Une femme

by Annie Ernaux

Annie Ernaux s'efforce ici de retrouver les différents visages et la vie de sa mère, morte le 7 avril 1986, au terme d'une maladie qui avait détruit sa mémoire et son intégrité intellectuelle et physique. Elle, si active, si ouverte au monde. Quête de l'existence d'une femme, ouvrière, puis commerçante anxieuse de "tenir son rang" et d'apprendre. Mise au jour, aussi, de l'évolution et de l'ambivalence des sentiments d'une fille pour sa mère : amour, haine, tendresse, culpabilité, et, pour finir, attachement viscéral à la vieille femme diminuée. "Je n'entendrai plus sa voix... J'ai perdu le dernier lien avec le monde dont je suis issue."

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, France, Biography, French Literature, Nobel Prize, Feminism

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 1988

About the author

The author of some twenty works of fiction and memoir, Annie Ernaux is considered by many to be France’s most important writer. In 2022, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She has also won the Prix Renaudot for A Man's Place and the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her body of work. More recently she received the International Strega Prize, the Prix Formentor, the French-American Translation Prize, and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for The Years, which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2019. Her other works include Exteriors, A Girl's Story, A Woman's Story, The Possession, Simple Passion, Happening, I Remain in Darkness, Shame, A Frozen Woman, and A Man's Place.

Reviews

[Dr. Appu Sasidharan (Dasfill) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this book by Annie Ernaux more than the book A Man's Place, which she wrote about her father.

Here she gives an account of her mother's life and the relationship she had with her mother. I felt that the author wrote this book more openly than the book she wrote about her father.

Here also, we can see Annie Ernaux going for therapeutic writing at the time of grief. We can see how Alzheimer's disease affects the stability of a family in this book. This might be a small book written in simple language. But if you try to process everything that Annie wrote in this book, we can see why it is a true masterpiece.

What I learned from this book
1) Will detachment makes it easier to analyze one's memories?
We can see how the mother's death deeply affected the author. It made her realize the power of ordinary sentences or chicés. Her realization that her mother is no longer alive anywhere in the world hurt her so much. That is why she decided to write a book about her, which she thought was the only thing she could do at that time.

"It was only the day before yesterday that I overcame the fear of writing "My mother died" on a blank sheet of paper, not as the first line of a letter but as the opening of a book. "I shall continue to write about my mother. She is the only woman who really meant something to me and she had been suffering from senile dementia for two years. Perhaps I should wait until her illness and death have merged into the past, like other events in my life—my father's death and the breakup with my husband—so that I feel the detachment which makes it easier to analyze one's memories. But right now I am incapable of doing anything else."

2) How does alienation affect the personality of an individual?
This is yet another complex topic that the author is trying to discuss by trying to understand more about her mother. We can see how her mother behaved in a peculiar manner during certain situations due to these alienations.

"How can one understand her attitude without having been subjected to the same degree of alienation?"

3) Why is it said that knowledge has the power to control access to opportunity and advancement?
We can see how much the author's mother gave importance to knowledge.

"In her opinion, self-improvement was first and foremost a question of learning and nothing was more precious than knowledge. (She would often say: "One must occupy one's mind.”) Books were the only things she handled with care. She washed her hands before touching them."

4) What is the effect of Alzheimer's disease on family life?
The author's words reveal to us why Alzheimer's disease is considered a disease affecting not just one individual but the whole family, as not just the patient, but everyone in the family has to suffer due to it.

"She was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease, the name given by the doctors to a form of senile dementia. Over the past few days, I have found it more and more difficult to write, possibly because I would like never to reach this point. And yet I know I shall have no peace of mind until I find the words that will reunite the demented woman she had become with the strong, radiant woman she once was.

She got confused by the different rooms in the house and would ask me angrily how to get to her own bedroom. She started losing things—"I can't put my hands on it"—and was astonished to find them in places where she claimed she had never put them. She demanded that I give her some sewing or ironing or even some vegetables to peel, but as soon as she started on something, she lost patience and gave up. She seemed to live in a state of perpetual restlessness. Although she longed for new occupations—watching television, having lunch, going out in the garden—they never gave her the slightest satisfaction.

She slowly slipped into a world without seasons, warm, gentle, and sweet-smelling, where there was no notion of time, just the inevitable routine of eating and going to bed."

5) Why is it considered difficult to write memoirs about our family members?
I remember reading once in Kamala Suraiyya Das's book that the most challenging aspect of writing memoirs is to write about our family members who are alive. In this book, Annie Ernaux shows us why it is equally challenging to write about our family members who have passed away.

"Throughout the ten months I was writing this book, I dreamed of her almost every night. Once I was lying in the middle of a stream, caught between two currents. From my loins, smooth again like a young girl's, from between my thighs, long tapering plants floated limply. The body they came from was not only mine, it was also my mother's.
Every now and then, I seem to be back in the days when she was still living at home, before she left for the hospital. Although I realize she is dead, sometimes, for a split second, I expect to see her come downstairs and settle in the living room with her sewing basket. This feeling—which puts my mother's illusory presence before her real absence—is no doubt the first stage of healing."

What could have been better?
The author discusses a crucial topic related to the mother-daughter relationship in this book. It is about why her mother behaved in a peculiar manner, as her daughter (the author) was more successful than her.

"It took me a long time to realize that the feeling of unease my mother experienced in my own house was no different from what I had felt as a teenager when I was introduced to people "a cut above us." (As if only the "lower classes" suffered from inequalities which others choose to ignore.) I also realized that the cultural supremacy my husband and I enjoyed—reading Le Monde, listening to Bach—was distorted by my mother into a form of economic supremacy, based on the exploitation of labor: putting herself in the position of an employee was her way of rebelling."

The author beautifully describes how her mother behaved towards her and the reason behind it. But she sadly stops her discussion about it there. This is a topic that requires deeper discussion, and the author had a golden opportunity to discuss other ways parents behave, like the perumthachan complex (jealousy of parents to successful children). She sadly squandered this opportunity. But we can't blame her for it, though, as she wrote it at a time of grief, and she never planned to discuss intensely about human behavior in this book.

Rating
5/5 I am happy that I have at last read a book by a Nobel prize winner, which I can recommend to everyone as it is written in a simple language that everyone can understand and connect with the feelings shared by the author. The fact that it has just 104 pages and we can finish reading it within two hours makes it much more easier for me to recommend it. A few of my friends sometimes wanted to try out the books I loved reading. So they asked me about my current favorites and tried to take away my books to read.

I remember two similar experiences I had in the last decade (one in the former half and the other in the latter half) with a couple of friends, who became angry with me for saying that I loved reading The Moons of Jupiter by Alice Munro and Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (the latter of which I interestingly picked from the airport bookstore just before a flight). They tried to read the above books after hearing that I loved these books. In their opinion, both these books were a piece of crap, and they concluded that I should use my time more judiciously by reading books with some substance. I agree that books like Flights are difficult to read, which is one of the reasons why I reread it again a few times in my life. But calling them useless just because you can't understand it was unacceptable to me, which caused a small discussion between my friends and me.

After a few years, these authors (Alice Munro in 2013 and Olga Tokarczuk in 2018) won Nobel Prize in literature, and my friends had to agree that they couldn't at least call these books useless. I actually never recommended these books to them. They snatched my copy of these books from my possession when they heard that I loved these books. The above two experiences taught me a valuable lesson: to be careful while discussing books with my friends.

I am glad that I read this book by Annie Ernaux, as it has a universal appeal, and I can fearlessly discuss and recommend it to anyone. This is a book you should never miss if you are someone who loves to read memoirs or if you have someone who has Alzheimer's disease in your family.


