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L'usage de la photo
14 photographies de la chambre du couple après une rencontre amoureuse, où les corps sont absents mais l'érotisme suggéré, ont été sélectionnées et commentées dans ce journal tenu entre mars 2003 et janvier 2004, par la romancière, qui suivait un traitement pour un cancer du sein, et son compagnon. Une tentative de saisir l'irréalité du sexe dans la réalité des traces.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Annie Ernaux
91 books9,811 followersThe 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.
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January 6, 2025
‘Every photo is metaphysical.’
In the works of Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux, memory is like a craft drawer from which she assembles brilliant creations of introspective beauty. Having long explored the possibilities of language in constructing memory into narratives, Ernaux turned to the use of photography during her affair with photographer Marc Marie to capture space and time to unlock their emotional resonance. The Use of Photography compiles the photographs they took of their living space following each time they made love, framing the clothing strewn about the room, with a brief essay from each of them following the photographs in order to dive deeper into the memory of the experience and the implications of the artistic process. While the project occurred during Ernaux’s battle with cancer, she finds it becomes as method of proclaiming ‘I’m mortal and I’m alive,’ and discussions on the ephemerality of life and relationships commingle with the insights into fleeting moments and eroticism. A brief book that is saved from being a mere curio of Ernaux and Marie’s art project by Ernaux’s signature exquisite prose in service of memory examination—Marc Marie does fine in his sections but it doesn’t hold up to Ernaux’s writing—and The Use of Photography is a lovely look into the mind and life of the great writer.
‘Whether through photographs, or writing, we strove each time to give greater reality to moments of pleasure that were fleeting and impossible to represent. To capture the unreality of sex in the reality of what it leaves behind. The highest degree of reality, however, will only be attained if these written photos are transformed into other scenes in the reader’s memory or imagination.’
Ernaux has a gift of ushering the reader into memories and allowing us to be awash in the torrential emotional resonance she unearths within them. The Use of Photography finds its footing best in Ernaux’s examinations of how different mediums, like photography, writing and even music, serve different functions of access to moments and memory. In the photos, all taken after the pair had made love, she finds the objects in the photo have ‘ taken on material form and at the same time been transfigured, as if it now existed elsewhere, in a mysterious space,’ that, without outside context, depicts something that could feel in the image far different than the moment itself. ‘It’s my imagination that deciphers the photo, not my memory,’ she finds in the incongruence between image and her remembrance of the moment. A photo of Marc’s boot on her bra gives an image of male dominance, she writes, that was untrue about the actual moment or how she notices ‘something menacing about the life that emerges from clothes that have fallen in human postures.’ It is a snapshot that she cannot control like with writing. ‘I took a photo of the whole thing,’ she writes, ‘perhaps to give myself the illusion of capturing a whole. All of our story. But it’s not there.’ She finds this different than writing which ‘brings to life and shapes’ memory but also provides a narrative that captures a passage of time whereas ‘Photos cannot capture a span of time. They lock you into the moment.’
‘I want words to be like stains you cannot tear yourself away from.’
I enjoyed the brief moments where she compares this to music while reflecting on how the songs they listened to in that time—such as FIona Apple’s I Know, Elton John’s Tonight or Chistina Aguilera’s The Voice Within—’will always be linked to M., as others are to other men for me, and to other women, for him. We should be wildly jealous of songs.’ She discusses how music transports us to ‘a period of time’ in ways different from photos:
I really enjoyed the reflections on how ideas and memories can be contained in objects too, such as ‘among the many beliefs that I do not wish to part with is that houses retain the memory of everything that has happened inside them.’ There is also how a memory can be held in tandem with global events going on, with Ernaux musing on how she wrote in her diary that she was happy due to her love with Marc while outside she could hear the anti-Iraq war protests going on–the wedding of personal with the political and global is often well explored in her work. In his section, Marc reflects on
This book itself, in turn, holds the memories of their relationship. ‘Every man I’ve been involved with seems to have brought me some kind of revelation, different each time,’ she reflects back, adding ‘I still don’t know what revelation M. was supposed to offer me.’ There is a sense of searching for that meaning in both their pieces, though Ernaux also wonders ‘does writing separate or unite?’ There is a sadness too, knowing these photographs capture happy moments but also that it was another narrative wave of life that broke and the two drifted towards different shores.
Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie
‘These photos, in which the bodies are absent,’ Ernaux writes, ‘were a reminder of my possible, permanent absence.’ She tells us in the introduction that ‘when we started to take these photographs, I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer,’ and reflections on this begin to accrue in each mini essay. It is ‘as if writing about the photos authorized me to write about the cancer, she observes, ‘as if there was a link between the two.’ Ernaux discusses how the sense of permanence in photos conflicts with her trepidation over her own impermanence and growing resistance to anything around conservation or order (like doing household chores). She finds this looming impermanence, however, to be a critical source for art, and while often her fleeting affairs dominated her other works, it is a fleeting sense of life that casts a long shadow over the writing here:
Theres something I found almost tragic here, however, that at first it seems like Marc ‘makes me live above cancer’ and the two really uphold each other. There is a vulnerability in setting out into the project together that is really endearing and likely familiar to those who have created art with others:
However, as her treatment comes to an end, it seems that so too does their relationship and the project as well. ‘Taking the photo is no longer the last thing we do,’ she writes, ‘it’s part of our writing process. A form of innocence has been lost.’ It becomes work, they become more like coworkers, in the relief of her treatment there is also the deflation of the relationship and the reminiscing on bygone moments took on a more somber tone for me.
‘Our meeting may have been improbable, but that we endured was equally so. Often, especially on long walks along the beach…I think about the fact that neither she nor I should be there. I look at the woman walking next to me, this laughing woman, so alive, whose birth was contingent on the death of her sister, and whose life, for a time, hung by a thread. It’s a strange feeling. Like being weightless ghosts, accidental spectators.’
I am always delighted to dive into the mind of Annie Ernaux and was quite pleased to see her with a more experimental approach here in The Use of Photography. Ernaux’s sections certainly take center stage and not because Marc Marie isn’t a good writer its just that Ernaux is so effortlessly brilliant it is like hearing someone play a decent chord progression on an old guitar compared to a full orchestration backed by a choir of angels. She’s the Nobel laureate for a reason. While this book is likely most rewarding to Ernaux enthusiasts and has less about photography as it does about memoir itself, this was a nice little read and great way to kick off a new year.
3.5/5
In the works of Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux, memory is like a craft drawer from which she assembles brilliant creations of introspective beauty. Having long explored the possibilities of language in constructing memory into narratives, Ernaux turned to the use of photography during her affair with photographer Marc Marie to capture space and time to unlock their emotional resonance. The Use of Photography compiles the photographs they took of their living space following each time they made love, framing the clothing strewn about the room, with a brief essay from each of them following the photographs in order to dive deeper into the memory of the experience and the implications of the artistic process. While the project occurred during Ernaux’s battle with cancer, she finds it becomes as method of proclaiming ‘I’m mortal and I’m alive,’ and discussions on the ephemerality of life and relationships commingle with the insights into fleeting moments and eroticism. A brief book that is saved from being a mere curio of Ernaux and Marie’s art project by Ernaux’s signature exquisite prose in service of memory examination—Marc Marie does fine in his sections but it doesn’t hold up to Ernaux’s writing—and The Use of Photography is a lovely look into the mind and life of the great writer.
‘Whether through photographs, or writing, we strove each time to give greater reality to moments of pleasure that were fleeting and impossible to represent. To capture the unreality of sex in the reality of what it leaves behind. The highest degree of reality, however, will only be attained if these written photos are transformed into other scenes in the reader’s memory or imagination.’
Ernaux has a gift of ushering the reader into memories and allowing us to be awash in the torrential emotional resonance she unearths within them. The Use of Photography finds its footing best in Ernaux’s examinations of how different mediums, like photography, writing and even music, serve different functions of access to moments and memory. In the photos, all taken after the pair had made love, she finds the objects in the photo have ‘ taken on material form and at the same time been transfigured, as if it now existed elsewhere, in a mysterious space,’ that, without outside context, depicts something that could feel in the image far different than the moment itself. ‘It’s my imagination that deciphers the photo, not my memory,’ she finds in the incongruence between image and her remembrance of the moment. A photo of Marc’s boot on her bra gives an image of male dominance, she writes, that was untrue about the actual moment or how she notices ‘something menacing about the life that emerges from clothes that have fallen in human postures.’ It is a snapshot that she cannot control like with writing. ‘I took a photo of the whole thing,’ she writes, ‘perhaps to give myself the illusion of capturing a whole. All of our story. But it’s not there.’ She finds this different than writing which ‘brings to life and shapes’ memory but also provides a narrative that captures a passage of time whereas ‘Photos cannot capture a span of time. They lock you into the moment.’
