Publication
Amsterdam Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers copyright 2020
ISBN
9789029540650
Language
Collections
Description
This is a personal narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present -- even projections into the future -- photos, books, songs, radio, television and decades of advertising, headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and writing notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the times, slogans, brands and names for the ever-proliferating objects, are given voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges. Ernaux makes the passage of time palpable. Time itself, inexorable, narrates its own course, consigning all other narrators to anonymity. A new kind of autobiography emerges, at once subjective and impersonal, private and collective. On its 2008 publication in France, The Years came as a surprise. Though Ernaux had for years been hailed as a beloved, bestselling and award-winning author, The Years was in many ways a departure: both an intimate memoir written by entire generations, and a story of generations telling a very personal story. Like the generation before hers, the narrator eschews the "I" for the "we" (or "they", or "one") as if collective life were inextricably intertwined with a private life that in her parents' generation ceased to exist. She writes of her parents' generation (and could be writing of her own book): "From a common fund of hunger and fear, everything was told in the we and impersonal pronouns.… (more)
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User reviews
LibraryThing member thorold
Sauver quelque chose du temps où l'on ne sera plus jamais
Les Années is a very interesting attempt to mix the forms of memoir and social history to create a kind of depersonalised autobiography which is at the same time a history of living in France from the 1940s to the early 21st century - from
The viewpoint is detached, none of the characters in the story is named, but she doesn't try to step entirely outside her own experience: she is explicitly writing as a woman born in the 1940s, coming from a provincial, working-class background, and spending her working life in an intellectual, left-leaning environment. The text is full of references to products, films, books, songs, political and cultural events, causes, technological change, and all the other markers that we use to place ourselves in history, but it becomes vague and allusive when it is talking about personal life. Births and deaths happen offstage, love affairs are commented on mostly in retrospect (Ernaux has written in detail about all these things elsewhere, of course).
Obviously you miss some of the fine detail of this if you haven't actually lived in France during the decades she is describing (I've probably seen about 1/10 of the films she mentions and heard of about half of the politicians and musicians...), but that isn't really important: it's a book that makes you think about history and memory and the way the two work together in literature, and that's always an interesting and worthwhile exercise. And it manages to look at nearly seventy years of social and political change without becoming morose and pessimistic. The tone is always pleasantly ironic, never overcome by events, but never so detached that it refuses to take a moral stand. Very nicely done!
Les Années is a very interesting attempt to mix the forms of memoir and social history to create a kind of depersonalised autobiography which is at the same time a history of living in France from the 1940s to the early 21st century - from
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de Gaulle to Sarko. She writes about herself in the third person ("elle", not "je") and avoids the perfect tense as far as possible to insist on the generality of the experiences she is describing. She isn't trying to rewrite Proust: "La recherche du temps perdu passait par le web", she notes ironically when discussing the first years of the new century. But the book does take concrete artefacts, in particular photographs of herself, as stimulants of memory. The viewpoint is detached, none of the characters in the story is named, but she doesn't try to step entirely outside her own experience: she is explicitly writing as a woman born in the 1940s, coming from a provincial, working-class background, and spending her working life in an intellectual, left-leaning environment. The text is full of references to products, films, books, songs, political and cultural events, causes, technological change, and all the other markers that we use to place ourselves in history, but it becomes vague and allusive when it is talking about personal life. Births and deaths happen offstage, love affairs are commented on mostly in retrospect (Ernaux has written in detail about all these things elsewhere, of course).
Obviously you miss some of the fine detail of this if you haven't actually lived in France during the decades she is describing (I've probably seen about 1/10 of the films she mentions and heard of about half of the politicians and musicians...), but that isn't really important: it's a book that makes you think about history and memory and the way the two work together in literature, and that's always an interesting and worthwhile exercise. And it manages to look at nearly seventy years of social and political change without becoming morose and pessimistic. The tone is always pleasantly ironic, never overcome by events, but never so detached that it refuses to take a moral stand. Very nicely done!
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LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
Annie Ernaux's book belongs in that odd genre of auto-fiction, books that are based on the author's own life, but the events of the past have either been altered or the author concedes that their own memories are not necessarily accurate. Here, Ernaux takes her own life and memories as a way of
Beginning in the mid-1940s, the book begins with Ernaux's earliest memories, and with descriptions of family photos of herself. As her story moves forward, it becomes a universal story of a time and place, of what family dinners looked like, what school was like and how things changed over time, with lifestyles adapting to the availability of consumer goods, as the older folks died and so the Sunday dinner conversations moved on from the war to other subjects, like the events in Algeria or student uprisings.