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[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

L’ALTRA MADRE



Telefonano dalla casa di riposo: la mamma è morta.
Inizia quel percorso di incombenze, decisioni, scelte, burocrazia, che ogni morte si porta dietro nel mondo d’oggi. E che ha il potere di risultare sempre profondamente assurda, e sgradevole: ci si vorrebbe concentrare sul dolore, la perdita, l’assenza, e invece…

La madre era malata di Alzheimer, con la testa più di là che di qua, come si usa dire. Era diventato difficile avere rapporti con lei: non riconosceva più la figlia, la chiamava “signora”. Epperò…



Ernaux, con la consueta economia di parole e controllo di tono a cui mi ha abituato, si mette a scrivere subito: sono solo scarne novanta pagine, ma le richiedono quasi un anno di lavoro. E quando alla fine rilegge cosa ha scritto all’inizio si sorprende: ha già dimenticato, particolari, dettagli, sono svaniti.

Non ascolterò più la sua voce. Era lei, le sue parole, le sue mani, i suoi gesti, la sua maniera di ridere e camminare, a unire la donna che sono alla bambina che sono stata. Ho perso l’ultimo legame con il mondo da cui provengo.



Quando mia madre è morta io mi trovavo a circa undicimila chilometri da lei.
Ero arrivato due giorni prima.
Mia sorella ha telefonato per darmi la notizia, e io ho avuto per qualche minuto il pensiero di tornare ‘a casa’ per essere presente. Poi, per fortuna, ha vinto la ragione. O il buon senso, come direbbe qualcun altro.
L’avevo vista pochi giorni prima di partire. L’avevo trovata male: sempre lucida, ma fisicamente prosciugata, ritirata, rimpicciolita. Ho avuto l’impressione che vivere le fosse ormai di gran fatica. E forse, soprattutto, una grande noia. Ricordo che mi ero augurato per lei quello che poi è successo qualche giorno dopo.
Ero nel posto che preferisco al mondo, e me lo sono goduto, sono rimasto a lungo, ho girato, visitato amici, visto posti nuovi.
La sensazione che mia madre non dovesse più trascinare le sue giornate mi ha in un certo senso alleggerito: per lei.
E per me.

[Ilse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mother, Mother

She longed to learn the rules of good behaviour and was always worrying about social conventions, fearful of doing the wrong thing. She longed to know what was in fashion, what was new, the names of famous writers, the recent films on release – although she didn’t go to the cinema, she hadn’t time – and the names of the flowers in the garden. She listened attentively when people spoke of something she didn’t know, out of curiosity, and also because she wanted to show that she was eager to learn. In her opinion, self-improvement was first and foremost a question of learning and nothing was more precious than knowledge. (She would often say: “One must occupy one’s mind.”) Books were the only thing she handled with care. She washed her hands before touching them.

A Woman’s Story (une femme) is the sixth book I’ve read from Annie Ernaux and compared to The Possession, Simple Passion, The Young Man, Shame and The Years, I thought it the most tender, intimate, melancholy and moving episode in the roman fleuve she concocted from her own life and experiences. Readers who are accustomed to her usual bare and unflinching prose accounts might even be a little surprised finding it almost sentimental.

Annie Ernaux looks back at her mother’s life and at their mother-daughter relationship. She draws a poignant portrait of her mother, Blanche Duchesne, in broad strokes, showing a life of hard work and resilience (‘Despair is a luxury’), pointing to the impact of the second world war, showing how that life was shaped by grief, penury, the attempt to overcome class restrictions, widowhood and finally by Alzheimer’s disease until her death in the geriatric care ward – and a desire to see her daughter have a richer, more fulfilling life than she had herself.

As in her other books, Annie Ernaux tries to keep her distance from what she is observing and feeling, to look at that life with candour, to analyse and contextualise her mother’s life objectively, looking at her mother with a sociological eye, in terms of social class and mobility. Recurrently she admits that with regard to her mother and her death such is an almost impossible job, that she isn’t able to put aside the emotions that well up thinking about her mother, touching upon the commonality of the human experience of grief, which makes her unable to speak but in clichés about the never again (never hearing her voice again, never another spring to come for her) that likely will sound familiar to everyone who has been deeply affected by the loss of a loved one.

Like Marcel Proust was a touchstone to her father’s life in Shame, Ernaux points at Simone de Beauvoir’s life as the one for her mother’s. Realising that Annie Ernaux’s own path as a feminist and intellectual echoes de Beauvoir’s, the elegiac coda highlights the contrast between the life of the mother and the daughter, but also points at the continuity between the generations:

She died eight days before Simone de Beauvoir.
She preferred giving to everybody, rather than taking from them.
Isn’t writing also a way of giving?


Janine Niépce, A mother and her child, 1965.

(This photograph is a part of the Paris exhibition exploring the resonances between Annie Ernaux’s texts and photography. According to curator and writer Lou Stoppard, Ernaux was particularly taken with the work of Janine Niépce. Niépce’s image of a mother and child nods to the various ways Ernaux has addressed the complexities and confinements of motherhood throughout her work. On viewing the image, Ernaux was struck by the different gazes – the child looks at the mother, but the mother looks out at the world. It speaks to the restrictions and limitations, in terms of routine and freedom, that can prevent us from being able to observe and engage with the world.)

Although Ernaux doesn’t deify her mother – not shying away from naming her uncouthness, her sometimes violent way to treat her daughter - her portrayal of her mother is more graceful and merciful than how she tends to picture herself – or at least the narrators in the other books I read by her –giving this elegiac book a less barbed and more serene and vulnerable tone.

Like in books I previously read of hers, she thematizes her writing, as the only thinkable response of a writer to life, to make sense of and gauge reality– and for those who like me find it hard to capture life in words, reading Ernaux, even if she seems to write on her exclusively personal experiences, her words enable me to look at my own background with a sharper eye. Ernaux’s experiences – showing how much social class, position and privilege is not only about money but also about cultural capital – seem textbook examples illustrating Pierre Bourdieu’s theories. Talking about equal opportunities for all at the starting line by equal access to education however noble a purpose it might seem in a meritocratic society, ignores that children don’t enter schools as blank slates and that one’s background often continues to be a hidden asset – or impediment.

Regardless of the obvious differences, as a ‘social migrant’ myself just like my mother, Ernaux prompts me to contemplate on the parallels I cannot deny between her mother’s life and choices and those of my own mother who had to leave school at fourteen – the grocery store she ran as a way to evade working in a factory, her insistence on the prevalence of studying and formal education, on financial independence as a woman – and also her restlessness, her desire to make herself useful to both her daughters – embodying the ethos of hard work, that I in turn seem to have passed on my own daughter. Bearing my mother’s background in mind, that dream of Ernaux’ mother for her daughter to become a woman ‘guided by ideas and words’ echoed my mother’s (and father’s) and made me question the ideas and aspirations I might be passing unconsciously to my own daughter – an ambition by proxy, which doesn’t necessarily will make her happy, maybe even on the contrary.

After my initial enthusiasm for Ernaux sank considerably since reading the flimsy and unsettling The Young Man in which she reflects on the relationship she had in her early fifties with a student almost thirty years her junior, A Woman’s Story has warmed me again to read her work, placing her among those authors whom I’ll continue reading, each time when I chance upon another book of hers. The evident consecutive read after this book on her mother would be the book she wrote on her father, A Man's Place.