‘I want words to be like stains you cannot tear yourself away from.’
I enjoyed the brief moments where she compares this to music while reflecting on how the songs they listened to in that time—such as FIona Apple’s I Know, Elton John’s Tonight or Chistina Aguilera’s The Voice Within—’will always be linked to M., as others are to other men for me, and to other women, for him. We should be wildly jealous of songs.’ She discusses how music transports us to ‘a period of time’ in ways different from photos:
‘A song is expansion into the past, a photo is finitude. A song is the happy sensation of time, a photo its tragic side. I’ve often thought that one’s whole life story could be told just with songs and photos.’
I really enjoyed the reflections on how ideas and memories can be contained in objects too, such as ‘among the many beliefs that I do not wish to part with is that houses retain the memory of everything that has happened inside them.’ There is also how a memory can be held in tandem with global events going on, with Ernaux musing on how she wrote in her diary that she was happy due to her love with Marc while outside she could hear the anti-Iraq war protests going on–the wedding of personal with the political and global is often well explored in her work. In his section, Marc reflects on
‘The horror at the other end of our love, as if the outside world had always to be there, beyond the kitchen window.’
This book itself, in turn, holds the memories of their relationship. ‘Every man I’ve been involved with seems to have brought me some kind of revelation, different each time,’ she reflects back, adding ‘I still don’t know what revelation M. was supposed to offer me.’ There is a sense of searching for that meaning in both their pieces, though Ernaux also wonders ‘does writing separate or unite?’ There is a sadness too, knowing these photographs capture happy moments but also that it was another narrative wave of life that broke and the two drifted towards different shores.
Annie Ernaux and Marc Marie
‘These photos, in which the bodies are absent,’ Ernaux writes, ‘were a reminder of my possible, permanent absence.’ She tells us in the introduction that ‘when we started to take these photographs, I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer,’ and reflections on this begin to accrue in each mini essay. It is ‘as if writing about the photos authorized me to write about the cancer, she observes, ‘as if there was a link between the two.’ Ernaux discusses how the sense of permanence in photos conflicts with her trepidation over her own impermanence and growing resistance to anything around conservation or order (like doing household chores). She finds this looming impermanence, however, to be a critical source for art, and while often her fleeting affairs dominated her other works, it is a fleeting sense of life that casts a long shadow over the writing here:
‘I now realize that the only thing that can justify scientific and philosophical endeavor, and art, is not knowing what nothingness is. And if the shadow of nothingness, in one form or another, does not hover over writing, even of a kind most acquiescent to the beauty of the world, it doesn’t really contain anything of use to the living.’
Theres something I found almost tragic here, however, that at first it seems like Marc ‘makes me live above cancer’ and the two really uphold each other. There is a vulnerability in setting out into the project together that is really endearing and likely familiar to those who have created art with others:
‘I feel there’s nothing we could do together that would be better than this, an act of writing at once united and disjointed. Sometimes it also frightens me. To open up your writing space is more violent than to open up your sex.’
However, as her treatment comes to an end, it seems that so too does their relationship and the project as well. ‘Taking the photo is no longer the last thing we do,’ she writes, ‘it’s part of our writing process. A form of innocence has been lost.’ It becomes work, they become more like coworkers, in the relief of her treatment there is also the deflation of the relationship and the reminiscing on bygone moments took on a more somber tone for me.
‘Our meeting may have been improbable, but that we endured was equally so. Often, especially on long walks along the beach…I think about the fact that neither she nor I should be there. I look at the woman walking next to me, this laughing woman, so alive, whose birth was contingent on the death of her sister, and whose life, for a time, hung by a thread. It’s a strange feeling. Like being weightless ghosts, accidental spectators.’
