.

This book left me with a chilling feeling... the description is superb and the tales are often painful and often humorous, a voice we don't often get to read. Definitely recommend it!

Anyone who has ever felt a distance between themselves and a parent will be moved by Ernaux's life story told in the context of her relationship to her father. The book is an account of Ernaux's childhood in a small French town where her parents owned a grocery store/diner. As Ernaux grows up and attains a higher social status, the gap widens between her father and herself. Ernaux leaves the home, gets a teaching degree and eventually has to come back when her father begins to die. Ernaux's writing is simple and direct; she never overanalyses, she simply presents what she recalls as best she can. This book has a genuine quality that renders it very moving, for everyone has regrets about the way he/she treated his/her parents, and Ernaux's attempt to repent or reconcile is easy to relate to.

Positions or A Man's Place is an account of Ernaux's father from his beginnings on a Normandy farm, his military experience, his working in a factory, marrying, raising a child, and owning a small store. In short, his was the life of a "common man", a man unwilling to put on airs for his daughter but proud of her achievements. On the otherhand he was proud of speaking French not the local patois of his parents. It is the detail Ernaux chooses that develops a picture of the man: "...but in front of educated people he would remain quite or would pause in mid-sentence, adding 'You know what I mean,' with a vague gesture of his hand, willing the other person to finish the sentence for him." A wonderful book to read to see how a character can come to life on paper.

This thin book contains a "fiction"--it is shorter than a novella, but somewhat long for a short story. Perhaps one might call it a fictionalized memoir. In experience and scope it is a novel, that is, after one has read the lean 99 pages, one feels that one has experienced an entire life, such is the effect of Ernaux's distinctive prose. She writes: "I shall collate my father's words, tastes and mannerisms, as well as the main events of his life...No lyrical reminiscences, no triumphant displays of irony. This neutral style of writing comes to me naturally." (p. 13)

This book, and the companion volume, A Woman's Story, was a best seller in France and has become part of the national culture. What Ernaux has done and does so well is to bring to vivid reality the mundane details of the small town life of twentieth century France. Her style is deliberately "flat" without any striving for effect. There is no satire, and as she intends, no irony, no higher view; indeed the nameless first person narrator, whom the reader must take as Ernaux herself, makes no effort to romanticize any aspect of her story including the part she herself plays. She reveals herself as a creature of her culture and her class just as surely as her father was.

She is a secondary school teacher, apparently in her thirties, something of an incipient intellectual, with a two and a half year old son and a husband who also has nothing in common with her unschooled father. The story begins when her father's death at age sixty-seven goads her into recalling his life and her relationship with him. They are two people joined in blood but apart in both a social and a temporal sense. And this distance is part of what she explores. She speaks of something "indefinable," that had come between them during her adolescence, "something to do with class...Like fractured love." Perhaps we might call it the alienation of generations. He was proud of her because she was accepted by those who would not accept him. She had risen from the working class to the middle class, just as he had risen above his father's station as an illiterate peasant.

There are some intriguing curiosities. For one, the blurb identifies Ernaux as having grown up in the small town of Yvetot, while the narrative uses the quaint transparency "Y-" to identify the town, as though this were a roman a clef. For another, there is a sense of something resembling warmth between her and her father, but no more than that, and this "distance" is never really accounted for except as some inexplicable fact of life. Also, Ernaux's narrator thinks of herself as bourgeois and having risen above the station of her working class parents, yet they are totally bourgeois themselves; indeed more so that she, since they own their simple cafe and store and adjoining property in the small town, while she is the equivalent of a civil servant, her education paid for by the state so that she could be employed by the state. This ingenuous self-revelation persuades us of her honesty and guilelessness and lends a queer sort of very deep veracity to her story.

I will not call this a masterpiece, although I think all writers of fiction ought to read it for the magic of its style. She has quite a nice touch, without artificiality, without contrivance.

Tanya Leslie's translation of the French, often tested because of the large number of idioms used by Ernaux, is natural and very agreeable.

Annie Ernaux's Frozen Woman is the perfect type of the victim who cannot do anything but complain about her family, her social background, her husband... The writer - the book is autobiographical - hasn't got any sense of humour about herself and her writing is full of resentment and even shame. It is not litterature but testimony, like those you can read in Marie-Claire magazine.