[Gaurav Sagar · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is said that contradiction is unthinkable; but the fact is that in the pain of a living being it is even an actual existence.
- Hegel


The Hegelian quote prefaces the book, which means that to bring out the contradictions deep ridden in subjective or abstract views and to explain them in a way that objective and specific views can be constructed that nevertheless retain in themselves what there was of truth in the original views. In other words, everything is contradictory, however, the binaries which we think to be contradictory in nature, actually complement each other. Is it possible then to write objectively about things or persons related to yourself? The author here takes the humungous and refutable task to capture the real woman, the one who existed independently from her. Does she eventually able to achieve what she wishes for? Well, it could only be determined by the readers of the book, and each reader may have her/ his own version of the truth as everything is inherently contradictory in nature then how could truth escape from it.



link: source

The author here wants to write about the truth of her mother, in a particular immutable order but what truth she is thinking about and what particular order is the right one, is the order she finally chooses right one or there could be other possible orders too? And more importantly, what does she want to convey, if anything she wants to, at all? Since these harsh truths or orders of events happen with everyone or most of us but rarely do people reflect upon them the way the author has, so why does she do that? Perhaps she is somewhat more observant than we are, but does being a keen observer only fuel her soul with turmoil to write it down?


Why does she write it, that’s a profound question? The emptiness we feel our bond with someone we love is severed, at least in this world, does it prompt us to say about it so that we may fill up the enormous void. Or perhaps we write about it so that the eternal events such as death may be helped to get merge with the past, to be one with our past, so that our turbulent soul may find solace as then it would become like any other events of our past. The author says that more objective aspect of her writing involves a cross between family history and sociology, reality and fiction; it could be seen as a literary venture as its purpose to find out the truth about her mother, a truth that can be conveyed only by words, and perhaps a truth which can be explored through words, only. She believes she is writing to her mother into the world, she writes for people to understand what she wrote for herself to make the thought bearable to her.



Human relationships work as per a bell-shaped curve, we come close to each other, explore each other, our intimacy grows with it then we realize our personal spaces and settle then, however, our relationship with our parents perhaps follow some other curve we are not aware of or it can’t be understood through any pattern or curve. The relationship of the author with her mother is also like any mother-daughter relationship is full of crest and troughs, she writes about her to relive again the times and places she shared with her mother when she was alive. So does our relationship come to halt when our bond with loved ones is severed by the stroke of death or do we continue our kinship with our associated memories, by reliving those shared moments; and what is it like, isn’t it like suspended countenance as if we want time to stop there, isn’t it bad faith?




link: source


The author writes about the complex origins and processes of a mother-daughter relationship, she portrays every mood, temper, affection, and attitude of her mother with supreme honesty as if she is writing about some third person. She works along to relate the features of her mother’s personality to her social and cultural background rather than just presenting them as mere characteristics. She notices this way of writing seems to bring her closer to the truth she is exploring, relieves her of the dark, heavy burden of personal remembrance by establishing a more objective approach. She pens down their differences, their views which ought to be different due to different times and socio-economic settings, taboos about sex ad others, with utmost sincerity and honesty as she maintains while writing about their conformities and intimacies.



The book is not just an account of the mother-daughter relationship, it is about life and death, the circle of life, the eternal truth that we must lose the ones we love, in other words, the essence of life. Does it talk about what does it mean to be alive or existing? Does a mere breathing person may be said to be alive, to exist, what does her being consist of? Doesn’t it consist of all its possessions and losses, its successes and failures, lies and truths, its dreams and realities, in other words, everything that a man is made up of? What could be said then of a woman who loses cognizance of herself, meaning of her words, her life is being dictated by imagination, with no relation to reality, she loses her being, her existence, she invents life she longer could live, as if she is a living death. But could do away with her even then, if she is our mother. Perhaps it’s hard to assuage the wounds of hearts with reason.


The prose of the book is quite straightforward like a biography but it is not a typical biography, though it has a clear, poignant narrative but it’s neither a novel, it is a remembrance of the life history of a strong, radiant woman through the history of war and economic crisis, from a sociological and literary perspective. The narrative has a rhythmic flow like music with each note sharply detached from the other, the author though writes about her mother but she has been able to cultivate restrained and detached prose, deeply moving account of life and death, youth and age, imaginations, and reality, a poignant love story.


Is it the author’s story or her mother’s story or the story of every daughter, every mother, or every human being? The author has been able to condense out the essence of life from her life, perhaps beyond her life to her mother’s. So, it’s the end of the author’s relationship with her mother as she is writing to separate her mother from her memories, to make her one with history; or the beginning of the eternal circle of life again to end so that it could begin again, and again.




link: source



4.5/5

[Dolors · Rating 4 out of 5]

Annie Ernaux does not write to ease the pain of losing her mother; quite the contrary, she plunges into the intimacy of her grief to reach the other side: a place where her mother ceases to be "a large white shadow" to become a flesh and bone woman with a story.
Ernaux takes the maternal images and turns them over to write about the woman who existed outside of her, to give her a full existence and to talk about the life that defined her character.

This short memoir is an exquisite, terrible piece of writing that makes the literary self a collective character because Ernaux’s experience of losing her mother could very easily be our own. Being as far from a self-help book as it could be, this book offers an impressive and often uncomfortable glance at the process of ageing and the implications of a degenerative disease like Alzheimer.
Underneath a style that might seem detached, even cold, there lies a need to mitigate Ernaux’s loneliness without sounding false or self-indulgent, and the carefully described scenes of moments spent with her mother shine for their simplicity and honesty, creating an intimate ambiance that allows the reader to be part of the story of Ernaux’s mother.

“A woman’s story” is a delicate tribute to a woman whose voice might not be heard anymore, but whose story, thanks to the love of her daughter, will be brought to life through the miracle of the written word. What a superb parting gift.

[Tim Null · Rating 5 out of 5]

Annie Ernaux's mother had Alzheimer’s disease as did my Grammy and mother. My eldest sister and my brother currently suffer from Alzheimer’s. According to DNA tests I have at least one gene associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s. And my blood contains proteins that some studies suggest causes Alzheimer’s. In short, I take Alzheimer’s disease personally.

As I listened to this book's audio recording, I thought about the impact Alzheimer’s has had on people I have known, people I know, and the many, many people I don't know. On the one hand I can't imagine life without a fully functional brain. On the other hand I'm grateful that so far the disease has not destroyed my sister's or my brother's personality, nor has it limited their capacity to love and be loved.

[leynes · Rating 4 out of 5]

"My mother died, on Monday, April 7, in the nursing home of the Pontoise hospital where I placed her two years ago. The nurse said on the phone, 'Your mother passed away this morning after breakfast.' That was around ten o'clock."

Thus starts Annie Ernaux's slim book in which she memorialises her mother and their relationship, strikingly echoing Albert Camus's The Stranger. Less than two weeks after her mother's death in 1986, Annie Ernaux begins writing about her, she reconstructs her mother's life and death in her usual sober and precise manner. Veering between tenderness and sobriety, Annie Ernaux is in search for truth. Fragment by fragment, paragraph by paragraph, she works her way through her mother's life. She assembles individual scenes into a life that is at once individual and symptomatic - of a particular time, a particular region, a particular class.

Ernaux's mother comes from the working class and was born around the turn of the century in Normandy. Later, she and her husband opened a grocery store and restaurant. Her daughter, meanwhile, studies and soon belongs to the country's intellectual circles. Similar to Didier Eribon or Édouard Louis, Annie Ernaux also struggles with the distance to her parental home, which has resulted from the growing difference in education alone.

"You could tell right away when something didn't suit her. Within the family, she said what she thought in harsh words. She called me cheeky, dirty, little beast or simply 'nuisance'. She hit me for little things, mainly slaps in the face, sometimes punches in the shoulder. [...] Five minutes later she pressed me against her, I was her 'little doll' again."