This is a superbly constructed and immensely readable book. I did stop many times to look up names and events, but that was due to my lack of knowledge of French history and popular culture. It was so interesting to look at a time slightly different from my own (Ernaux belongs to my parents' generation) and at a country other than my own. Ernaux mixes the personal with the universal as she writes her way through the years of her life and the result is something greater than either a straight memoir or social history would have been.
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telling the story of what life was like during her life, for herself, for women in France, and for France itself.Beginning in the mid-1940s, the book begins with Ernaux's earliest memories, and with descriptions of family photos of herself. As her story moves forward, it becomes a universal story of a time and place, of what family dinners looked like, what school was like and how things changed over time, with lifestyles adapting to the availability of consumer goods, as the older folks died and so the Sunday dinner conversations moved on from the war to other subjects, like the events in Algeria or student uprisings.
This is a superbly constructed and immensely readable book. I did stop many times to look up names and events, but that was due to my lack of knowledge of French history and popular culture. It was so interesting to look at a time slightly different from my own (Ernaux belongs to my parents' generation) and at a country other than my own. Ernaux mixes the personal with the universal as she writes her way through the years of her life and the result is something greater than either a straight memoir or social history would have been.
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LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
"Save something from the time where we will never be again."
This is the story of a woman's life (Annie Ernaux's) merged and intertwined with the history of her times, from 1940 (when she was born) through 2008, shortly before the book was published. The book is structured with recurring
Another motif is family dinners over time, what was eaten who was there, what the discussions were about, and how all of these changed over time.
In between these mostly personal things are people, events, trends, intellectual thoughts, occurring or prevalent at the time, some seemingly grabbed from the headlines ("the day Saigon fell we realized that we'd never believed an American defeat possible. They were finally paying for the napalm, the little girl on the poster that hung on our walls.").
At various times during her adulthood, she discusses a book she wants to write, and considers how to arrange it. She wants to write a book that would be a personal narrative, but also a history of her time, "How would she organize the accumulated memory of events and news items and the thousands of days that have conveyed her to the present?" And this is the book that resulted.
Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel for literature this year, is a few years older than me, but many of her experiences were my experiences, and this book really spoke to me (i.e. "1968 was the first year of the world."). Since her life was mostly lived in Europe, the events she discusses are more Euro-centric, so there were many references I was unfamiliar with. But thank goodness for Google.
Her statements about aging in particular resonate with me at this particular time of my life:
"She has lost her sense of the future, a kind of limitless background on which her actions and gestures were once projected, a waiting for all the good and unknown things that lived inside her...."
and,
"As the time ahead objectively decreases, the time behind her stretches farther and farther back, to long before birth and ahead to a time after her death."
Highly recommended.
5 stars
This is the story of a woman's life (Annie Ernaux's) merged and intertwined with the history of her times, from 1940 (when she was born) through 2008, shortly before the book was published. The book is structured with recurring
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leitmotifs--photographs at intervals, starting when she was a baby and ending when she was a grandmother. She describes each photograph, who took them, and tries to surmise what the subject (herself at various ages) may have been thinking, or was thinking, if she remembers. She also describes the circumstances of her life at the time, her thoughts and goals if she can remember them.Another motif is family dinners over time, what was eaten who was there, what the discussions were about, and how all of these changed over time.
In between these mostly personal things are people, events, trends, intellectual thoughts, occurring or prevalent at the time, some seemingly grabbed from the headlines ("the day Saigon fell we realized that we'd never believed an American defeat possible. They were finally paying for the napalm, the little girl on the poster that hung on our walls.").
At various times during her adulthood, she discusses a book she wants to write, and considers how to arrange it. She wants to write a book that would be a personal narrative, but also a history of her time, "How would she organize the accumulated memory of events and news items and the thousands of days that have conveyed her to the present?" And this is the book that resulted.
Annie Ernaux, who won the Nobel for literature this year, is a few years older than me, but many of her experiences were my experiences, and this book really spoke to me (i.e. "1968 was the first year of the world."). Since her life was mostly lived in Europe, the events she discusses are more Euro-centric, so there were many references I was unfamiliar with. But thank goodness for Google.
