Annie Ernaux- Watching The World Go By 

This author sounds right up my street! Definitely going to check out A Man’s Place as it resonates with my own writing on a father/daughter relationship and grief aspect. Bob, I don’t think there’s a single one of your videos that hasn’t resulted in me adding something to my tbr!

thanks, this was a really interesting review! i had been listening to the beautiful reading of the translation which has been on Radio 4 recently. can't wait for my copy to arrive.

The Years was one of my most striking successes of last year. I need to treat myself to another of hers sometime.

Have a good day So beautiful video enjoyed watching always stay connected.💛

Totally agree about The Years. Being swept up in the cultural consciousness and responsibility being so powerful and honest. Also makes a lot of sense that other works would be branches off of that text. Will try and get to more of her for sure now. Thanks for this :)

I saw the title and thought Annie the dog 🤣🤣 Thank you for spotlighting this author. ☺️ sounds like an interesting one.

I read 5 books, in French. I absolutely love The Years. This is an extremly ambitious project, full of life, with a lot of extremly. I am a French girl and my family are poor working class pple who had a son who brought everybody out of poverty to make us a bunch of intellectuels. Her criticism of French bigotries (ex, with Yugoslavia) Her Best books are clearly the ones when she erased herself. Because if at first I admired this writer, considering as a comrade. "Regarde les lumières mon amour" was also good to that extent despite a topic being easier to write on. She was right, but her observations are basics I liked Simple Passion too because it gives the pleasure of being relevant, and because I am myself living a passion with someone from Russia, this way. This is not bad to write about yourself; even when there is something so universal about your expérience, maybe, because. More problematic are the 2 remaining books... She is not only someone who is absolutely centered only around herself, but someone who paints herself as progressist while doing all her carreer on how poor people (and frankly she was not that poor) and especially, people who lack education are inferiors. The Place is dramatic at that level. I read it in middle school and it was cringe ever since. People say the problem with her is her writing: no. Her writing is flawless, and turning your own uninteresting life into art was an ambitious challenge. This is why I read fluidly one of the most morally horrendous book I have read. This made me prolife even before I was religious. I admired this woman, she is evil. In this book, Annie thinks like a vilain american self made man, ready for everything to change from social class. She was ready to kill her unborn child, and she felt superior to all the women who just gave birth. She left the church because she felt in the Light for killing her son (yes, it was dvlped enough for being visibly a son), and apparently, the church was evil to justly condemn her. She is proud to say she committed murder because it is legal. She is mocking us, mocking people who did not kill for being at the side of the oppressor of their class. Proud to say how selfish she is and how, in fact, not being a single mother, therefore conforming herself to the bourgeois order, was worth killing for. She threw her own kid in the toilet bowl, because for her, writing about herself was no bravery. It was as if for her, other people, including her own family, are worth less than the shit she daily expells. Sounds like right. And in my country, this bourgeois late capitalist is seen as a leftist figure. Yes, she thinks she is entitled to say to the Communist Party leader he is not communist enough. And about avenging her race.. Hum. Girl, you are from the bourgeoisie. You are white, and not an oppressed nation like Jewish or Ukrainian, you are a full westerner, you re cis, straight, and your parents were not that poor, you despise them for being uneducated. Stop fooling yourself. You cant hate the poor with this passion and being a lefty. I am not annoyed she had the noble prize. This is good for literature. But she is catastrophic for the left. The left would nit be fully left as long as they praise hern No. As long as she will write classist book like this, she will be a class ennemy

I got The Years a few days ago in portuguese version. Can't wait to read it!

She is my favorite writer

Ernaux-vember gets earlier and earlier each year 😂

I've read only I Remain In Darkness, which is about her experience with her infirm mother. I thought was very good but difficult to read because of the subject matter. I would not recommend it to anyone who has elderly parents. I have a copy of The Years, which I'll move to the top of my tbr list now that you've reminded me of her.

I ordered my copy of the Years to read in February and it hasn’t arrived yet. In the meantime in the spirit of the Fitzcarraldo February I have read Minor Detail. I’m am still stunned and thinking about it a lot. I loved it without enjoying it if that makes sense. . The Years will arrived soon but not for February.

oh interesting! and what did Betty do in 1972???? !!! :D :D :D I need to add her to my TBR! (not Betty, Annie Ernaux) :D

It’s such a fascinating style of narration. I’d be really impressed if you read her in French!

My favourite by Ernaux was a Man’s Place but the English title didn’t seem right - in French it was La Place and when I read it in English it was called Positions - which seems to suit it even less!

Love Ernaux! Have you read anything by Tove Ditlevsen? Would love your thoughts on as both authors are compared a lot, I find.

Nobel Prize winner...

she liked it

#fitzuary is a thing! happening is my favourite of the ones i’ve read so far 💙

Don’t get cross but I read The Years and shrugged my shoulders in a French fashion. It’s ok but it wasn’t earth shattering. I’m 59 this year so she wasn’t telling me anything new.

Click bait!!! It's the wrong Annie!!!! unsubbed.