I am always delighted to dive into the mind of Annie Ernaux and was quite pleased to see her with a more experimental approach here in The Use of Photography. Ernaux’s sections certainly take center stage and not because Marc Marie isn’t a good writer its just that Ernaux is so effortlessly brilliant it is like hearing someone play a decent chord progression on an old guitar compared to a full orchestration backed by a choir of angels. She’s the Nobel laureate for a reason. While this book is likely most rewarding to Ernaux enthusiasts and has less about photography as it does about memoir itself, this was a nice little read and great way to kick off a new year.
3.5/5
May 27, 2025
Now, it seems to me that I have always wanted to preserve images of the devastated landscape that remains after lovemaking. I wonder why the idea of taking photos of it did not occur to me before…
Call it a diary or an autobiographical piece; an essay on photography or a memoir, in The Use of Photography, Ernaux discusses the need to capture images when words fail and how sometimes one image can express more than a thousand words.
Hence, the images may document emotions such as joy, pain, love or hate and be first-hand witnesses to an ephemeral and ultimately forgotten moment in our lives.
Call it a diary or an autobiographical piece; an essay on photography or a memoir, in The Use of Photography, Ernaux discusses the need to capture images when words fail and how sometimes one image can express more than a thousand words.
Hence, the images may document emotions such as joy, pain, love or hate and be first-hand witnesses to an ephemeral and ultimately forgotten moment in our lives.
February 6, 2025
Although I was initially skeptical (I mean, we say we want to read the grocery lists of our favourite authors, but where we truly waiting on a book of post-coital pictures with some reflections with it from both lovers?) Ernaux does her usual magic in elevating the normal to literature
I feel there’s nothing we could do together that would be better than this, an act of writing at once united and disjointed. Sometimes it also frightens me. To open up your writing space is more violent than to open up your sex.
Walking around in museums I sometimes hear elder people mutter that the taking of pictures of famous paintings is ridiculous. I disagree, in part because my library of pictures in my phone sometimes remain as proof of events more than actual memories. Annie Ernaux focuses this book on the same phenomenon, but then in relation to pictures she and her lover Marc Marie took of mostly discarded clothes, remains of their lovemaking. The parameters of The Use of Photography are clear: We chose fourteen of the forty-odd photos and agreed that each would write separately, in total freedom, never show the other anything until it was done, or even change a word. The rule was strictly observed until the end.
I am a bit surprised that Fitzcaraldo choose to publish the pictures in black and white, but maybe this limits a level of redundancy, since Ernaux consistently talks about the colours of the items in the picture. Bedroom, Christmas morning is aesthetically the prettiest picture, as Ernaux herself describes it: A kind of peace emanates from the scene, similar to that of catalogue ads for bed linen.
But the writing, and associated role in one's life gives significance to the photos: In the end, this image embodies the limitations of our work: photos in which aesthetics dominate are short on meaning.
The timing of the relationship, at the cusp of the US invasion of Iraq, coincides with the treatment of breast cancer the author received, leading her to reflect on this period as an almost liminal period. The writing on being ill and faced with ones own mortality where in my view the highlight of the book, together with the more metaphysical observations on how memory and even physical mementos like pictures are unable to retain moments in one's life fully.
The lack of sentimentality or even feeling in a sense, commented upon by Ernaux herself as well: I don’t know how to use the language of feelings while ‘believing’ it. When I try, it seems fake to me. I only know the language of things, of material traces, visible evidence. (Although I never stop trying to transmute it into words and ideas) is impressive.
Marc Marie his writings stuck less with me, even though also for him this is a pivotal time of dealing with the death of his mother.
A reflective work, that touched me, probably because of my recent health issue, and is a solid addition to Ernaux her body of work available in English.
Quotes:
I cannot define the value or the interest of our undertaking. In a way, it belongs to the same frenzy for turning life into images that is increasingly characteristic of our age. Whether through photographs, or writing, we strove each time to give greater reality to moments of pleasure that were fleeting and impossible to represent. To capture the unreality of sex in the reality of what it leaves behind. The highest degree of reality, however, will only be attained if these written photos are transformed into other scenes in the reader’s memory or imagination.
Now it occurs to me that I said to M., ‘I have breast cancer’, in the same abrupt way I’d told a Catholic boy, in the sixties, ‘I’m pregnant and I want an abortion’, in order to throw him into it, giving him no time to put up his guard and form an attitude in the face of an unbearable reality.