Such incidents serve Ernaux not only to evoke her mother's personality, but also to probe her social status and biography. She makes no secret of the fact that she is concerned with truth-seeking. Naturally, she struggles with conflicting daughterly feelings; on the one hand, she feels intimately connected to her mother, but on the other hand, she despises her for her desire for advancement, her brutality, and her small-mindedness. Ernaux relentlessly divides her confused emotional state, analyzing her then and now sensitivities with extreme precision. Annie Ernaux tells us about herself, but not in order to expose herself, but, whether intentionally or not, in order to share social and human observations. She tells the story of the human condition, en passant.

As in most parent-child relationships, shame plays a supporting role. The daughter is ashamed of the mother, partly because she fears being like her. The mother embodies everything the daughter no longer wants to be, everything she has left behind. Annie Ernaux begins to study, meets her husband, moves near Paris. Entering a new world, a kind of parallel universe where everything and everyone, not only mothers, seem different from where she comes from:

"My husband and I had the same level of education, we discussed Sartre and freedom, watched Antonioni's 'Those Who Play with Love' at the cinema, held the same left-wing views, didn't come from the same world. In his, one was not necessarily rich, but one had studied, had something clever to say on every subject, played bridge. My husband's mother, the same age as mine, had a slim body, a smooth face, well-groomed hands."

The subtle differences between the two worlds become even more glaring when the mother moves in with her daughter. To a house where people read Le Monde and listen to Bach. There, where Ernaux lives with her husband and two sons, new battle lines emerge for the well-rehearsed mother-daughter skirmishes. The demands Annie Ernaux makes on herself as a daughter collide painfully with the demands she makes on her mother. Again and again, she draws individual experiences to a collective, general human level. This leads her, for example, to the following beautiful conclusion:

"Again we talked to each other in a very particular tone, a mixture of annoyance and eternal reproach that always wrongly gave the impression that we were arguing, a tone between mother and daughter that I would recognize in any language."

It is a decidedly female perspective from which Annie Ernaux tells the story. And like probably many girls, she thought she would have to be like her own mother when she grew up. This arc encompasses her own growing up and growing old. In the end, she takes on mothering duties for her mother in need of care, caring for the old woman who has become forgetful and dorky, feeding her chocolate like a little child. These are heartbreaking scenes that Ernaux puts to paper with her usual few strokes. Scenes in which she cries because her mother has become so different from her childhood. As countless women before her, Annie Ernaux had to helplessly watch on as her mother grew old, and eventually had to bit her farewell.

For Ernaux, this book is neither biography nor novel, but rather something between literature, sociology and historiography. With her mother then dies the last connection to that world into which she was born:

"I will never hear her voice again. It was she, her words, her hands, her gestures, her walk and her way of laughing that connected the woman I am today with the child I had been. I have lost the last bridge to the world from which I came."

Une Femme is a book that, despite its brevity, will stick with its readers, will resonate with mothers and daughters everywhere. I, for my part, could see a lot of myself and my mom in this book. And when I gifted her this book for Christmas she devoured it as well and saw a lot of herself and her mom (my grandmother) in this book as well. Ernaux speaks to the human condition, to the universal bond that mothers and daughters share. It's hard to not to be swept up by her prose. Ernaux gives her readers lots to ponder over.

TW: There is a casual mention of the n-word, so beware of that! Additionally, some of Ernaux's comparisons are insensitive and offensive, e.g. when she likens her own distress at her mother's insults to "those African mothers who hold the arms of their daughters behind their backs so that their clitoris can be cut off". This comparison not only diminishes the trauma and pain of women and girls who had to go through Female Genital Mutilation (which is undoubtedly a million times worse than having an insult thrown in your face) but also stereotypes and devalues African women as a whole. Ernaux's throwaway statement does not do justice to the complexity of the problem, since "those African mothers", about whom Ernaux so disparagingly speaks, are, in most cases, also victims of FGM themselves.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very short read in which the author describes the life of her mother.
It starts with her mother’s birth in 1906 in France and tells of her childhood, teen years, marriage and then of course to her own birth and the mother/daughter relationship.. the love, the conflicts..the beauty..the exasperations.
The very moving part comes as her mother ages and eventually gets Alzheimers..
She starts to write this right after her mother’s death.

"I shall never hear the sound of her voice again—the last bond between me and the world I come from has been severed.''

So.. yes.. deeply affecting and I plan to read much more of her.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

**SPOILERS**

I wrote this purely and selfishly for myself —
This book was gut-experiential amazing….
Annie Ernaux can write!! Boy, can she write. I’ve loved other books by her - will read more ….
but this one is very personal to me — as I suspect it is for any mother or daughter, who reads it.
Annie reveals the story of her mother’s life ….
and the things I wrote on this page is for me to easily refer back too.
The prose is brilliant: so real … yet suspending judgment of herself and her mother with remarkably expressive sentences.
We get it!!!!

“I believe I am writing about my mother, because it is my turn to bring her into the world”.

“Tomorrow, it will be three weeks since the funeral. It was only the day before yesterday that I overcame the fear of writing My Mother died on a blank sheet of paper, not as the first line of a letter but as the opening of a book. I could even bring myself to look at some of her photographs. One of them shows her sitting on the banks of the Seine, her legs tucked neatly beneath her. It’s a black-and-white photograph, but I can clearly see her flaming red hair, and the sun reflected in her black alpaca suit”.

….”I bought her chocolates and pastries, which I cut up into little pieces and fed to her. At first, I always got the wrong sort of cake—it was either too firm or too creamy-and she couldn’t eat it (the indescribable pain of seeing her struggle with the crumbs, using her tongue and her fingers to finish them up). I washed your hands, shaved her face, and sprinkled her with perfume.”

“I shall continue to write about my mother. She is the only woman who really meant something to me, and she had been suffering from senile dementia for two years”.

“My mother, was the one with the proud, violent temper. She was aware that she had belonged to the lower class, and she resented it, refusing to be judged according to her social status alone. She would often say of the rich, ‘They’re no better than us’. She was an attractive blonde with gray eyes, pleasantly plump, and bursting with health. She read anything she could lay hands on. She enjoyed singing the latest popular songs, making up, and going out with friends to the cinema”.

….Mother enjoyed the beach.

….Mother liked wearing the color mauve.

….”Mother was always in a rush. She never had time to do the cooking and look after the house ‘properly’, sewing on a button seconds, before I left for school, or ironing her blouse on a corner of the kitchen table before slipping it on . . . “

….Blonde hair, or sometimes reddish hair, a lively, personality, energetic, generous.

…”The slightest incident or remark would be an excuse for her to pick a quarrel with her brothers and sisters, or release her anger against their living conditions”.

….”Mother didn’t like to see me grow up”…..
She knew I longed to seduce the boys, I knew she was terrified. I would ‘have an accident’, in other words, that I would start to sleep around and get pregnant”.
“Sometimes I imagined her death would have met nothing to me”.

….”The argument she had with my father, always centered on the same subject: the amount of work they carried out, respectively. She used to complain: ‘I’m the one who does everything around here’”.

….”On Sunday afternoons, she would lie down and her slip in stockings. She let me crawl into bed next to her. She fell asleep quickly, while I read, huddled up against her back”.

….”When I think of my mother’s violent temper, outbursts of affection, and reproachful attitude, I try not to see them as facets of her personality, but to relate to them to her own story and social background. This way of writing, which seems to bring me closer to the truth, relieves me of the dark, heavy burden of personal remembrance, by establishing a more objective approach. And yet some thing deep down inside, refuses to yield and wants me to remember my mother, purely in emotional terms—affection or tears—without searching for explanation”.

…..”As I write, I see her, sometimes as a ‘good’, sometimes as a ‘bad’ mother. To get away from these contrasting views, which come from my earliest childhood, I try to describe and explain her life as if I were writing about someone else’s mother, and a daughter, who wasn’t me”.