Her statements about aging in particular resonate with me at this particular time of my life:
"She has lost her sense of the future, a kind of limitless background on which her actions and gestures were once projected, a waiting for all the good and unknown things that lived inside her...."
and,
"As the time ahead objectively decreases, the time behind her stretches farther and farther back, to long before birth and ahead to a time after her death."
Highly recommended.
5 stars
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LibraryThing member lisapeet
Started off the year with a good one. Such an interesting approach to memoir, even if I'm not familiar with a lot of the French current history/politics/pop culture she discusses. But situating oneself in the news stream to examine a life feels so much like the way people think but don't always
You can tell it wasn't an American account because she barely ever mentions work.
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write, which was cool—and the backdrop of the 20th century/early 21st made for a very rounded portrait of a life, if that makes sense. You can tell it wasn't an American account because she barely ever mentions work.
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LibraryThing member baswood
She says at the end of the book that she has been writing an impersonal autobiography. She has attempted to link as closely as she can, a life (mostly her life) with historical events over a period of nearly 60 years in Paris (France). In a short prologue she describes random photographs starting
60 years or so is a long period to cover in a book that runs to just 250 pages, but as it is set out like a number of snapshot paragraphs rarely lasting more than 2 pages it works well. She guides her readers through the deprivation in Paris after the end of the second world war, examining the black and white photographs she sees and remembers the struggles within her own family and how people mended and made do, clinging to life within the family as they tried to make the best of things. She came from a relatively poor family and so life for her was harder than for some. She talks about the feelings of frustration during the last years of General de Gaul's rule, but then things start to improve. As a young woman she benefits from the sexual freedom ushered in by the contraceptive pill, certain woman started to feel more independent of men and this was reflected in some literature and female icons started to appear, she remembers Simone de Beauvoir as one of the first.
She states that 1968 was "the first year of the world." The student riots in Paris and the striking workers that at one time threatened the existence of the fifth republic. Ernaux was 28 and married with two children at this time, but there is regret that she could not be personally involved. She describes it as a period of hope for real change to a more equal society and as the years pass by and the progressive ideas of that time were pushed further away, she looks back to a sort of missed opportunity. She celebrates with friends and family when François Mitterand was elected as the first socialist president.
Later in the book a picture of a woman alone in her garden leads her to reflect on a life as a divorcé. Her children have grown and left home and she celebrates her freedom. It is like she is recapturing or continuing on from her youth that was put on hold when she married. She can go out dating, she can have lovers when the opportunity arises and can follow her own interests and diversions. She talks later of having a younger lover and the joy it aroused in her. She always uses the third person, as though she is keeping these memories at a little distance, perhaps she is imagining she is speaking for other women similar to her and by linking her thoughts and feelings to incidents and events in Paris and the world beyond, she is creating a sort of universal portrait. As she gets older she feels less assured in the world. The terrorist incidents in Paris in 1995 targeting the transport system shake her considerably as she lives in the suburbs and the new technological revolution and use of smart phones is a challenge. She becomes more concerned with the world situation. She is critical of the consumer society and worries about wars that continue to threaten peace. The book ends as it started with a series of sentences describing photographs in the public domain that have lived in her memory.
This was a fascinating read for me as I have only lived in France since 2005 and the book was published in 2008 and although I have spent sometime trying to catch up with the culture that I have missed, I still had to google names, places and events that would be familiar to native french people or at least native Parisians: I started making a list, but soon gave up. There are of course some wise words and I noted some sentences that I like (excuse my rough translations):
On politics: It was better to live without expecting anything from the left than worrying continually about the right.
On religion: the catholic church in losing the battle over the sexual revolution lost everything
Life in the 1970's when the war was no longer the subject of most conversations: It was a time when the children replaced the time of the dead.
Sex: To be here in this bed with this young man, it is a sensation that does away with her history and she says that she wrote in her diary: He has lifted me out of my generation, but I am not in his, I am nowhere in time. It is the angel that has revived the past; made it eternal.
Her attempts at making this an impersonal biography have resulted in hardly anything written directly about her own life. There is nothing about her career as an author. She has used the term autosociobiographie to reflect her oeuvre and Les années fits right in with this. In some ways it is an ambitious book which I don't think always works, for example it can degenerate into a list of events, which is encouraged by the snapshot approach to the layout, however it is still a four star read and I would add an extra half star for filling in some background to my life in France.
