The Possession (2002)[H]er mother’s strict “moral activism” (which Ernaux explores in her short account of Blanche’s life, A Woman’s Story, from 1988), together with her scorn towards “unuseful” women, ie women “who stayed at home and had no standing in the world”, has informed the economical or “factual” style of Ernaux’s books. She is determined that they be comprehensible to the social class she believes she betrayed by obtaining a degree in literature from the University of Rouen in 1971, becoming a published author and effectively joining the literary bourgeoisie. For Ernaux, influenced by the thinking of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, class mobility is a violent, brutal process, and she sees it as her duty to at least attempt, via writing, to make amends to those she has left behind.I know; I can't stop laughing either. One is tempted to compare her to J. D. Vance, who adopted the same sort of fake populism to appeal to those his hard work and talents left behind. But, of course, it is more appropriate to compare Him to her, populism being so quintessentially European. At any rate, we are thereby warned that the writer's work is likely to be inherently dishonest, particularlu unfortunate in the case of Ms Ernaux, whose Nobel Prize citation claims to be “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” The dishonesty begins with the first sentence of this book: "I have always wanted to write as if I would be gone when the book was published. To write as if I were about to die-no more judges. Even if it's an illusion, perhaps, to believe that truth comes only by way of death." No writer of such performative texts wishes not to enjoy the reaction. Indeed, the response is the point. Within a couple sentences we get to an indelible image that inaugurates the pitiful performance. In a scene that oddly calls to mind Sandra Bullock depending on the tether attaching her to the spacecraft in Gravity, our narrator grips on to her lover's johnson and intones "as long as I'm holding this, I am not lost in the world" Sweet Jesus, sister, have some pride. But what follows is 62 pages of trying to prove Rene Girard's mimetic desire thesis true as she becomes consumed with jealousy after dumping this lover, to maintain her freedom (?), only to discover that he has entered into another relationship. The mere fact of the other woman is the source of the ensuing psychosis, the thought that another desires the ex being enough to drive the narrator mad with derivative desire. In one honest (accidentally?) passage she does recognize the absurdity of her situation: [I] became accepting of behaviors that had formerly been stigmatized for me or that had provoked my ridicule. "How could anyone do that?!" became "I could see myself doing that." [...] Just as I saw W.'s woman in dozens of others, I projected myself into all those who--crazier or more audacious than me--had in any way "blown a fuse."Nope, not possible, certain. There's a veritable ridicule fiesta going on. At least in the Hollywood thriller version of this sort of scenario we get a rabbit boiling away on the stove--and the French love rabbit!--and a bloody denouement. No such luck in this blessedly brief monograph. [One final criticism: the original French title is L'occupation, surely suggesting comparison to the Nazi Occupation that Ms Ernaux was born under. The moral equivalence sought is monstrous.] (Reviewed:) Grade: (D-) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Annie Ernaux -AWARD: Annie Ernaux (The Nobel Prize in Literature 2022) -AUTHOR SITE: annie-ernaux.org -FILMOGRAPHY: Annie Ernaux (IMDB) -INDEX: Annie Ernaux (LitHub) -INDEX: Annie Ernaux (THe Guardian) -INDEX: Annie Ernaux (Complete Review) -BOOK SITE: The Possession by Annie Ernaux (7 Stories Press) -BOOK SITE: The Possession (Penguin Random House) -EXCERPT: First Chapter of The Possession - -ESSAY: On Cancer and Desire: Images from a complicated year. (Annie Ernaux, 8/18/24, The New Yorker) -ESSAY: Annie Ernaux on the “Infinite Lack” in Our Search for Love: The following is excerpted from Annie Ernaux’s 1988 diary (Annie Ernaux, September 27, 2022, LitHub) -INTERVIEW: ‘If it’s not a risk… it’s