Passion simple, Annie Ernaux
Hey Charlie,
or rather hello again, because I’ve already posted soon… I’d like to talk to
you about a book I have read and which has inspired me a lot. We studied (in
French, sorry… shame on me !) La Princesse de Clèves and the theme of passion
and everything it generates and everything that goes with it.
And for the
mock French exams, I chose to present Passion simple, by Annie Ernaux,
in relation with this theme. Annie Ernaux is a French teacher, who has written
a lot, notably in the domain of sociology.
Her books
starts with the depiction of a pornographic scene. “Cet été, j’ai regardé pour
la première fois un film classé X” and she describes even more deeply and with
more details what she has seen all along this scene. The reader is sort of
shocked by this depiction and once her description is off, she states that “l’écriture
devrait tendre à cela, cette impression que provoque la scène de l’acte sexuel,
cette angoisse et cette peur, une suspension du jugement moral » and she
creates her first chapter as we would create an argumentative point in OIB, but
she uses even more that argumentation : persuasion. Use people’s feelings to convince
them as much as you can that your idea is the good one. Here, she begins with
the example, which creates a special emotion for the reader, continues with the
analysis and the explanation of this very example and finishes with her point :
what writing is about, to her.
I chose this
artwork because it is to me something that writing should tend to as well, and as
I don’t have this wisdom of detaching myself of mental judgments completely (as
least I have the “intelligence” to recognize it…), I tend to like reading books
which succeed in doing that, to me at least. I believe in autodidactic. I also believe
in the fact that the others’ judgments, when they are thrown to your face, are witnesses
of a pejorative self-interest and not necessarily a proof of people wanting to
help you. I believe that you live better when you can suspend the others’ judgments,
when you can place yourself in such an illusion of having the impression you
are in the middle of individuals who are nor judging you nor being critical,
having the illusion, you are freer of your movements, no matter if they are physical
or intellectual.
Annie Ernaux
has got this talent of detaching herself from the others’ judgments and she
describes scenes which are extremely personal with a certain ease which is
extremely pleasant to read.
Finally, Annie
Ernaux describes extremely personal scenes, scenes which to me, are the most
important point of personal space, but she describes them with a power which
implements a sort of synecdoche in the real life. Therefore, by describing her
life, she describes most of the human condition where we recognize ourselves
most of the time I think, even if what is described seems completely crazy for
us…
I’ll stop
here Charlie. I really invite you to read that book ! I’ll see you later
hopefully ! (I’ll have a bit more time than usual…)
See u
T
Hi! This post definitely makes me want to read this book, or another Annie Ernaux's book .
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see that people try to detach themselves from other people judgment, when it isn't a good-natured criticism.
I find it inspiring when you can feel that an author is completely free in his work.
I think it gives inspiration to people who are trying to open-up to other people by showing their work or their art.
Thank you for sharing that with us ( by the way, I forgive you for your French reference )!
A book recommendation in French!! I'm starting to hyperventilate. 😱 But it seems to be a fascinating and well-written book and as you all know an argument on persuasion is a definite plus in the OIB.
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