A Man's Place: Annie Ernaux

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Ma qui, nelle pagine di Annie Ermeaux, siamo ben oltre la vergogna: la figlia sente di far parte di un altro mondo e un’altra epoca, che non ha più nulla da spartire con il medioevo del padre. Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux's cold observation reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. An unsentimental portrait of a man loved as a parent, admired as an individual but, because of habits and education, heartbreakingly apart. She is obviously feeling guilty for distancing herself from her father while transitioning towards middle class. I shall collate my father's words, tastes and mannerisms, the main events of his life, all the external evidence of his existence, an existence which I too shared.

I think he was proud of Annie as she went through college, but apparently he was sort of jealous of her at times and she was ashamed of him at times. The writing of the author is somewhat like a cross between family history and sociology, reality and fiction, it could be said to be an effort to delve deep inside your subconscious mind to find what lies there, a sort of unseen truth which could only be brought out to the life through something fragile but tangible such as words. I devoured them some 20 years ago and I imagine over the next year I will re-read all of them as well as read a couple I have not read as of yet. Not really a surprise that this is another 5-star read in Ernaux’s oeuvre, as it’s similar to the stories she wrote about her mother, only the central character here is her father. Escribir de una forma llana es lo que me resulta natural…”No me cabe duda de que una de sus mayores preocupaciones fue encontrar el tono justo para este homenaje a la vida que representaban sus padres, o, más que un homenaje, este dejar constancia de aquellos modos y maneras, de ese lugar al que ella ahora siente que traicionó.Por outro lado, Annie teve uma ascensão social por ter tido a oportunidade de uma boa educação e de ingressar na Universidade. After reading Jennifer Croft’s tweets explaining why the translator should be on the cover I decided to name the translator in my future reviews. By choosing to expose the web of his life through a number of selected facts and details, I feel that I am gradually moving away from the figure of my father. Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labor, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection. Your recommendation conforts what I wrote in my billet : changing of social class can be a similar experience to immigration.

There's a lot to unpack here, which makes you reflect on your own attitudes to society and class, and the impact your parents have had on it all - at least through your eyes. Or it is because fundamentally we all are alike, which means all that glorified notion about the uniqueness of human beings does not stand true if we go to the very core of humanity. I don't know, it's an unspectacular story and style, at least in this translation, but also quietly moving. Il a toujours appelé ainsi le travail de la terre, l’autre sens de culture, le spirituel, lui était inutile. I can’t imagine any reader doesn’t think in some way of the same thing, that his complicated life is worth telling.My father was constantly looked down upon for his table manners and my mother’s self-taught attempts at ‘catching up with the elite’. It pains me that I only discovered her work last year, but then I'd only just discovered Patrick Modiano the year before, so I guess this journey is all about stumbling across new things that are well-established and have a rich pedigree.

We can see how people in France expressed their feelings at the loss of a loved one in this book and why and how Annie's family did it differently from the general conventions at that time.They were convinced that being well-read and well-mannered were marks of an inner excellence that was innate. Norma: escapar siempre a la mirada crítica de los otros, siendo muy educado, no expresando opinión alguna, controlando minuciosamente los estados de ánimo que pueden ponerte en evidencia. Her other works include Exteriors, A Girl's Story, A Woman's Story, The Possession, Simple Passion, Happening, I Remain in Darkness, Shame, A Frozen Woman, and A Man's Place. Un pueblo donde los vecinos vigilaban la blancura y el estado de la ropa tendida a secar, y sabían si se vaciaban los orinales todos los días.