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from sometime after the end of the second world war. The meat of the book starts with her looking at a sepia tinted oval photograph of a baby, which she describes as belonging to the family archives. It has the date written on the back 1941 and the place as Lillebonne and as Annie Ernaux was born in 1940 at Lillebonne it can be deduced that she is looking at her own baby pictures. She describes the photo along with other photos from that same period in the family album. This leads her to think of historical events of that period. As the book progresses and she looks at more photos of the years as they go by, she is then able to link those photos to how she felt at the time as memories come flooding back. She remembers important events, the songs she heard, the reading she did and the films she saw. Later still when she became interested in politics, political events increasingly feature, however the most interesting parts of the book are when she writes about how she felt as a woman to the events that unfolded and which affected her life.60 years or so is a long period to cover in a book that runs to just 250 pages, but as it is set out like a number of snapshot paragraphs rarely lasting more than 2 pages it works well. She guides her readers through the deprivation in Paris after the end of the second world war, examining the black and white photographs she sees and remembers the struggles within her own family and how people mended and made do, clinging to life within the family as they tried to make the best of things. She came from a relatively poor family and so life for her was harder than for some. She talks about the feelings of frustration during the last years of General de Gaul's rule, but then things start to improve. As a young woman she benefits from the sexual freedom ushered in by the contraceptive pill, certain woman started to feel more independent of men and this was reflected in some literature and female icons started to appear, she remembers Simone de Beauvoir as one of the first.
She states that 1968 was "the first year of the world." The student riots in Paris and the striking workers that at one time threatened the existence of the fifth republic. Ernaux was 28 and married with two children at this time, but there is regret that she could not be personally involved. She describes it as a period of hope for real change to a more equal society and as the years pass by and the progressive ideas of that time were pushed further away, she looks back to a sort of missed opportunity. She celebrates with friends and family when François Mitterand was elected as the first socialist president.
Later in the book a picture of a woman alone in her garden leads her to reflect on a life as a divorcé. Her children have grown and left home and she celebrates her freedom. It is like she is recapturing or continuing on from her youth that was put on hold when she married. She can go out dating, she can have lovers when the opportunity arises and can follow her own interests and diversions. She talks later of having a younger lover and the joy it aroused in her. She always uses the third person, as though she is keeping these memories at a little distance, perhaps she is imagining she is speaking for other women similar to her and by linking her thoughts and feelings to incidents and events in Paris and the world beyond, she is creating a sort of universal portrait. As she gets older she feels less assured in the world. The terrorist incidents in Paris in 1995 targeting the transport system shake her considerably as she lives in the suburbs and the new technological revolution and use of smart phones is a challenge. She becomes more concerned with the world situation. She is critical of the consumer society and worries about wars that continue to threaten peace. The book ends as it started with a series of sentences describing photographs in the public domain that have lived in her memory.
This was a fascinating read for me as I have only lived in France since 2005 and the book was published in 2008 and although I have spent sometime trying to catch up with the culture that I have missed, I still had to google names, places and events that would be familiar to native french people or at least native Parisians: I started making a list, but soon gave up. There are of course some wise words and I noted some sentences that I like (excuse my rough translations):
On politics: It was better to live without expecting anything from the left than worrying continually about the right.
On religion: the catholic church in losing the battle over the sexual revolution lost everything
Life in the 1970's when the war was no longer the subject of most conversations: It was a time when the children replaced the time of the dead.
Sex: To be here in this bed with this young man, it is a sensation that does away with her history and she says that she wrote in her diary: He has lifted me out of my generation, but I am not in his, I am nowhere in time. It is the angel that has revived the past; made it eternal.
Her attempts at making this an impersonal biography have resulted in hardly anything written directly about her own life. There is nothing about her career as an author. She has used the term autosociobiographie to reflect her oeuvre and Les années fits right in with this. In some ways it is an ambitious book which I don't think always works, for example it can degenerate into a list of events, which is encouraged by the snapshot approach to the layout, however it is still a four star read and I would add an extra half star for filling in some background to my life in France.