I read this book in one sitting and found it fascinating. It was translated from French, but flows very well. I wonder what period in time this book is meant to reflect. The book seems autobiographical, and as the author was born in 1940, I assume that this is the era that character is experiencing - a time in which most women were expected to be happy to give up a career in exchange for marriage and children.

A Frozen Women is a interesting study of one woman's protest at being urged into becoming a wife and mother, a role for which she has no respect or desire. If this book had reflected the 90's or later (which I believe it does not), it would not have rung true, as today's women, for the most part, have more choices than they used to.

I really found myself feeling empathy with the main character, as even today, women are still often expected to bear the brunt of household and child rearing duties - jobs that don't seem to be highly respect or appreciated, and are often less than fulfilling. The main character's feelings of resentment and powerlessness have probably been experienced by many women, both in the past and present, especially women who desire an even partnership in marriage.

The ending left me waiting for more, however, and I wonder if Ernaux will be continuing what seems to be an autobiographical tale of a woman who dreams of liberation and equality.

I recommend this book to everyone--women who fear marriage, women who are eager to marry, happily married women, unhappily married women, men of all sorts. It provides a fascinating, convincing portrayal of a loveless marriage, of how class affects our lives in a very real way. The book is focused, terrifying, depressing, vivid, energetic--everything you want in a memoir. If you're an empathic person, you'll admire this book.

What amazing insight Ernaux displays concerning the emotional, intellectual, and professional development of women on all levels! Nothing is held back as she illustrates in tormenting detail the full story of a woman's existence. In writing about one woman, Ernaux produces a book which is a comprehensive commentary about the dreams, emotions, aspirations, and ambitions embodied in all women as they face the daily demands of life and survival. Much more should be written about this topic and in this vein which does not shun nor exploit female emotion

I heard Maya Angelou once say good writing makes the reader think "I could have written that" because the text so accurately depicts common feelings. Ernaux has more than accomplished that in A Frozen Woman. Her description of the journey a young woman makes from independence and freedom to a stifled married-with-children life hits almost too close to home. The text is also written in a way that the reader seems to be as surprised at how much life changes for the narrator as the character is herself. I could not help but think of Reviving Ophelia while reading this book, tracing the metamorphosis of adventurous girls into frozen women

Alzheimer's is a cruel disease for those who have it and even more cruel for those who know the sufferers. Everyone who knows someone who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's should read this book to prepare themselves for the experiences ahead. You'll need all of your strength and preparation!

The title is the last sentence the author's mother wrote before she died. One of the frightening aspects of the disease is watching the person discover the loss of faculties, as they occur. Soon, you are not recognized, and the person can lose all of their possessions. They may have to be tied down to keep them from wandering off and getting hurt. Physical deterioration is often not far behind.

The book is a series of notes the author made on occasions when she was with her mother from January 1984 through April 1986, and includes a few days after her mother's death.

You will find a lot of pain here. The author finds that she is revolted by the affliction, at how her mother changes, by the memories she has of things she should not have done, and in her own reactions to her mother's changes. As a result, there's a lot of guilt and remorse to deal with. By reading how Ms. Ernaux went through this, you may have an easier time forgiving yourself if you are subject to the same feelings in the future.

The book is filled with pretty direct stories and references to things that can be upsetting: People exposing themselves, getting sores in private places, human excretion, unpleasant smells and sights, and rough language. You will hear, see, feel, smell, and taste what the author experienced. In this area, I found the translation a little strange at times. Several crude words would be used, then a reference would be made that seemed to be employing a euphemism for a more direct word. Is the translation more or less crude than the author intended? I don't know.

The reason I did not give the book five stars is that it could really use a little more perspective than just the notes. Apparently, the experience was so painful that the author decided to let the notes speak for themselves. Perhaps in the future, Ms. Ernaux will choose to revisit this work, and put it into more context.

Is this work contrived by a fine writer, or is it simple human drama? I'm inclined to think it is the latter. Few would portray themselves and their mother this way simply to entertain readers. I could feel the searing pain as I read the entries. I think you will, too.

Annie Ernaux is an author whose appeal is difficult to define - she writes autobiographical prose that is sparse, clear, honest and a bit hard. In her very particular experience, she writes prose that is emotionally universally true.

