Man's Place, A

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This is the first time I am reading a book that is considered therapeutic writing by the author. I think it will give readers a different reading experience compared to other memoirs. ernaux bu kitapta aşkı, meşki de atmış kenara bir yüzyılın tarihini yazmış kendince. aynı zamanda köle gibi çalışılan bir zamandan işçiliğe, sonrasında ise esnaflığa uzanan bir sınıf yolculuğu bu. 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. It is difficult to write about our loved ones after their death during the time of grief as we will have to relive our memories which will make us happy and sad at the same time. The author grieves for her dead father by assembling words on paper, words which slowly take the form of a portrait of the father from his childhood at the turn of the twentieth century, through his years as a farm labourer, as a factory worker and eventually as the proprietor of a little café/grocery shop on the edge of a small town in Normandy. Like many of his generation, he wished for a better life for his daughter and hoped that she would get the chance to step away from her working class origins. And there lies the central point of this book. The author emphasises at every turn her father's keen sense of his own inferiority and his constant, secret fear that his speech, his writing, his clothes or his manners would disgrace him, and her, in the eyes of those he believed to be his superiors. This intensely private anguish is what causes me to have reservations about Ernaux's book. Surely, among the worst things the father might ever have imagined was the publication of the less dignified details of his life, and of his death. Surely he would not want his personal incapacities revealed to the whole world?

Héloïse Kolebka (2008). "Annie Ernaux: "Je ne suis qu'histoire" ". L'Histoire (332): 18. ISSN 0182-2411. Archived from the original on 4 May 2015 . Retrieved 18 April 2019. . Her style, she says, will be the same as the one employed in her letters home: there will be no “lyrical reminiscences” or “triumphant displays of irony”. Included in “the external evidence of his existence” are sentences quoted from her father’s school text books, and the recording of his traits and mannerisms. “His obsession: ‘What are people going to say?’ (the neighbours, the customers, the world at large). His maxim: never lay yourself open to the criticism of others by being polite, never expressing an opinion, and keeping a tight rein on your temper”.

We can see the author deciphering something complicated yet simple about her father's life in this book.

Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux’s cold observation reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. She scrutinizes the importance he attributed to manners and language that came so unnaturally to him as he struggled to provide for his family with a grocery store and cafe in rural France. pg 13 - This neutral way of writing comes to me naturally. It was the same style I used when I wrote home telling my parents the latest news. Spafford, Roz (13 July 1992). "Finding the World Between Two Parents". San Francisco Examiner. p.5 – Review. Archived from the original on 6 October 2022 . Retrieved 6 October 2022– via Newspapers.com. Hay que admirar la habilidad de Ernaux para escribir de una manera tan alejada y sin emoción, como un reportero transmitiendo las noticias. Sin embargo, yo por mi parte necesito emoción en mis lecturas, ya sea amor u odio, pero algo al menos, de otra forma tal vez me sienta más inclinado en leer en su lugar un panfleto de tendencia en mueblería. 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.His great satisfaction, possibly even the raison d`etre of his existence, was the fact that I belonged to the world which he had scorned him. Early in her career, Ernaux turned from fiction to focus on autobiography. [14] Her work combines historic and individual experiences. She charts her parents' social progression ( La Place, La Honte), [15] her teenage years ( Ce qu'ils disent ou rien), her marriage ( La Femme gelée), [16] her passionate affair with an Eastern European man ( Passion simple), [17] her abortion ( L'Événement), [18] Alzheimer's disease ( Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit), [19] the death of her mother ( Une femme), and breast cancer ( L'usage de la photo). [20] Ernaux also wrote L'écriture comme un couteau ( Writing as Sharp as a Knife) with Frédéric-Yves Jeannet. [20]