Ever heard of Annie Ernaux? Neither had I until a few months ago when the 82-year-old Frenchwoman won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. She also won a prize in 2019 that I’ve never heard of: the Prix Formentor, an international literary award which takes its name from the town of Formentor on the Spanish island of Mallorca that was famous for its literary gatherings.
Since discovering her autobiographical books, I’m ashamed to say that I began reading Ernaux’s short, inspired gems only after the announcement of her Nobel win, although she’s been writing for longer that I’ve been alive. Take it from me, that’s a long, long time.
I devoured the slim 48-page Simple Passion (audio book, and our library has a copy), Shame (audio, 112 pages), and A Man’s Place (audio, 103 pages). Each title is a window, no, an open door (a double French door) that invites her readers in to witness parts of her life that a less vulnerable and brave writer might not dare to do. And her life is so much like her readers. Simple Passion details her affair with a man and its totality in her daily routine. Although she doesn’t waste sentences with literary devices, the title’s irony is the exception. Nothing’s simple about Ernaux’s absorption of her lover. Or is there a simplicity to the obsession that it is common? Is the description of her passion pealing back the layers of what we’ve all felt, but refuse to discuss, at the heart of her (and my) vulnerability? When I googled Ernaux, critics repeated the words honest, not afraid to speak the truth, and ferociously sharp. Her writing is all of that and more. Most readers can relate to a time in their lives when a relationship monopolized their worlds, but Ernaux’s frank descriptions of her obsession made me simultaneously respect and relate to her:
I had no future other than the telephone call fixing our next appointment. I would try to leave the house as little as possible except for professional reasons, forever fearing that he might call during my absence. (5 and 6)
She ends this section stating that the vacuum cleaner and hair dryer were also off limits, as their loud noise might obscure the sound of his phone call. Who admits these crazy things? Even as I write this blog, I wonder how my readers will see me now. And I marvel at her obliviousness to her readers who might take offense to her frankness or see themselves among her pages. For me, Simple Passion allowed me to feel less alone; that is, if Ernaux is writing about these feelings, then maybe she and I weren’t alone in our thoughts and deeds.
Shame and A Man’s Place are equally revealing and relatable. Listening to Shame, I found myself reading the lines as if I’d written them. Ernaux was raised catholic, and the uniform she wore to school, the masses she attended, and the nuns who frightened her were my uniform, my masses, and my nuns. She ties the story of her childhood together on a day that her father tried to kill her mother (yes, you read that right) with anecdotes about feeling shame from her parents’ education level, employment, and clothing that exposed her family’s class in France. And those anecdotes are, as critics proclaim, brutally honest. Again, I marvel at her revelations, which so many times are my own. A Man’s Place is a biographical account of her dad. She focuses on his lack of health and eventual death. Neither topic is sunny or breezy, yet the connection she creates between writer and reader is strong.
After reading Ernaux, I remembered a line from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre where Jane explains her undying connection to Rochester: “I have a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you.” I feel knotted to Ernaux, although in an unromantic way. I dare you to read her and not feel that same pull on your ribs.
Annie Ernaux
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