The mother we meet in "I Remain in Darkness" is a very different woman than we met in "A Woman's Place". The strong woman previously depicted descends into dependence. Written in the form of a dated journal, Ms. Ernaux traces her mother's descent into Alzheimer's - first recognizing that her mother can no longer live alone, she moves her mother in with her; this is followed by the recognition that she can no longer care for her mother; finally, her mother dies in a nursing home.

A simple and common experience. But Annie Ernaux in a slim volume captures the changing emotions that follow the changes in her mother's situation in a way few authors can.

Alzheimer's is a cruel disease for those who have it and even more cruel for those who know the sufferers. Everyone who knows someone who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's should read this book to prepare themselves for the experiences ahead. You'll need all of your strength and preparation!

The title is the last sentence the author's mother wrote before she died. One of the frightening aspects of the disease is watching the person discover the loss of faculties, as they occur. Soon, you are not recognized, and the person can lose all of their possessions. They may have to be tied down to keep them from wandering off and getting hurt. Physical deterioration is often not far behind.

The book is a series of notes the author made on occasions when she was with her mother from January 1984 through April 1986, and includes a few days after her mother's death.

You will find a lot of pain here. The author finds that she is revolted by the affliction, at how her mother changes, by the memories she has of things she should not have done, and in her own reactions to her mother's changes. As a result, there's a lot of guilt and remorse to deal with. By reading how Ms. Ernaux went through this, you may have an easier time forgiving yourself if you are subject to the same feelings in the future.

The book is filled with pretty direct stories and references to things that can be upsetting: People exposing themselves, getting sores in private places, human excretion, unpleasant smells and sights, and rough language. You will hear, see, feel, smell, and taste what the author experienced. In this area, I found the translation a little strange at times. Several crude words would be used, then a reference would be made that seemed to be employing a euphemism for a more direct word. Is the translation more or less crude than the author intended? I don't know.

The reason I did not give the book five stars is that it could really use a little more perspective than just the notes. Apparently, the experience was so painful that the author decided to let the notes speak for themselves. Perhaps in the future, Ms. Ernaux will choose to revisit this work, and put it into more context.

Is this work contrived by a fine writer, or is it simple human drama? I'm inclined to think it is the latter. Few would portray themselves and their mother this way simply to entertain readers. I could feel the searing pain as I read the entries. I think you will, too.

This book spoke to me! I am a dual national, French through my mother, and I lived many of my childhood years in France and have many French relatives and friends. I read this little book with so much interest. I actually sobbed at the ending of this memoir. It is magnificent in its sparseness and ability to reach the universal in those few and well chosen family anecdotes. The struggle of societal hierarchies has rarely been so lovingly described.

This book provides a detailed insight into the author's feelings towards various topics but mainly betrayal and guilt. It however lacks in any real content and at times seems to be recounting what has previously been told.

The stopping and starting of the book in different places can be a bit confusing especially for a person who is not fluent in french. However the class systems are represented well and one begins to feel what it must have been like for the lower class people struggling to imporve themselves. In places the book can be a bit boring yet on the whole it is very interesting to read and provides a good insight.

I thought the abrupt starting/stopping in describing different parts of her life were used excellently. The reason the book did not get five stars was simply the content. The emotion was there, the writing style was great, but I just thought the subject matter was rather boring.

Shame should not be read until you have reaad both Positions and A Woman's Story, the individuals accounts of her father and mother's lives. Only then will the beginning of this work appropriately shock you: "My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June". Her response was to be ashamed of her background especially as she was enrolled in schools beyond her social class. The trip to Lourdes with her father is a particularly vivid illustration of her relationship with her father that contrasts with the picture drawn in Positions. Again Ernaux's direct style says something universal about social position and what is hidden to preserve that position.

I feel a bit full of shame for not being overly swept away by this memoir at the onset and I believe that is only because I'm immersed in the American tradition of the shameless individual tell-all, no-holds-barred, go-for-broke shock story. Yet,reading on, the reader does creep more and more inside the child Annie's head to a disturbing effect--disturbing more so because it is not Americanly-obvious--it is subtle and heartbreaking, highly intellectual and deeply felt. It is a work of great literature.

A truly boring book. I don't need bodies strewn about to get interested in a book, but Ernaux utterly shuns narrative and gives us list after list of everything she can remember from the summer she turned twelve. The result is that no one comes alive in this book, not even the auther herself.