Leseratte
Well-known member
Me too.
Nobel Prize in Literature 2022
- Thread starter Stewart
- Start date
Nobel Committee chairman Anders Olsson names in Svenska Dagbladet his five favourite works by Annie Ernaux:
1. "A Man's Place"
My first choice is Annie Ernaux's masterful portrait of her father from 1983, "La place". Throughout her writing, she examines her upbringing in Normandy and the social class she leaves to study and eventually become the writer she is.
Her investigation already begins in the debut "Les armoires vides" from 1974, but it is with "A Man's Place" that she has her big breakthrough. In just under a hundred pages, it is a small masterpiece, a wonderfully factual and nuanced portrait of the father and of the entire environment that shaped him.
Here she shows off the simple and artless language that will become her hallmark and which in itself expresses a solidarity with the father.
2. "A Woman's Story"
My second choice is "Une femme" from 1987, where Ernaux gives an even more sparse portrait of the mother. It is a beautiful tribute to a woman, who is in many ways stronger and freer than the father and who manages to preserve her dignity under harsh conditions. Nor is she as marked by shame and humiliation as the father.
In both cases, two struggling and complex people are portrayed, who would never have become visible to the world without these books.
3. "Happening"
An obvious favorite is "L'événement" from 2000, a small shocking work about the illegal abortion that Ernaux had as a 23-year-old. In her short, terse style and in her repressed anger, Ernaux avoids any invitation to identification.
She has called the book "the happening", because she wanted to make the unique universal, a form of initiation that everyone can take part in.
4. "A Girl's Story"
In the strange "Mémoires de fille" from 2016 Ernaux touches on a different experience of shame than that in the books about the parents. Here it is the shame over the pride of having been the object of love.
She describes the first sexual experience as a young person at a summer camp in Normandy, which when she spreads the news results in her being mocked and ostracized from the community. Ernaux is as merciless to herself as to the others who bullied her.
It is the courage that is Ernaux's signature, that she writes about what no one else writes about, dares to touch her pain points and does it with such simplicity and power.
5. "The Years"
Impossible to ignore is Annie Ernaux's most elaborate, but also controversial, work "Les années" from 2008, which was a resounding success in France and also internationally.
It has been called the first collective autobiography and inspired a new wave of writers in her home country. Ernaux replaces the self's spontaneous memory work with a "she" who shows the power of the zeitgeist over our lives. Our lives are filled with the stories that surround us, the songs that are sung and the fashions that are prevalent.
But everything we share fades away so quickly. This makes it extremely difficult for Ernaux to recognize herself in who she was when she was young. In this broad account of life, personal memory has grown together with collective memory and the flow of history.
1. "A Man's Place"
My first choice is Annie Ernaux's masterful portrait of her father from 1983, "La place". Throughout her writing, she examines her upbringing in Normandy and the social class she leaves to study and eventually become the writer she is.
Her investigation already begins in the debut "Les armoires vides" from 1974, but it is with "A Man's Place" that she has her big breakthrough. In just under a hundred pages, it is a small masterpiece, a wonderfully factual and nuanced portrait of the father and of the entire environment that shaped him.
Here she shows off the simple and artless language that will become her hallmark and which in itself expresses a solidarity with the father.
2. "A Woman's Story"
My second choice is "Une femme" from 1987, where Ernaux gives an even more sparse portrait of the mother. It is a beautiful tribute to a woman, who is in many ways stronger and freer than the father and who manages to preserve her dignity under harsh conditions. Nor is she as marked by shame and humiliation as the father.
In both cases, two struggling and complex people are portrayed, who would never have become visible to the world without these books.
3. "Happening"
An obvious favorite is "L'événement" from 2000, a small shocking work about the illegal abortion that Ernaux had as a 23-year-old. In her short, terse style and in her repressed anger, Ernaux avoids any invitation to identification.
She has called the book "the happening", because she wanted to make the unique universal, a form of initiation that everyone can take part in.
4. "A Girl's Story"
In the strange "Mémoires de fille" from 2016 Ernaux touches on a different experience of shame than that in the books about the parents. Here it is the shame over the pride of having been the object of love.
She describes the first sexual experience as a young person at a summer camp in Normandy, which when she spreads the news results in her being mocked and ostracized from the community. Ernaux is as merciless to herself as to the others who bullied her.