….”I shall never hear the sound of your voice again. It was her voice, together with her words, her hands, and her way of moving, and laughing, which linked the woman I am to the child I once was. The last bond between me and the world I come from has been severed”
—Sunday 20 April 1986 - 26 February 1987

A phenomenal work of truth….
These memories….written almost as a meditation ….could easily be read over and over again ….
Perhaps once a year on a special date of remembrance.

I felt as if I was holding hands with acceptance and forgiveness!

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 4 out of 5]

babamı kaybettim. onu yazarak hatırlamak sanırım hayatta en hoşuma giden şey şu an.
ben babamı her gün aramazdım, her gün soracak bir şeyim olmazdı. çocuk doğurduğum günden başlayarak annem olmaya başladım. çocukken babamla evlenmek istemem, hayatta en çok ona düşkünlüğüm yavaş yavaş yok oldu. annemi her gün ararım. en ufak bir şeyi sorarım. ve sanırım annemin istediği gibi bağ kurabildiği, 2,5 sene emzirdiği son çocuk olarak aramızda güvenli bağlanma denilen şey oluşmuş. sorunsuz bir ilişkimiz var.
bu nedenle annemin yokluğunu düşünemem bile. babamla kurduğum bağım dışında bambaşka bir şey çünkü. onu arayıp herhangi bir yemek tarifini soramadığım günü düşünemem.
oysa annie ernaux’nun “bir kadın” kitabı tam da bunu düşündürüyor. annesini yeniden dünyaya getiriyor, kendi sözleriyle. bundan daha zor ne olabilir? onu tarihin küçük insanları yok sayan sayfalarından alıp çıkarıyor.
son yıllarda moda olan otobiyografik anlatı ne kadar bana uygun, nasıl “ben” bilmiyorum anlatabilir miyim. annie ernaux’nun roman olmayan bu anlatılarına, toplumsalla bireysel olanın arasında kurduğu köprüye tapıyorum. bu benim de anı yazarak yapmaya çalıştığım bir şey.
acısını dibine kadar hissettiğim, benim de annemi anlatmak istediğim bir okuma süreci oldu. ama yeniden doğurmanın da vakti var. sınıfsal ve ahlaki farklar, çatışma, huzurevine yatırılan bir annenin yarattığı vicdan azabı öylesine çıplak ve nesnel bir biçimde yazılmış ki ernaux’nun büyüklüğünü ve cesaretini yeniden anladım.
ve burada “yüzücüler”deki ahlakçı bakışın olmaması ayrıca hoşuma gitti. doğu ve batı kültürü arasındaki fark işte böyle de bariz.
yıllardır en önemli işi babama bakmak olan annemin babamın yokluğundan sonraki zihin yavaşlaması, dikkat dağınıklığı, bunu hissedip de hiçbir şey yapamamak, yemek yerken aynı anneannem gibi ekmeği küçük parçalara ayırdığını görmek, yaşlandığı gerçeğiyle karşı karşıya olmak bana acı veriyor. bunu da yazmak gerekecek bir gün.
bir insanı böylesine anlatabilmek zor ve görkemli. ernaux’nun babasını okudum. gençliğini okudum. babasını çok daha duygusal anlatmıştı sınıf meselesinden dolayı. annesiyle ilişkisi daha mesafeli anlatılmış, bunu yapmaya çalışıyor zaten ama niçin bu kadar tanıdık ve en dokunan oldu, onu da sanırım anneler ve kızları anlar. çünkü bu ilişki ne kadar anlatılsa bitmez.

[Dalia Nourelden · Rating 3 out of 5]

"لن أسمع صوتها مجدداً. إنها هي ، وكلماتها ويداها وحركاتها وأسلوبها في الضحك ومشيتها ، من كانت توحد المرأة التي أنا عليها اليوم بالطفلة التي كنتها في السابق. وبموتها فقدت آخر رابط بيني وبين العالم الذي جئت منه "

بموتها فقدت شيئا لا أستطيع وصفه او الحديث عنه . مررت طوال حياتي مثل الكثير بكثير من التجارب والمواقف التي أرهقتنى وأحزنتني وأبكتني وكسرت شيئا بداخلي .لكن كل ذلك أمام لحظة سماع خبر وفاة والدتي ورؤية جثمانها لا يعني شيئا ،في هذه اللحظة هانت أمام عيني كل ما مررت به من قبل وتجاوزت اى ألم وأى فقد مررت به من قبل . شعرت ان كل صدمات حياتي لا تساوى شيئا امام هذه الصدمة .
تصعب على بشدة كتابة هذه الكلمات . يصعب على تصديق انها لم تعد موجودة ، يصعب على قول " الله يرحمها " بعد كل حديث عنها .يعتصر قلبي فقدانها وان أصحو في منزل يخلو منها .

"في الأسبوع الموالي ، كانت نوبات بكاء تفاجئني في كل مكان "

حين أري كتاب يتحدث به الكاتب عن وفاة والدته أرغب فورا في قرائته ، ارغب في إيجاد ما يعبر عني ، ما يلامس ما اشعر به ، أرغب بمن يشاركني مشاعري دون أن يخبرني " اعلم ما تمرين به " او " نعم لقد شعرت بمشاعرك من قبل " .أعرف ان كل من فقد والدته أو والده مر بما أمر به لكن هذه مشاعري أنا وحياتي ، لا أقلل من مشاعر الأخرين لكني مؤمنة أن كل شخص منا له طريقته في التعامل مع الأمور وأن مشاعر كل منا تختلف من شخص لآخر حتى لو مررنا بنفس الموقف .

ظننت انى سأجد شيئا ما هنا لكني لم أجد سوى كلمات بسيطة تعبر بها عن فقدان والدتها .
الكاتبة في الغالب تسرد لنا حكاية والدتها، طفولتها وشبابها وما مرت به من صعوبات ثم تقص علينا لقائها بوالدها وولادتها وشخصية أمها وعلاقتها بها على مدار سنوات حياتها من طفولتها لمراهقتها لشبابها وزواجها وإنجابها لأطفالها ، وأعتقد ان جميع العلاقات تسودها احيانا التفاهم والحب واحيانا اخري الخلافات والاختلافات . هناك لحظات الحنان ولحظات القسوة .
وتستمر حكايات الكاتبة عن والدتها حتى شيخوختها وتدهور حالتها مع الزهايمر وحتى وفاتها...

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[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 4 out of 5]

Annie Ernaux'nun annesinin ardından yazdığı bir veda metni "Bir Kadın" - bir anlamda annesinin karnından yeniden çıkma ve aynı anda annesini doğurma metni belki de. Babasını anlattığı "Babamın Yeri" ile beraber düşünmeli bu kitabı sanırım, birbirlerini tamamlıyorlar.

Anne-kız ilişkisinin karmaşık doğası; barındırdığı garip dinamikler itibariyle edebiyatın bayıldığı konulardan biri malum. Biz insanlar bir şeyi ne kadar çözemez isek, o kadar edebiyata malzeme ediyoruz onu; edebiyat üzerinden anlamaya, anlamlandırmaya çalışıyoruz.

Ernaux yine son derece kişisel bir yerden yazıyor ve annesinin hayatını anlatıyor bize. Her zamanki gibi bireysel olanı anlatırken toplumsal olana dair de konuşuyor elbette. İçlerinde yaşadıkları çağ, insanlar, değerler değişirken annesinin nasıl konumlandığını, o dönüşümlerin onda (ve muhakkak ki diğer kadınlarda) nasıl yansımaları olduğunu da aktarıyor.