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LibraryThing member kjuliff
Shared Headlines
A thoroughly enjoyable look-back at a French writer’s reactions to fifty years of sociopolitical landscapes.
Major and minor events, tastes and movements from the 1950s through the early twentieth century are chronicled by Erneaux from the point of view of her “circle”. Being
Throughout the book Erneaux uses “we” as the subject and the work is presented as a “collective memory” of the writer’s peers. As she is viewing the world through French eyes, some of the events she notes are local to the French. I recognized only a few of the politicians for example, the obvious de Gaulle, Mitterand, Chirac, Macron. Le Pen. But the bulk of the world news of the times was recognizable, as were the writer’s reactions to the events they described. The war with Algeria through the demonstrations of ‘68 to the destruction of the Twin Towers and the war in Iraq are recounted as if from a collective memory of a group of middle-class French. As well as world events, technological and social issues and tastes are recounted. From the inventions of the transistor radio to cell phones, the impacts are memorialized, as are very minor domestic trends, such as using salt to remove wine-stains from carpets.
The Years fitted well with my own understanding and recollections Of western history. The half decade age-difference did have a jarring effect in a couple of instances. The ‘68 student rebellion for example. I was still studying and Erneaux was married with at least one child. The demonstrations I remember differed from Erneaux’s as I felt dead center, while she reacted as a conventional married woman looking in at them, wishing she were a part. And of course she still uses the subject, “we”.
So while I enjoyed and related to the book, I would not expect everyone to identify with Eareaux’s “We”. Even so, it’s an interesting if not insightful look back at life in the second half of the twentieth century in France.
Recommended.
A thoroughly enjoyable look-back at a French writer’s reactions to fifty years of sociopolitical landscapes.
Major and minor events, tastes and movements from the 1950s through the early twentieth century are chronicled by Erneaux from the point of view of her “circle”. Being
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born only half a decade after the writer, I’m assuming the circle is left-intellectual. The book is a mix of memoir and a personal account of history.Throughout the book Erneaux uses “we” as the subject and the work is presented as a “collective memory” of the writer’s peers. As she is viewing the world through French eyes, some of the events she notes are local to the French. I recognized only a few of the politicians for example, the obvious de Gaulle, Mitterand, Chirac, Macron. Le Pen. But the bulk of the world news of the times was recognizable, as were the writer’s reactions to the events they described. The war with Algeria through the demonstrations of ‘68 to the destruction of the Twin Towers and the war in Iraq are recounted as if from a collective memory of a group of middle-class French. As well as world events, technological and social issues and tastes are recounted. From the inventions of the transistor radio to cell phones, the impacts are memorialized, as are very minor domestic trends, such as using salt to remove wine-stains from carpets.
The Years fitted well with my own understanding and recollections Of western history. The half decade age-difference did have a jarring effect in a couple of instances. The ‘68 student rebellion for example. I was still studying and Erneaux was married with at least one child. The demonstrations I remember differed from Erneaux’s as I felt dead center, while she reacted as a conventional married woman looking in at them, wishing she were a part. And of course she still uses the subject, “we”.
So while I enjoyed and related to the book, I would not expect everyone to identify with Eareaux’s “We”. Even so, it’s an interesting if not insightful look back at life in the second half of the twentieth century in France.
Recommended.
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LibraryThing member edwinbcn
Imagination falters when an idea is more important than art. Annie Ernaux is a great writer, but Les années is not her best book.
The idea of creating an impersonal biography seems a paradox. Biography is the genre par excellence to give an in-depthe description of a person. Postmodern writers
The impersonal character of the book means that a myriad of details is described: innumerous minor details, impressions, moments, piled up like a bric-a-brac. Readers may enjoy this as largely they see a parade of iconic moments from their own lives. Fortunately, the book is relatively thin.
However, the impersonal nature of the observations creates a great sense of detachment, and therefore, ultimately, Les années is a flawed novel, unless its function is to illustrate the connectedness within the unconnectedness. It is hard to feel anything for this novel. However, I do feel these negative feelings are what the novel is about.
The idea of creating an impersonal biography seems a paradox. Biography is the genre par excellence to give an in-depthe description of a person. Postmodern writers
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experimented for years making the person irrelevant, or so it seemed. Numerous fictional biographies have been written about random, insignificant (fictional) charachters. In Ernaux's novel the person is completely absent, although it is widely believed to be autobiographical, and therefore the person is implied. However, this is an assumption. The main character merely resembles the author closely.The impersonal character of the book means that a myriad of details is described: innumerous minor details, impressions, moments, piled up like a bric-a-brac. Readers may enjoy this as largely they see a parade of iconic moments from their own lives. Fortunately, the book is relatively thin.