It’s a scene in which certain elements cannot be defined at first glance, and this place is different from the one I’m used to being in every day. It seems bigger to me, the tiles huge. To tell the truth, it is neither alien nor familiar, having simply undergone a distortion of its dimensions and a heightening of all its colours.
It’s my imagination that deciphers the photo, not my memory.
I was done with other people’s vanity. I was unreachable.
I had told very few people about my cancer. I wanted no part of the kind of sympathy which could never conceal, whenever it was expressed, the obvious fact that for others I’d become someone else.
...the most material and organic kinds of stains. I realize that I expect the same thing from writing. I want words to be like stains you cannot tear yourself away from.
I’ve often thought that one’s whole life story could be told only through songs and photos.
Every photo is metaphysical.
How to conceive of my death? The physical form of a corpse, its icy cold and silence, and later its decomposition, doesn’t matter to me – there’s no point in thinking about it, and there’s nothing to doubt about it – that’s the way things go. That, I’ve seen. I mean thinking about my non-existence. Inexorably I am a body inside of time. I cannot conceive of my exit from time. None of what awaits us is thinkable. But that’s just the point: there’ll be no more waiting. Or memory.
What we couldn’t see again had not taken place.
Photos lie, always.
That is the paradox of this photo, intended to give our love more reality but which instead makes it unreal.
I can no longer abide novels or films with fictional characters suffering from cancer. What possesses those authors, how do they dare to invent these kinds of stories? Everything about them seems fake, to the point of being ridiculous. - Amen girl, it is insane how often cancer is just used as a lazy plot device in contemporary fiction if you start paying attention to it.
I feel there’s nothing we could do together that would be better than this, an act of writing at once united and disjointed. Sometimes it also frightens me. To open up your writing space is more violent than to open up your sex.
Walking around in museums I sometimes hear elder people mutter that the taking of pictures of famous paintings is ridiculous. I disagree, in part because my library of pictures in my phone sometimes remain as proof of events more than actual memories. Annie Ernaux focuses this book on the same phenomenon, but then in relation to pictures she and her lover Marc Marie took of mostly discarded clothes, remains of their lovemaking. The parameters of The Use of Photography are clear: We chose fourteen of the forty-odd photos and agreed that each would write separately, in total freedom, never show the other anything until it was done, or even change a word. The rule was strictly observed until the end.
I am a bit surprised that Fitzcaraldo choose to publish the pictures in black and white, but maybe this limits a level of redundancy, since Ernaux consistently talks about the colours of the items in the picture. Bedroom, Christmas morning is aesthetically the prettiest picture, as Ernaux herself describes it: A kind of peace emanates from the scene, similar to that of catalogue ads for bed linen.
But the writing, and associated role in one's life gives significance to the photos: In the end, this image embodies the limitations of our work: photos in which aesthetics dominate are short on meaning.
The timing of the relationship, at the cusp of the US invasion of Iraq, coincides with the treatment of breast cancer the author received, leading her to reflect on this period as an almost liminal period. The writing on being ill and faced with ones own mortality where in my view the highlight of the book, together with the more metaphysical observations on how memory and even physical mementos like pictures are unable to retain moments in one's life fully.
The lack of sentimentality or even feeling in a sense, commented upon by Ernaux herself as well: I don’t know how to use the language of feelings while ‘believing’ it. When I try, it seems fake to me. I only know the language of things, of material traces, visible evidence. (Although I never stop trying to transmute it into words and ideas) is impressive.
Marc Marie his writings stuck less with me, even though also for him this is a pivotal time of dealing with the death of his mother.
A reflective work, that touched me, probably because of my recent health issue, and is a solid addition to Ernaux her body of work available in English.
Quotes:
I cannot define the value or the interest of our undertaking. In a way, it belongs to the same frenzy for turning life into images that is increasingly characteristic of our age. Whether through photographs, or writing, we strove each time to give greater reality to moments of pleasure that were fleeting and impossible to represent. To capture the unreality of sex in the reality of what it leaves behind. The highest degree of reality, however, will only be attained if these written photos are transformed into other scenes in the reader’s memory or imagination.