Okura şirin gözükmek gibi bir derdi olmamasını çok seviyorum kendisinin. Annesine karşı duyduğu, zaman zaman acımasızlığa varan öfkesini gizlemeye yahut meşrulaştırmaya hiç çalışmıyor - ki bu yakınlıktaki ilişkiler zaten aslında karşılıklı haksızlıklardan örülmemiş midir? Anne-kız ilişkisine çok içkin bir şey bence o öfke, kıskançlık, haksızlık hâli - hatta bir tür samimiyet seviyesi gibi. "Canını acıtma hakkı"nı ayrıcalıklı biçimde elinde tutabilmek... Kutsamadan, yüceltmeden, gerçek hâliyle gösteriyor bize ilişkiyi ve pekala bu biçimiyle de güzel olabileceğini ispatlıyor.

Çok çalışan annesinin, kendi sahip olamadıklarını kızına sunmak için çok çalışması, çabalaması, ama kızı o şeylere sahip oldukça da bir tür öfke ve kıskançlık duyması, minnet beklemesi... Ne kadar insani, ne kadar tanıdık ve aslında ne kadar "hiç öyle şey olur mu canım" diyip inkar ettiğimiz bir şey. Olur. Oluyor. İnsan olmak kusurlu bir var olma hali işte. Anneler de o kusurlardan azade değil.

Ezcümle yine hacmine kıyasla çok cevherler barındıran bir küçük kitap "Bir Kadın". Annie Ernaux iyi ki yazmış, bizler iyi ki onu okuyabiliyoruz.

[Gabril · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ernaux, secondo me, è una delle grandi voci narranti dei nostri tempi, una maestra della scrittura.
Come sia possibile muovere emozioni, commuovere profondamente, attraverso uno stile così asciutto, essenziale, descrittivo è un mistero che solo il talento, nella sua misteriosa verità, può spiegare.
Questo ritratto della madre, accanto a quello del padre in “Il posto”, è un’opera di impressionante lucidità e di immenso fulgore.
Ed è anche l’esempio di come il materiale autobiografico, in mano a chi sa scrivere, diventi trasfigurazione degli eventi personali e messaggio universale per ciascun essere umano, destinato a superare la corrosione del tempo.

Per dirla con le parole di Ernaux:

“Non è una biografia, né un romanzo, naturalmente, forse qualcosa tra la letteratura, la sociologia e la storia. Era necessario che mia madre, nata tra i dominati di un ambiente dal quale è voluta uscire, diventasse storia perché io mi sentissi meno sola e fasulla nel mondo dominante delle parole e delle idee in cui, secondo i suoi desideri, sono entrata."

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evidencija kaže da mi je ovo sedma knjiga Ani Erno. Osećaj kaže da je ovo, zapravo, centralna knjiga njenog opusa. Sve što je uradila se, na ovaj ili onaj način, sliva u nju. 

"Jedna žena" je bolna knjiga o majci, gde je intimnost upotrebljena kao sredstvo za davanje šire slike društva i vremena. Takođe je i knjiga o varljivosti sećanja, pa i o tome kako se mi uspostavljamo uprkos ili zahvaljujući svojim roditeljima. A roditelji su naši predgovori, to prečesto zaboravljamo.

Erno je ovom knjigom dala i važan doprinos razmišljanju o istorijskim promenama klasnog društva u Francuskoj. Ubedljivo je povezala svakodnevno, kućno i politično (etičko), sve vreme negujući duh temeljno ambivalentnog odnosa između majke i ćerke.

Nakon smrti, majka postaje više priča nego osoba od krvi i mesa. I neke priče ne treba ponovo dopisivati, iako žudimo da je drukčije. To je okolnost gubitka, ostajemo suštinski sami kada oni koji su nam omogućili da koračamo ovim svetom, nepovratno odu, a znamo da i nas ista sudbina čeka, da ćemo nekome takođe biti i radost i teret.

Vraški je teško pisati rečenicama običnim kao voda, a jakim kao udar groma. I to bez ikakve sladunjavosti.

[Isabela.]

Me había dado un descanso de leer, pero ya he vuelto.

Creo que este libro es la definición exacta de una frase en la que pienso con frecuencia.

«Soy la hija de mi madre.»

[Henk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Getting old, and seeing a loved one getting old, is a terrible thing, that is something Annie Ernaux illustrates eloquently in this small book about her mother, who changes yet remains the same over the course of her life.
For me my mother has no history, she has always been there

Kicking of with the surreal awkwardness of a burial, Annie Ernaux recites the story of her mother her life. Social struggle and societal change go hand in hand, and her mother is ambitious: She was proud of being a factory girl, but too proud to stay one
It is interesting how we always see England as class obsessed, while Ernaux in book after book sketches France as a class society, stratified between farmers, factory workers, small merchants and the intellectuals. Her daughter makes the move to university teacher (She spends all her day selling milk and potatoes so that I could sit in a lecture hall, learning about Plato), but this is tied to a growing rift keeping apart the two in their adult life.

Eventually infirmness leads to a growing closer again, with tender scenes of brushing hair and a reversal of the daughter-mother power dynamic. A small jewel that we are accustomed from the Nobel laureate and her writing about her personal life, A Woman's Story standing at the intersection of biography and historical social commentary.

Quotes:
Money, consumer goods and the state are the three pillars of apartheid

For me my mother has no history, she has always been there

Afterwards she spoke about the war like a novel, the great story of her life

Books were the only thing she handled with care

I just read in the newspaper that despair is a luxury

[Pavel Nedelcu · Rating 4 out of 5]

USCIRE DALL'OSCURITÀ DEL RICORDO

Un romanzo in cui la delicatezza del racconto è superata solo dalla tragedia umana, descritta nel modo più diretto. Argomento: la vita della madre, dalla nascita alla morte.

Rispetto al romanzo che si concentra sul padre (IL POSTO), Una donna mi è sembrato molto più toccante ed empatico in quanto alla figura centrale descritta, e in certi punti spietato. Questo mentre la ricerca letteraria di Ernaux si mantiene fedele agli obiettivi: è la stessa autrice che vi riflette, tra le righe, sulla propria scrittura:

"Questa maniera di scrivere, che mi pare andare nella direzione della verità, mi aiuta a uscire dalla solitudine e dall'oscurità del ricordo individuale tramite la scoperta di un significato più generale".

Contro lo sfondo della storia francese si staglia quindi la donna più importante nella vita della narratrice: la madre. Una figura imponente, figlia del suo secolo, della sua classe sociale, dell'educazione ricevuta. Una donna generosa, completamente annullata nel lavoro, ma sempre presente, sempre complice, almeno fino a quando la figlia non cresce abbastanza da entrare in conflitto con lei, da volersene separare, tornare, separarsi e di nuovo ritornare.

Sorprende sempre la capacità di Ernaux di trasmettere in poche parole, ottimamente scelte, l'evoluzione dei rapporti umani. La sua scrittura naviga con leggerezza tra epoche ed età, descrivendo sempre in modo dinamico la fluidità delle certezze e dei rapporti umani man mano che la vita scorre, veloce ed impietosa.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I believe I am writing about my mother because it is my turn to bring her into the world.”
-- Annie Ernaux

Ernaux wrote this lightly fictionalized memoir of her mother after she dies in the geriatric ward from Alzheimer's disease. She begins with her personal memories and fills in blanks for a mother born in 1906. The account is rarely sentimental (until the end) and often aloof as she seeks to capture the complex bond and contrast between her working-class mother (typical for her generation) and her own university education and feminist ideas.

The final chapters were especially poignant. The author attempts to connect even as her mother no longer recognizes her. I was deeply moved by the author’s compassion toward her mother in the end as she combed her hair and cleaned her face after she finished eating.

