The Years

Not long ago I read my first Annie Ernaux book, The Years. I learned about Ernaux only after she won the Nobel, and then from a New Yorker retrospective on her career. When I was younger I might have thought this was an uncool way to learn about a writer but by now long articles about writers is one of the few reasons to keep our subscription to the New Yorker, which seems to have been superseded by the Atlantic as the best longer-form magazine in America. But that's another post.

The Years is s special book. Flipping between first person plural and third person, Ernaux tells the story of her life and that of her generation, year after year -- not, to be sure, 1952 followed by 1953, but period after period, in as great a degree of granularity as possible. Looking at pictures of herself and describing, in third person, how she felt then. Recounting macro historical events and how they framed her emotional life. Discussing relationships between generations and how they changed from her childhood to those of her kids and then grandkids. Reflecting on how the desire to write the book germinated, took root, and grew. And so on.

As with reading Knausgaard, for me as an American reader the great surprise was just how much commonality there was. The way the all mod cons of post war life made women's lives easier by taking a way work but in so doing rending so much of the fabric of life. The fears brought on by cataclysms like 9/11 or assassinations...

Honestly I should have written this note sooner after reading the book, while it was still in hand (on the road now). Such is life. Worth reading. I will pick up more of her writings in bookstores here and there.