Now it occurs to me that I said to M., ‘I have breast cancer’, in the same abrupt way I’d told a Catholic boy, in the sixties, ‘I’m pregnant and I want an abortion’, in order to throw him into it, giving him no time to put up his guard and form an attitude in the face of an unbearable reality.
It’s a scene in which certain elements cannot be defined at first glance, and this place is different from the one I’m used to being in every day. It seems bigger to me, the tiles huge. To tell the truth, it is neither alien nor familiar, having simply undergone a distortion of its dimensions and a heightening of all its colours.
It’s my imagination that deciphers the photo, not my memory.
I was done with other people’s vanity. I was unreachable.
I had told very few people about my cancer. I wanted no part of the kind of sympathy which could never conceal, whenever it was expressed, the obvious fact that for others I’d become someone else.
...the most material and organic kinds of stains. I realize that I expect the same thing from writing. I want words to be like stains you cannot tear yourself away from.
I’ve often thought that one’s whole life story could be told only through songs and photos.
Every photo is metaphysical.
How to conceive of my death? The physical form of a corpse, its icy cold and silence, and later its decomposition, doesn’t matter to me – there’s no point in thinking about it, and there’s nothing to doubt about it – that’s the way things go. That, I’ve seen. I mean thinking about my non-existence. Inexorably I am a body inside of time. I cannot conceive of my exit from time. None of what awaits us is thinkable. But that’s just the point: there’ll be no more waiting. Or memory.
What we couldn’t see again had not taken place.
Photos lie, always.
That is the paradox of this photo, intended to give our love more reality but which instead makes it unreal.
I can no longer abide novels or films with fictional characters suffering from cancer. What possesses those authors, how do they dare to invent these kinds of stories? Everything about them seems fake, to the point of being ridiculous. - Amen girl, it is insane how often cancer is just used as a lazy plot device in contemporary fiction if you start paying attention to it.
December 29, 2024
... the material traces of presence
With this volume Ernaux offers us another piece in the ongoing mosaic of her written-writing life. Set during 2002-3, this comprises photographs of rooms featuring abandoned clothing followed by the meditations of both Ernaux and her lover, Marc Marie, on the photos and what is both seen and unseen in the scenes they record.
As always, the touchpoints for Ernaux encompass issues of desire, the gendered body and shame - though the latter is played down minimally in this text, almost recognised in its own lack or absence.
What gives the project its high stakes is the juxtaposition of two viewpoints at a stage when the relationship was still relatively new ('does writing separate or unite?', 'I wonder if contemplating and describing our photos is not a way of proving to myself that his love exists') and when Ernaux was undergoing invasive chemotherapy for breast cancer. Her frank descriptions of treatment and what it meant to her both physically and psychologically would alone make this book worth reading, but combination of the dual presences of death and desire augment the text and tie it back to the volumes that have come before.
As always, Ernaux just 'speaks' to me: her honesty, her vulnerability and her courage as a female, embodied writer are doing something special in literature of our moment, combined and filtered through her cool and precise intellectual engagement. And so it gave me a little frisson of joy when I found Ernaux at the campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice - a place where I spent a three month sabbatical earlier this year - slipping off her bra and letting it drift to the ground in an act of liberation and pleasure. I could see it there in my mind - and Ernaux has left her trace on my own memories.