Quite by accident, I’ve recently read two stories about mother/daughter relationships. My Phantoms was an earlier novel. I’m aging and I have an adult daughter, so both stories evoked personal reflections of my own mother/daughter relationship
.
I love this kind of writing. The language is spare and quietly powerful. I’m excited to find other stories by this author. Recommended!

[Sine · Rating 5 out of 5]

bu kitap incecik bir kitap olabilir ama manevi ağırlığı tonlarca. göğsüme oturdu adeta, nefes alamıyorum; hakkında konuşmaksa çok zor.

annie ernaux ile ilk okuduğum günden beri bir frekans uyumumuz olduğundan bahsediyorum biliyorsunuz, hala da en beğendiğim kitabı seneler; ama bu, beni en çok etkileyen, en çok yaralayan kitabı oldu.

çok güzel, çok yoğun, çok derin bir kitap ama anlatmak çok zor benim için. terapistle konuşulacak bir kitap. orhan veli'nin de dediği gibi: anlatamıyorum, veya; ilhan irem'in de dediği gibi: konuşamıyorum, konuşamıyorum, konuşamıyorum.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first time reading Annie Ernaux. Immediately I knew I was reading someone singular. Her style is direct, potent, unadorned. Punctuated with moments of poignancy. All at once, a stab of insight.

This is more memoir than fiction, and begins with the death of the author's mother. Then, she proceeds to describe her mother's life, from beginning to end.

I believe I am writing about my mother because it is my turn to bring her into the world.

(See what I mean about poignant?)

Annie Ernaux's mother is vibrant, difficult, fascinating, complex... so much so, I couldn't take my eyes off her. I read the entire 90-page novella in one sitting. It said much about the woman, and yet there's always so much that no one (not even one's child) can possibly know. It's one of the tragedies of human life, our unknowability.

I will return to Ernaux's work. I enjoy her immersive style. I like the way she holds my head firmly underwater the way she does. I'm curious as to how she'd write about sex.

[AiK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Эта книга не из тех, которые нужно анализировать с точки зрения литературных достоинств или недостатков, и не из тех, в которых много мудрых афоризмов и сентенций, которые можно разбирать. О книге трудно говорить, потому что она, как исповедь, о глубоко личном, написана просто, но искренне, без утайки. Не хочется ни обсуждать, ни осуждать, ни исследовать. Но она трогает, она заставляет задуматься прежде всего о себе рядом с матерью, о матери, как личности, и о том, как важна мама для каждого из нас.
В новелле затрагивается тема болезни Альцгеймера, которая становится все более широко распространенным явлением. К сожалению, пока медицина бессильна чем-либо помочь таким больным. С ростом продолжительности жизни проблема нехватки гериатрических отделений, хосписов и домов престарелых для пациентов с нарушениями памяти будет только нарастать. Но помимо медицинской помощи важным становится вопрос повышения планки гуманистических стандартов в отношении таких больных.

[piperitapitta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Festeggio il Premio Nobel leggendo gli ultimi due titoli che mi mancavano, felice perché so che ne sta per arrivare un altro.

“Le rimproveravo di essere ciò che io, in procinto di emigrare in un ambiente diverso, cercavo di non sembrare più.”

“In certi momenti aveva in sua figlia, di fronte a lei, un nemico di classe.”

Il rapporto di Annie Ernaux con la madre, per come ce lo racconta lei stessa, è segnato da una profonda frattura sociale e generazionale: la madre è di famiglia operaia nata e vissuta in una piccola cittadina di provincia, mentre la figlia sarà non solo “quella che avrà studiato” e che metterà fra loro la distanza della lingua e della cultura, ma anche, a sua volta, un prodotto del Sessantotto, che amplificherà tutte le distanze che i figli da sempre, in maniera del tutto naturale, mettono fra loro e i genitori che per forza di cose sono nati e vissuti in un’epoca precedente. Resta in ogni caso, anche quando Ernaux stessa (citando ne Il posto Jean Genet- “Scrivere è l’ultima risorsa quando abbiamo tradito” - ma anche come si evince dalle due citazioni che ho riportato qui sopra) ammetta di sentirsi rispetto ai genitori colei che in qualche senso li ha traditi, anche laddove non rinnegherà mai il proprio percorso sociale e culturale, l’insofferenza per la tenacia con la quale sono sempre rimasti legati ai riti e alle abitudini dettate dalle umili origini, la tenerezza per una madre e un padre così lontani da lei, il tentativo di conoscere per conciliare le proprie esistenze, le proprie differenze, le mancanze che li hanno allontanati, la conoscibilità delle proprie origini.

[nis · Rating 5 out of 5]

He llorado en la página 71.
He llorado con la página 71.
He llorado al acabarlo.
He llorado porque dicen: «presenciar la muerte de tus progenitores es ley de vida».
He llorado porque al menos para mí —mujer, obrera, psiquiatrizada, enferma, huérfana de padre por su no ejercicio de la paternidad— no está tan claro que dicha ley se aplique sin más en mi historia. Desde luego no lo sé, de ahí la imaginación a través de la historia de ella.
No sé si es realmente un acto de imaginación o uno de empatía.
Sé que por una u otra razón, he llorado.

[cristina c · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pochi giorni dalla morte della madre la Ernaux inizia a raccogliere i ricordi per fissarli nella memoria e perché rivivere il passato è una forma di resistenza alla separazione.

Ripercorriamo la storia che già conosce chi ha letto Il posto, una vita modesta nella provincia francese con il raggiungimento di piccoli traguardi e con la delega alla unica figlia di fare il salto sociale e di accedere al mondo della cultura.
E poi la distanza che questo passaggio crea, gli imbarazzi e i sensi di colpa, la lontananza seguita negli ultimi anni da una nuova vicinanza necessaria ma non del tutto desiderata, il declino della vecchiaia reso ancora più penoso dal declino mentale.

La scrittura è sempre quella laconica ma densa dei suoi altri libri, una emotività sempre centrale nel discorso anche se tenuta sotto controllo.
Rispetto a Il posto però qui il passo è diverso, c'è una accettazione e una tenerezza, per quanto trattenuta, per la vita della madre nella sua interezza.
La Ernaux sembra mettere la sordina al proprio disagio e alle implicite rivendicazioni dei suoi altri scritti per lasciare la scena a questa donna senza storia ( " Per me mia madre è priva di storia. C'è sempre stata") e farla diventare reale.

Dove Il posto raccontava di una disarmonia quasi non recuperabile, qui c'è una ricerca di senso e quasi un orgoglio per la donna che questa madre è stata e forse anche grazie alla distanza di 5 anni fra la prima pubblicazione del Posto e questo libro, qui sembra di vedere una diversa maturità emotiva, la spinta alla scrittura non è testimoniare un disagio mai riscattato ma offrire ad altri un risarcimento.

"Questa non è una biografia né un romanzo... Era necessario che mia madre, nata fra i dominati di un ambiente dal quale è voluta uscire, diventasse storia perché io mi sentissi meno sola e fasulla nel mondo delle parole e delle idee in cui, secondo i suoi desideri, sono entrata."

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

’MY MOTHER DIED on Monday 7 April in the old people’s home attached to the hospital at Pontoise, where I had installed her two years previously. The nurse said over the phone: “Your mother passed away this morning, after breakfast.” It was around ten o’clock.’

Mother/daughter relationships can be complex, and complicated, their relationship seemed to wander back and forth between the two with moments that were bitter, but there was also love. And in the case of someone whose body and mind are deteriorating a little at a time, it is hard to come to terms with the life of someone who gave birth to you leaving this world with things left unsaid. A mother who seemed distant or dismissive for most of daughter’s adult years is still a connection that becomes a part of you. There is still love.