nothing’: Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux on her unapologetic career: For five decades, the French writer has been transforming her own life into captivating, uncompromising autofiction. With new translations, a film, and unwavering activism, the 82-year-old is living life to the full (Alice Blackhurst, 21 May 2023, The Guardian) her mother’s strict “moral activism” (which Ernaux explores in her short account of Blanche’s life, A Woman’s Story, from 1988), together with her scorn towards “unuseful” women, ie women “who stayed at home and had no standing in the world”, has informed the economical or “factual” style of Ernaux’s books. She is determined that they be comprehensible to the social class she believes she betrayed by obtaining a degree in literature from the University of Rouen in 1971, becoming a published author and effectively joining the literary bourgeoisie. For Ernaux, influenced by the thinking of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, class mobility is a violent, brutal process, and she sees it as her duty to at least attempt, via writing, to make amends to those she has left behind. -INTERVIEW: Nobel literature prize fell into my life ‘like a bomb’, says Annie Ernaux: In conversation with Sally Rooney at Charleston festival author says award has hindered her ability to fohttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/books/review/annie-ernaux-interview.htmlcus on writing (Amy Raphael, 29 May 2023, The Guardian) -INTERVIEW: Annie Ernaux Can Read Anywhere, So Long as It’s Quiet: “The first condition is silence,” says the 2022 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, whose most recent book is “The Young Man.” “The when and where do not matter.” (NY Times Book Review, 11/09/23) -INTERVIEW: Nobel Prize Winner Annie Ernaux Speaks on How Class Shapes Her Writing (David Broder, 10/08/22, Jacobin) -INTERVIEW: ‘It plunged me back to waiting for a period’: Annie Ernaux and Audrey Diwan on abortion film Happening: An award-winning new drama tells the searing story of a young woman’s quest for an illegal abortion in 1960s France. Its director and the writer on whose autobiography it is based explain why the subject is still important (Lauren Elkin, 3 Apr 2022, The Guardian) -ARTICLE: Annie Ernaux: 'Uncompromising' French author wins Nobel Literature Prize (Helen Bushby and Ian Youngs, 10/06/22, BBC) -ARTICLE: 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Annie Ernaux a longtime critic of 'apartheid' Israel: The French author, whose literary career spans five decades, has signed multiple letters condemning Israel for its crimes against Palestinians (The New Arab, 07 October, 2022) -ESSAY: New Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux's repeatedly supported BDS: Ernaux has called to boycott Israeli cultural events, release terrorists and called Israel apartheid. (TZVI JOFFRE, OCTOBER 6, 2022, Jerusalem Post) -ARTICLE: Annie Ernaux wins the 2022 Nobel prize in literature: The French author of mostly autobiographical work takes the prestigious books prize for the ‘courage and clinical acuity’ of her writing (Sarah Shaffi, 6 Oct 2022, The Guardian) -ARTICLE: Annie Ernaux has joined the boycott of German cultural institutions. (Dan Sheehan, January 11, 2024, LitHub) -ARTICLE: THE PARISIAN BOOKSELLER WHO WON'T SELL NOBEL PRIZE WINNER ANNIE ERNAUX ( Magazine En-Contact, 3/21/24) -ESSAY: A commitment that ruffles feathers: the attacks against Annie Ernaux's political stances (Gisèle Sapiro, 2/13/24, French Cultural Studies) -ESSAY: What are the antisemitism claims linked to Annie Ernaux?: The 2022 laureate for the Nobel Prize for literature has supported the anti-Israel boycott movement, BDS, on many occasions. Is Annie Ernaux antisemitic or simply a vocal critic of Israel's policies? (Suzanne Cords, October 11, 2022, Deutsche-Welle) -ESSAY: Bad Genre: Annie Ernaux, Autofiction, and Finding a Voice (Lauren Elkin, October 26, 2018, Paris Review) -ESSAY: Annie Ernaux Turns Memory Into Art (Alexandra Schwartz, Nov. 14th, 2022, The New Yorker) -ESSAY: ‘We are made of words’: the radically intimate writing of Annie Ernaux: She offers us her own life, her own pain, without shame – and gives voice to the silences of women. For this the Nobel prizewinner deserves to be celebrated (Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, 7 Oct 2022, The Guardian) -ESSAY: In Annie Ernaux’s Nobel prize we see the public value of our intimate histories: This year’s winner shows the merit of the memoir form and marks a turning point for the literature prize (Gaby Wood, 8 Oct 2022, The Observer) -ESSAY: Where to start with: Annie Ernaux: The Nobel prize-winning author’s anti-sentimental writings are frank meditations on love, family, loss, memory and writing, and are an essential read. Here are seven works to get stuck in (Sinéad Gleeson, 17 Aug 2023, The Guardian) -ESSAY: Reading Annie Ernaux, 2022 Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (Carrie McBride, October 6, 2022, New York Public Library) -REVIEW ESSAY: Writings about Life – Annie Ernaux (vel veeter, Cannonball Read) -REVIEW ESSAY: All That Really Happens Happens to Me: On Annie Ernaux’s “Getting Lost”: Kaya Genç surveys the work of Annie Ernaux via her memoir “Getting Lost,” translated by Alison L. Strayer. (Kaya Genç, October 10, 2022, LA Review of Books) -ESSAY: Annie Ernaux Has Broken Every Taboo of What Women Are Allowed to Write (Rachel Cusk, May. 2nd, 2023, NY Times Magazine) -ESSAY: What is Annie Ernaux hiding?: What the Nobel Laureate teaches us about shame, confession and secrecy. (Christiana Spensm 7/20/23, New Statesman) -ESSAY: Nobel literature prize: Annie Ernaux and the art of 'collective autobiography' (Alexandra Pringle, 10 October 2022, Middle East Eye) -ESSAY: How Marguerite Duras shaped Nobel winner Annie Ernaux and a generation of writers (Jessica Ferri, Dec. 14, 2022, LA Times) -ESSAY: Two Annies (Patrick Autréaux (tr. Tobias Ryan), 8/30/24, 3AM) - -ARCHIVES: Annie Ernaux (Kirkus) -ARCHIVES: “ernaux” (Book Forum) -ARCHIVES: “ernaux” (Paris Review) -ARCHIVES: Annie Ernaux (Internet Archive) -REVIEW: of The Possession by Annie Ernaux (Complete Review) -REVIEW: of The Possession (Nancy Kline, NY Times Book Review)) -REVIEW: of The Possession (Emma Garman, Second Pass) -REVIEW: of The Possession (Timothy Jourdan, Three Percent) -REVIEW: of The Possession (Clemi’s Book World) -REVIEW: of The Possession (Tony’s Book World) -REVIEW: of The Possession (Of Books and Reading) -REVIEW: of Getting Lost by Annie Ernaux (Sigrid Nunez, NY Review of Books) -REVIEW: of Look at the Lightshe Possession (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of The Years by Annie Ernaux (Katherine Waters, The Arts Desk) -REVIEW: of The Years (Azarin Sadegh, LA Review of Books) -REVIEW: of The Years (GILI OSTFIELD, BookForum) -REVIEW: of The Years (Mistress of Books) -REVIEW: of The Years (David Ulin, LA Times) -REVIEW: of The Years (Mookes and Gripes -REVIEW: of Look at the Lights, My Love by Annie Ernaux (Sukhdev Sandhu, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of look at the Lights (Apoorva Tadepalli, LA Review of Books) -REVIEW: of Look at the Lights (Adrienne Raphel, The Paris Review) -REVIEW: of Look at the Lights (Grace Byron, Cleveland Book Review) -REVIEW: of Look at the Lightshe Possession (Kirkus) -REVIEW: of The Young Man By Annie Ernau (Jacquelyn Bengfort, Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation) -REVIEW: of The Young Man (Francine Prose, The Guardian) -REVIEW: of A Man’s Place by Annie Ernaux (Natasha Pinnington, New Left Review) -REVIEW: of Man’s Place (Franco Files) FILM: -INTERVIEWS: ‘Each time I read one of her books, I wanted to read more’: five actors on bringing Annie Ernaux’s memoir to the stage: As a theatre production of the Nobel prize-winning writer’s acclaimed autobiography The Years opens in the UK, the actors playing her at different ages – including Deborah Findlay, Gina McKee and Romola Garai – talk about what the work means to them (Claire Armitstead, 14 Jul 2024, The Observer) -INTERVIEW: Eline Arbo on staging Annie Ernaux’s The Years (Saffron Morter-Laing, July 2024, The Lomdon Magazine) - -FILM REVIEW: The Super 8 Years (Wendy Ide, The Guardian) -FILM REVIEW: The Super 8 Years (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian) Book-related and General Links: |
Copyright 1998-2015 Orrin Judd