However, the impersonal nature of the observations creates a great sense of detachment, and therefore, ultimately, Les années is a flawed novel, unless its function is to illustrate the connectedness within the unconnectedness. It is hard to feel anything for this novel. However, I do feel these negative feelings are what the novel is about.
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LibraryThing member jon1lambert
A briliiant overview in the form of a the author's own experiences in the changing world between 1941 and 2001. Inevitably the immediate context is France but it is universal in its scope and meaning.I am not sure whether I felt optimistic or pessimistic having read it. The only bit I took issue
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with was the author's constant need to remind us all about her great sex life at whatever age she was or is, wife or cougar. Show Less
LibraryThing member Dreesie
Though I did not love this book, I can see how someone would (especially the French, as there is A LOT of French political history in here).
This books is a "generational" memoir, for lack of a better term. Ernaux has written a memoir that is told through her eyes, experiencing life as a member of a
Early on she examines the world her grandparents discuss at the table, the world her generation never knew, of dirt floors in houses and washing clothes in wood-ash (p25), and of the provincialness of different areas of France: their habits, food (p33), voices, "a mangled French mixed with local dialects" (p27), the following the Catholic calendar and sexual morés, and living in the scarcity of everything (p34). And how, for her generation, the school calendar replaced that of the season (p29).
My favorite bits revolved around the consumerism. First it was exciting, as "the days of restrictions were at an end" (p37). "We had time to desire things, plastic pencil cases, crepe-soled shoes, gold watches" (p39)--while they lived without indoor plumbing, enitre families sleeping in one room, with mustard poultices a common medicine.
p 110: "And we who were undeceived, who seriously examined the dangers of advertising with our students; we who assigned the topic "Does the possession of material goods lead to happiness?" nought a stereo, a Grundig radio-cassette player, and a Bell & Howell Super 8 camera, with a sense of using modernity to intelligent ends. For us and by us, consumption was purified." This continues, right up to computers and cell phones. She is as nervous about a cellphone as her parents' generation was about computers. Which brings up aging, and how it sneaks up on you. "For a moment we were struck by the strangeness of repeating a ritual in which we now occupied the middle position between two generations" (p129) "She pictures herself in ten or fifteen years...for grandchildren not yet born. BUt she sees that woman as improbable, just as the girl of 25 saw the woman of forty, who she has become and already ceased to be" (p169).
There are two quotes at the very beginning of the book--facing the copyright page. On by José Ortega, the other by Chekhov. Part of the Chekhov quote: "And it may be that our present life, which we accept so readily, will in time seem strange, inconvenient, stupid, not clean enough, perhaps even sinful...". That is pretty much what this book is about.
This books is a "generational" memoir, for lack of a better term. Ernaux has written a memoir that is told through her eyes, experiencing life as a member of a
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generation. The entire generation experienced the same school types, media, events, politicians, changing laws, changing sexual morés, etc. It begins with the description of a baby in a photo c1941 (herself) and continues into the 21st century. It is fully linear, discussing daily life, dreams, politics, family, work (she was a teacher), relationships, immigration, and so on. Early on she examines the world her grandparents discuss at the table, the world her generation never knew, of dirt floors in houses and washing clothes in wood-ash (p25), and of the provincialness of different areas of France: their habits, food (p33), voices, "a mangled French mixed with local dialects" (p27), the following the Catholic calendar and sexual morés, and living in the scarcity of everything (p34). And how, for her generation, the school calendar replaced that of the season (p29).