’I shall never hear the sound of her voice again. It was her voice, together with her words, her hands and her way of moving and laughing, which linked the woman I am to the child I once was. The last bond between me and the world I come from has been severed.’

There’s something about the way that she writes that pulled me in with her ’The Young Man’ and which made me want to read more of what she’d written. Both were wonderful reads, if very different ones. Reading her stories is somewhat reminiscent of Patti Smith in how it flows with a sense of authenticity, revealing some wish, desire that things could have been different, but accepting the way it was.

While there is an essence of the way their relationship affected her, her feelings are shared in simple acceptance of how it was, and not how she wished it had been. A story of mothers and daughters, their differences as well as their bond. A story of conflict, but also love.


Many thanks to my library, and the librarians for the loan of this copy!

[sigurd · Rating 4 out of 5]

(ho letto molte recensioni positive, Cristina c, Piperitapitta... che mi hanno fatto venire il desiderio di farmi un'idea più articolata di questa scrittrice. avevo iniziato a leggere "Gli anni" ma senza troppa convinzione. i riferimenti culturali a me estranei mi hanno spinto ad abbandonarlo dopo poche pagine. e così ho ricominciato da qui.)

Alfonso Reyes, il grande scrittore messicano, scrisse che si pubblica un libro per non passare la vita a correggere le sue bozze. Questo è particolarmente vero per i libri autobiografici, come questo di Annie Ernaux su sua madre. Sua madre è una donna umile, figlia di un carrettiere e di una sartina. una di quelle donne che ha imparato "i gesti che addomesticano la miseria", come rigirare i colletti e i polsini delle camicie "perché durassero il doppio", conservare la pelle del latte, il pane raffermo per i dolci, la cenere della legna per il bucato, il calore di una stufa spenta per asciugare gli stracci. E' una donna il cui senso di ribellione ha dei confini che coincidono solo con il rifiuto della povertà. Senza altre pretese astratte. E' una bellissima riflessione, su cui ho riflettuto a lungo.
Per tutto il libro sono disseminate frasi come "passo molto tempo a interrogarmi sull'ordine delle cose da dire, come se esistesse un ordine ideale, l'unico capace di restituire una verità su mia madre", "mi sembra di vederla ora, è qui che deve essere diventata lei", "mia madre si stava evolvendo" "vorrei conservare di mia madre delle immagini puramente affettive, il calore o le lacrime, senza dar loro un senso"... E' commovente lo sforzo che la Ernaux fa per ricostruirla (ho letto che prima di scrivere, passa ore immersa nel fiume fangoso delle memoria); e non appena l'ha intravista, viva, vorrebbe fermarla, in una condizione di atemporalità, così come la Szymborska vorrebbe fermare quell'antilope che corre nella savana inseguita dal leone... disperata per la sua sorte se la prende con il mondo, con il caso, con il tempo, con tutto quello che non la tiene in vita... (La fuggitiva è perfino in vantaggio./ E se non fosse per quella radice/ che spunta dal terreno,/ e se non fosse per l'inciampare/ di uno dei quattro zoccoli,/ se non fosse per il ritmo spezzato / d'un quarto di secondo,/ di cui approfitta la leonessa/ con un lungo balzo...). Anche la Ernaux, con la sua voce pacata, che non sembra adirarsi mai, sta per lanciare un urlo. Nel momento della sepoltura, vorrebbe dare una mancia cospicua al becchino che, cospargendola di terra, "sarebbe stato l'ultimo uomo sulla terra a occuparsi di lei". Vorrebbe per lei più canti, più inni. il filo di quest'urlo corre per tutto il libro, è un sibilo, un acufene quasi impercettibile.
Alcuni lettori, i più sensibili, lo sentiranno.


4,5 *

[Bianca thinksGRsucksnow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first encounter with Annie Ernaux's writing and it was a very pleasant meeting, albeit it affected me a bit too much.
This is the story of Ernaux's mother. The book starts with her death after suffering from Alzheimer's for a few years. Ernaux is attempting to be objective, to portray the real woman her mother was, even though we all know nobody truly knows anyone.
Their relationship is burdened with the common generational conflicts that pull and push them. There's love and dedication. There's also criticism, different mentalities, and busy lives.
Ernaux's writing is simple but evocative - I found it very moving.

I will attempt to read other books by Ernaux.

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5] This book didn't click with me in the beginning. Ernaux's account of her mother's early and mid-life is so matter-of-fact and the writing so simple, that it felt bland. It wasn't until her mother started aging that the writing became charged and tender. In the end, the contrast worked. I was swept along with the sad intensity of the last pages.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Congratulations, Annie Ernaux, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2022!

“I always wanted words to be like stones, for them to have the power of reality,” says Annie Ernaux. “Everyone knows they are an illusion, yet words provoke action.”

Annie Ernaux grew up working-class, the daughter of factory workers who became grocers; she
went to university to become first, a primary school teacher, then a college literature professor, before she became a full time writer in retirement. In each life step she separates herself from her parents, moving from working class to middle class, though she loves them, and they love her. I just also read her short book about her father, A Man’s Place, and this short book is about her mother. Her desire is to try to honor them by rendering them as individuals. To neither romanticize them nor theorize about them:

“It is said that contradiction is unthinkable; but the fact is that in the pain of a living being it is even an actual existence”--Hegel (Ernaux opens the book with this quotation)

And as with most human beings, her mother is full of contradictions, wanting connection, wanting independence; wanting her daughter to have what she did not have, yet to not be seen as "above" her. I liked this book a bit more than her book about her father, because it was a bit more intense, anguished, as her mother died from complications from Alzheimer’s, a disorder that is all too familiar to most of us today, with our aging population.

Ernaux said she did not want her mother to “become a little girl, again,” through the Alzheimer's, though this role reversal is what often happens with children and their parents as we all age. I love this line from her as she imagines the process of writing her mother as akin to giving birth:

"I believe I am writing about my mother because it is my turn to bring her into the world."

I really liked the book; as with her book about her father, I was led to think hard (and make some notes) about my own mother, who is the person I loved more than anyone else in the world, a woman of contradictions herself.

Here’s a professional review of Ernaux’s work, with pictures, because this is what you want to see, pictures of her with her parents:

https://france-amerique.com/en/annie-...

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
“This book can be seen as a literary venture as its purpose is to find out the truth about my mother, a truth that can be conveyed only by words. (Neither photographs, nor my own memories, nor even the reminiscences of my family can bring me this truth.)”
My second nobel winner in a week! Certainly my first work by Ernaux, although this isn’t fiction. It is short, less than a hundred pages, and is about Ernaux’s mother, her life and death. It begins with her mother’s death. It’s heartfelt, but it does not sugar coat the relationship:
“One could tell whether she was upset simply by looking at her face. In private she didn’t mince her words and told us straight out what she thought. She called me a beast, a slut, and a bitch, or told me I was “unpleasant”. She would often hit me, usually by slapping my face, or occasionally punching my shoulders. Five minutes later, she would take me into her arms and I was her “poppet.”
It charts a poor upbringing in Normandy, marriage, motherhood, work as a small shopkeeper, boredom in retirement, Alzheimer’s and death in a geriatric hospital. The descriptions in relation to Alzheimer’s are well described and poignant. Effectively it’s a portrait of two women tied by a biological bond. The relationship was a difficult one at times and writing it was not easy:
“It’s a difficult undertaking .For me , my mother has no history .She has always been there .When I speak of her , my first impulse is to “freeze ” her in a series of images unrelated to time – “she had a violent temper ”
This is an interesting account and a whole lot shorter than Proust or Knausgaard! It’s a mundane life but in Ernaux’s hands it is a compelling account.