January 10, 2025
"দেশ" পত্রিকায় এই বইয়ের বিজ্ঞাপন দেওয়া হয়েছে এভাবে - "প্রেমিকের সঙ্গে শরীরী, অন্তরঙ্গ মুহূর্তে শয্যার পাশে ছেড়ে রাখা পোশাক, অন্তর্বাস, জুতোর ছবি। তার পর, সেই ছবি ধরে ধরে স্মৃতিরোমন্থন এক-একটি ঘনিষ্ঠ ক্ষণযাপনের।" বিজ্ঞাপন দেখে উত্তেজনাবশত কেউ বইটা খরিদ করলে বিরাট দুঃখ পাবেন। কারণ, আনি এরনো আর তার অসমবয়সী প্রেমিক মার্ক মারি'র লেখা বইতে সব আছে,"ঘনিষ্ঠ ক্ষণযাপন" এর বর্ণনাটাই নেই শুধু। এই post-coital memoir এ একেকটা ছবি নিয়ে পৃথকভাবে স্মৃতিচারণ করেছেন দুজন। এরনো'র ক্যান্সার চিকিৎসা, ক্রমাগত শংকা, মৃত্যুভাবনা, বোধ, প্রিয় মানুষের স্মৃতি, তৎকালীন রাজনীতি, বুশের ইরাক আক্রমণ,সম্পর্কের দোলাচল ও জটিলতা - মোদ্দা কথা, মেঝেতে পড়ে থাকা ব্রা, প্যান্টি, অন্তর্বাস, জুতা, বই এর আলোকচিত্র প্রসঙ্গে কথা বলার ছলে দুজনে কথা বলেছেন যাপিত জীবনের, নিজেদের ভূত ও ভবিষ্যতের। আক্ষরিক অর্থেই "অদ্ভুত সুন্দর" বই।
May 27, 2020
Annie Ernaux quiere hacer muchas cosas y lo impresionante es que lo logra. Me parece uno de los libros más bonitos, como idea del mismo, que he leído. Me interesó más la escritura de "Los años" pero en este se concentra todo lo que ya vemos en "Pura pasión" pero en un momento mucho más feliz de su vida amorosa. No quiero hacer spoilers pero la configuración del proyecto me parece delicada y no peca de nada, como siempre es certera en sus reflexiones poco evidentes: Ser "leedoras de manchas" me parece sublime.
El canto a la vidacuerpo y el uso –a falta de palabra mejor– como ella misma dice, "de la foto" es una lección en contra de la aplicación o de la ilustración de unas artes subordinadas a otras.
Además, del fetichismo y filia personal con el tema material y objetual, como Perec. Y el retrato de todo eso con las analógicas, tan matéricas a su vez, para huir de la aterradora fugacidad del instante ya perdido irremediablemente.
El canto a la vidacuerpo y el uso –a falta de palabra mejor– como ella misma dice, "de la foto" es una lección en contra de la aplicación o de la ilustración de unas artes subordinadas a otras.
Además, del fetichismo y filia personal con el tema material y objetual, como Perec. Y el retrato de todo eso con las analógicas, tan matéricas a su vez, para huir de la aterradora fugacidad del instante ya perdido irremediablemente.
August 18, 2023
La literatura de Ernaux es tan personal, tan de su universo interior, que en un inicio la colaboración con Marc Marie me desubicó un poco... sin embargo poco a poco fui agarrando el ritmo. Este es un ejercicio de tomar lo más íntimo de lo íntimo y llevarlo a la esfera pública tras pasarlo por los encuadres de la fotografía y la literatura. Es un intento de asir el tiempo, tratar doblemente de detenerlo justo en los días dorados de una relación.
Y aunque sí, hay erotismo, el cuerpo es también atravesado por otra cosa: el cáncer por el que pasó Ernaux, y el paso cotidiano de la vida se entrelaza con la idea de la muerte y la finitud, la quimioterapia y los días de hospital. Esto no lo esperaba, pero le agregó una dimensión más a este diálogo fotográfico y textual entre dos amantes.
Y aunque sí, hay erotismo, el cuerpo es también atravesado por otra cosa: el cáncer por el que pasó Ernaux, y el paso cotidiano de la vida se entrelaza con la idea de la muerte y la finitud, la quimioterapia y los días de hospital. Esto no lo esperaba, pero le agregó una dimensión más a este diálogo fotográfico y textual entre dos amantes.
September 26, 2024
my beautiful annie does it again
December 26, 2024
Diría que no me canso de leer a esta mujer, pero creo que lo mejor que tiene, es lo natural que fluyen sus relatos, y cuando está a punto de aburrir, todo cobra sentido, hasta lo que no tiene por qué tenerlo: esa ausencia de sentido también tiene su espacio. Las partes de él me flaquearon un poco más, porque creo que no hay comparación con ella, pero entiendo que son necesarias para completar una obra tan original, tan especial e íntima, que sin duda es esta última la palabra para definirla mejor. Los extremos de la vida uniéndose en un círculo infinito de palabras y emociones humanas subjetivas, con lo más instintivo y animal de nuestra existencia, la muerte y el deseo. Hay tanto que se podría decir que les dejo a los autores decirlo por sí mismos, y a ustedes les digo que no hay desperdicio en leérse este libro.
