Not Exactly Balancing the Scales
After Annie Ernaux was named the Nobel Prize laureate in literature for 2022 in October (the 17th woman out of 119 laureates in literature — for those of you doing the math, that’s slightly more than 14%, so this win is not exactly balancing the scales, but it’s a move in the right direction), a wave of the author’s books swept into bookstores all around town. If only I wanted to read her books in Italian or were able to read them in French! Luckily for me, both the ebook and audiobook versions are widely available in English.
I selected The Years, which I had heard from various sources was a good starting point, and one that I thought would mesh well with one of the book clubs I moderate. What a revelation! One of those discoveries that almost makes me feel like I want to hide my previous ignorance of Ernaux’s work and become one of those annoying people who makes exclamations like “What? You’ve never read Ernaux?” five minutes after discovering her existence. Instead, maybe I’ll try to launch #FCFL (fan club for life), although a quick internet search tells me I would already be in competition with something related to football.
A Fictionalized Memoir
The Years is a fictionalized memoir (although how much is fictionalized I believe is subject to debate) covering the time period from 1941 to 2006. Originally published in 2008, the writing style is fluid in more than one sense. As explained by the translator, Alison L. Strayer, “there are many different atmospheres and registers, styles and rhythms.” The various French pronouns used by Ernaux allow for a shift within paragraphs which Strayer translated, depending on the context, as “we,” or “one,” or “you,” although English can’t necessarily render what Strayer calls the “truly collectif” experience of the French. This style of narration in the first person plural is not common, at least not in my reading life, and only one recent book I’ve read comes to mind: The Wives of Los Alamos, by TaraShea Nesbit (which I also enjoyed).
Prize Motivation: “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.”
A River of Observations
Reading The Years is like floating down a river of observations punctuated by larger societal events and more personal experiences. The former includes iconic moments at both the French and international levels, while the latter is marked by descriptions of family photos taken at points in one woman’s life as she and those around her change. She’s the child surrounded by grandparents and parents; parents and significant other; children and grandchildren.
That Inexorable Current
Ernaux records events from her own life and reminds us of those events we have experienced along the way. Or will experience, when we, too, reach those points along the river. It’s less a Willy Wonka tunnel-of-terror, what-is-this-a-freakout? boat ride, not because of its absence of recounted terrors but nevertheless an insistent tugging at us because of the measured and deadly accurate voice with which Ernaux pinpoints feelings and propels us along. She signposts events which are common to all of us, especially women, as we jump in and are pulled along by that inexorable current that is the river of life, learning from those who have come before and teaching those who come after. As a friend of mine said, Ernaux stakes her claim on her own life, in an “I was here” way. She sets down her own narrative so that it won’t be forgotten.
I often felt a great sense of sadness and inevitability while reading The Years. Or maybe a more accurate description is nostalgia. Towards the end of the memoir, Ernaux hits that nostalgia nail on the head when she says “In conversation around a holiday table, we will be nothing but a first name, increasingly faceless, until we vanish into the vast anonymity of a distant generation.” Ouch.
Read in November 2022
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