It is the courage that is Ernaux's signature, that she writes about what no one else writes about, dares to touch her pain points and does it with such simplicity and power.
5. "The Years"
Impossible to ignore is Annie Ernaux's most elaborate, but also controversial, work "Les années" from 2008, which was a resounding success in France and also internationally.
It has been called the first collective autobiography and inspired a new wave of writers in her home country. Ernaux replaces the self's spontaneous memory work with a "she" who shows the power of the zeitgeist over our lives. Our lives are filled with the stories that surround us, the songs that are sung and the fashions that are prevalent.
But everything we share fades away so quickly. This makes it extremely difficult for Ernaux to recognize herself in who she was when she was young. In this broad account of life, personal memory has grown together with collective memory and the flow of history.
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Benny Profane
Well-known member
No, Stewart. It was for the citation of SA.
"Clinic acuity".
Not really bothered that she won (as it does not affect me personally on any level), but the three books that I tried of hers, I put down. I decided to try her because her name has been floated around on this forum, but just could not get into them. I don't dislike autobiographical writing, but just did not find her books compelling/interesting in any way. For a lack of better term, quite frankly boring. Of all the "favorites" writers whose name has been brought up here, I really would have liked Thiong'o to get it. I read his first four novels and they are (IMO) fantastic.
It's clear now that after 2012 they decided that they will reward men and women in turns. But then Bob Dylan happened and they had to fix this choice by rewarding Kazuo Ishiguro just a year later. But after Ishiguro everything came back to the same pattern: Tokarczuk-Handke-Gluck-Gurnah-Ernaux. Next year - a man.
Not to be adversarial, but I have noticed that quite a handful of Brits know more about what’s happening in America than they do the rest of the world, and that sometimes includes the rest of Europe. Of course, I’m no expert on the British.
alik-vit
Reader
English translations of The Years and The girl's story (advance review copy) are doublets, so if anybody here have some occasion in SPb, please, let's me know)))
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
I really though you were from Brazil? You speak Portuguese well with Benny and Bartleby sometimes.
Leseratte
Well-known member
Maybe one could say that his writing, even in English, testifies to his Japanese DNA. And that is part of its uniqueness.
tiganeasca
Moderator
Yes, we should call him a "European" because he is "European." In fact, he is a British citizen. Although he was born in Japan to Japanese parents, he moved to the UK when he was 5. He has spent virtually his entire life there, not in Japan.
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
I'll try to read A Man's Place and A Woman's Story next.
I want to add that Teju Cole, my compatriot and essayist (author of Open City), is a big fan of Ernaux, so we'll definitely be smiling by the Academy's choice, just like me.
redhead
Blahblahblah
It's a bit highfalutin, but it makes sense to me. They're talking about her style and skill. You sometimes hear talk of "mental acuity," like how sharp in the mind you are, and Ernaux writes in a cold, distant, "clinical" prose. Not how I'd phrase it, but compared to their other citations, it's not too bad.
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Leseratte
Well-known member
In fact I am from Brazil, Ben. But I thought namelesshere was from US.
He was 6 when he moved to the Great Britain. And he writes novels such as "The Remains of the Day". He's definitely an European winner.
If you don't count him as European than Doris Lessing wasn't too (she was born in Iran and raised in Southern Rodesia). But for me she's British. As is Ishiguro.
Verkhovensky
Well-known member
Am I the only one who thinks there is similarity between Ernaux and Margeurite Duras? Female experience, sparse style, short novels, autobiographical writing (of course, not the case with all of Duras' books).
Dammit, now I remembered how other French woman named Marguerite, Yourcenar, was robbed from her Nobel
Dammit, now I remembered how other French woman named Marguerite, Yourcenar, was robbed from her Nobel
Bartleby
Moderator
I'm also very happy, perhaps I've said it already, that her books have been published consistently, for the past few years, here in Brazil, by an independent publisher. They were really fortuitous with this choice of acquiring her works, and this prize will certainly boost their sales!
Americanreader
Well-known member
I’m a US citizen as well, I think this might be more of a “US media” issue than a US citizens in general issue, our media tends to be pretty politically liberal, and they know that if they write about Ernaux in terms of abortion, regardless of whether it reflects her entire body of work, it will generate views and commentary from both ends of the political spectrum. The US is really in a place where political coverage sells in the media right now, that might be where this type of coverage is coming from. Just my 2 cents.