My favorite bits revolved around the consumerism. First it was exciting, as "the days of restrictions were at an end" (p37). "We had time to desire things, plastic pencil cases, crepe-soled shoes, gold watches" (p39)--while they lived without indoor plumbing, enitre families sleeping in one room, with mustard poultices a common medicine.
p 110: "And we who were undeceived, who seriously examined the dangers of advertising with our students; we who assigned the topic "Does the possession of material goods lead to happiness?" nought a stereo, a Grundig radio-cassette player, and a Bell & Howell Super 8 camera, with a sense of using modernity to intelligent ends. For us and by us, consumption was purified." This continues, right up to computers and cell phones. She is as nervous about a cellphone as her parents' generation was about computers. Which brings up aging, and how it sneaks up on you. "For a moment we were struck by the strangeness of repeating a ritual in which we now occupied the middle position between two generations" (p129) "She pictures herself in ten or fifteen years...for grandchildren not yet born. BUt she sees that woman as improbable, just as the girl of 25 saw the woman of forty, who she has become and already ceased to be" (p169).
There are two quotes at the very beginning of the book--facing the copyright page. On by José Ortega, the other by Chekhov. Part of the Chekhov quote: "And it may be that our present life, which we accept so readily, will in time seem strange, inconvenient, stupid, not clean enough, perhaps even sinful...". That is pretty much what this book is about.
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LibraryThing member CarltonC
The Years is a narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the very selective recollection of memories of the French author, interspersed amongst the impressions, cultural habits, language, descriptions of photos, books, songs, radio, films, television, advertising and news headlines.
The
Although some short phrases are left in French, these are generally easily understood, or for longer passages there are useful notes providing a translation, as there are also a few notes for particular matters, such as the names of the school years or textbooks known by their authors.
This book provides an enjoyable, but for demanding, insight into life as lived by an educated French woman during these years. Although the lists of books, films, actresses etc powerfully anchor the book in its time, they might also be considered a lazy shorthand for portraying the intellectual, cultural and political thoughts by trying to generalise the particular.
This method works well when the reader recognises the references, quickly conjuring up the milieu. However I am British and twenty odd years younger than the author, so that many references are lost on me. I am unsure how this historical collage shorthand approach will be understood by someone another thirty years younger than me, or a non-European without the ability to quickly transform the lists into the milieu. For example, in a list of contrasts (for example Khrushchev/Kennedy) there is Peppone/Don Camillo; I know that these are the contrasting communist mayor and catholic priest from the Italian Don Camillo short stories, but these references are culturally time specific. A reference to Mylène Demongeot left me none the wiser, having to look up the name on Wikipedia (she’s an actress) and reference to a red staircase in a Soutine painting did not increase my understanding, being unable to locate a copy of the painting on Wikiart. When too many references are lost on the reader, they detract from the overall impression, they become like the lists of ancestors in the Old Testament.
I enjoyed the recollection of family reunions with the telling of anecdotes, familiar family stories, how they change over the years, which is skilfully portrayed at intervals throughout the book. It called to mind evenings at my grandparents when an uncle or family friend would visit and have supper, reminiscing (yarns) and gossiping over the meal.
To quote Ernaux:
By retrieving the memory of collective memory in an individual memory, she will capture the lived dimension of History.
This will not be a work of remembrance in the usual sense, aimed at putting a life into story, creating an explanation of self. She will go within herself only to retrieve the world, the memory and imagination of its bygone days, grasp the changes in ideas, beliefs, and sensibility, the transformation of people and the subject that she has seen.
There is no ‘I’ in what she views as a sort of impersonal autobiography. There is only ‘one’ and ‘we’, as if now it were her turn to tell the story of the time-before.
Overall, I am left conflicted. This is an outstanding and readable work of French social history, which does successfully work as an impersonal autobiography, although the closer the author got to 2006, the less persuasive it becomes. However because of its deliberately impersonal approach, I feel little empathy with the author telling her individual story, so that on the other hand, it becomes a book where history “is just one damned thing after another”.
My conclusion, it is successful French social history 1945-2000, leveraging off the personal specifically to fix the social history as lived experience. It is just confusing if you expect autobiography, which I had.
As an aside, I had just read One Two Three Four, a group biography of the Beatles, which includes a broadly contemporary narrative up to about 1960 when the Beatles started touring (Hamburg and England). From mentions in both books, I had never appreciated the cultural impact of Brigitte Bardot. In 1956-7 Ernaux pasted photos of Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman in her room and in Liverpool, John Lennon pinned up multiple posters of her in his bedroom.
The
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author does this in a chronological manner, interleaving personal recollections into more generalised commentary on social changes, with the personal comments integral to the narrative but feeling detached from the author, as she seeks to recall her thoughts at the time, as well as allowing some hindsight for comments on world events, such as the French fighting in Indo-China and then Algeria.Although some short phrases are left in French, these are generally easily understood, or for longer passages there are useful notes providing a translation, as there are also a few notes for particular matters, such as the names of the school years or textbooks known by their authors.
This book provides an enjoyable, but for demanding, insight into life as lived by an educated French woman during these years. Although the lists of books, films, actresses etc powerfully anchor the book in its time, they might also be considered a lazy shorthand for portraying the intellectual, cultural and political thoughts by trying to generalise the particular.
This method works well when the reader recognises the references, quickly conjuring up the milieu. However I am British and twenty odd years younger than the author, so that many references are lost on me. I am unsure how this historical collage shorthand approach will be understood by someone another thirty years younger than me, or a non-European without the ability to quickly transform the lists into the milieu. For example, in a list of contrasts (for example Khrushchev/Kennedy) there is Peppone/Don Camillo; I know that these are the contrasting communist mayor and catholic priest from the Italian Don Camillo short stories, but these references are culturally time specific. A reference to Mylène Demongeot left me none the wiser, having to look up the name on Wikipedia (she’s an actress) and reference to a red staircase in a Soutine painting did not increase my understanding, being unable to locate a copy of the painting on Wikiart. When too many references are lost on the reader, they detract from the overall impression, they become like the lists of ancestors in the Old Testament.
I enjoyed the recollection of family reunions with the telling of anecdotes, familiar family stories, how they change over the years, which is skilfully portrayed at intervals throughout the book. It called to mind evenings at my grandparents when an uncle or family friend would visit and have supper, reminiscing (yarns) and gossiping over the meal.
To quote Ernaux:
By retrieving the memory of collective memory in an individual memory, she will capture the lived dimension of History.
This will not be a work of remembrance in the usual sense, aimed at putting a life into story, creating an explanation of self. She will go within herself only to retrieve the world, the memory and imagination of its bygone days, grasp the changes in ideas, beliefs, and sensibility, the transformation of people and the subject that she has seen.
There is no ‘I’ in what she views as a sort of impersonal autobiography. There is only ‘one’ and ‘we’, as if now it were her turn to tell the story of the time-before.
Overall, I am left conflicted. This is an outstanding and readable work of French social history, which does successfully work as an impersonal autobiography, although the closer the author got to 2006, the less persuasive it becomes. However because of its deliberately impersonal approach, I feel little empathy with the author telling her individual story, so that on the other hand, it becomes a book where history “is just one damned thing after another”.
My conclusion, it is successful French social history 1945-2000, leveraging off the personal specifically to fix the social history as lived experience. It is just confusing if you expect autobiography, which I had.
As an aside, I had just read One Two Three Four, a group biography of the Beatles, which includes a broadly contemporary narrative up to about 1960 when the Beatles started touring (Hamburg and England). From mentions in both books, I had never appreciated the cultural impact of Brigitte Bardot. In 1956-7 Ernaux pasted photos of Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman in her room and in Liverpool, John Lennon pinned up multiple posters of her in his bedroom.
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LibraryThing member timswings
The best account I read in personal and historical sense about the changing times after 1940, the year she was born. The feeling is, that it is also your own life is described, you recognize it even Ernaux is of another generation and French. Just one small example the freedom it brought that all
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women could drive their own car. The way she is describing how she is driving her car in anonimity. Utter freemdom! Show Less
LibraryThing member albertgoldfain
"By retrieving the memory of collective memory in an individual memory, she will capture the lived dimension of History"
LibraryThing member rsairs
A soulless and joyless march through a life conceived as a passive recipient of headlines and social events. The author explains her purpose at the end. She creates a narrator who is an unstable collection of observations--there is no I, no person, or subject who experiences life. It didn't work
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for me. I care very much about the person who is a moral agent, who finds higher values and purpose in life, and makes sense of the whirlwind of "history." Maybe she proves Descartes' point. Try as she did, there is an I there, but that I is a weak and passive recipient of confusing forces--life happens to her, but the anemic response isn't love or rage or really much of anything. Show Less
Awards
Nobel Prize in Literature (2022)
Europese Literatuurprijs (Longlist — 2021)
Warwick Prize for Women in Translation (Longlist — 2019)
French-American Foundation Translation Prize (Winner — 2018)
Deutscher Hörbuchpreis (2020)
Original publication date
2008