January 1, 2025
4.5
I expected a minor work, I got the only Ernaux in which she has the narratorial eye placed upon her via Marc Marie, her lover during her cancer period. So much of Ernaux's work considers the caesura of memory, the nonlinear disintegration of the self and culture as time surges. This, instead, presents a more optimistic view. A and M write separately in response to the same images, and we the reader become privy to their having, God forbid, shared memory. Collective memory can successfully exist!!! Some things may not (for now) be forgotten!!! Wonderful book regarding relationships as informed by their contexts and a reckoning with mortality, not just in Ernaux's struggles with cancer but in a very Sartre-esque recognition of the nausea-inducing reality that we are all going to die.
I expected a minor work, I got the only Ernaux in which she has the narratorial eye placed upon her via Marc Marie, her lover during her cancer period. So much of Ernaux's work considers the caesura of memory, the nonlinear disintegration of the self and culture as time surges. This, instead, presents a more optimistic view. A and M write separately in response to the same images, and we the reader become privy to their having, God forbid, shared memory. Collective memory can successfully exist!!! Some things may not (for now) be forgotten!!! Wonderful book regarding relationships as informed by their contexts and a reckoning with mortality, not just in Ernaux's struggles with cancer but in a very Sartre-esque recognition of the nausea-inducing reality that we are all going to die.
August 24, 2022
Una idea que me ha parecido súper original a la hora de presentar un libro; las fotos agregan un buen punto.
Por otro lado, me ha encantado poder leer también el punto de Annie y el de Marc al mismo tiempo, era como observar desde un mismo punto de partida qué senderos elegía cada uno para divagar: pude ver qué les afecta, qué piensan a menudo... Y como pareja, resaltan las sensaciones comunes que aunque son similares, cada uno vive y manifiesta de una forma.
Es totalmente adictivo y a ratos un poco duro, pero lo he disfrutado muchísimo. Ambos escriben maravillosamente (aunque admito que me ha gustado más lo escrito por Marc).
Por otro lado, me ha encantado poder leer también el punto de Annie y el de Marc al mismo tiempo, era como observar desde un mismo punto de partida qué senderos elegía cada uno para divagar: pude ver qué les afecta, qué piensan a menudo... Y como pareja, resaltan las sensaciones comunes que aunque son similares, cada uno vive y manifiesta de una forma.
Es totalmente adictivo y a ratos un poco duro, pero lo he disfrutado muchísimo. Ambos escriben maravillosamente (aunque admito que me ha gustado más lo escrito por Marc).
June 30, 2025
this felt like a very unique entry in annie ernaux’s catalog. featuring 14 photos from a love affair (usually the tangle of clothes left behind from the previous night), the use of photography was cowritten with journalist marc marie. they each wrote a short piece inspired by each photo, talking about the composition of the picture itself as well as the memories evoked by them.
while i found the photographs themselves to verge on repetitive, i was struck by the writing that accompanied them. for as many books i’ve read by ernaux, i was unaware that she had breast cancer in the early 2000s, coinciding with her relationship with marc. much of the writing reflects that experience and it was so striking to hear about this facet of ernaux’s life and the way the illness affected her work and relationships. it was also interesting getting someone else’s perspective on her through marc’s writing. 4.5 ⭐️
“I was dazzled to be able to be so happy, to feel the same as at eighteen, when I had to live everything right away, as if I were going to stop being young once autumn arrived.”
“Photos cannot capture a span of time. They lock you into the moment. A song is expansion into the past, a photo is finitude. A song is the happy sensation of time, a photo its tragic side. I've often thought that one's whole life story could be told just with songs and photos.”
while i found the photographs themselves to verge on repetitive, i was struck by the writing that accompanied them. for as many books i’ve read by ernaux, i was unaware that she had breast cancer in the early 2000s, coinciding with her relationship with marc. much of the writing reflects that experience and it was so striking to hear about this facet of ernaux’s life and the way the illness affected her work and relationships. it was also interesting getting someone else’s perspective on her through marc’s writing. 4.5 ⭐️
“I was dazzled to be able to be so happy, to feel the same as at eighteen, when I had to live everything right away, as if I were going to stop being young once autumn arrived.”
“Photos cannot capture a span of time. They lock you into the moment. A song is expansion into the past, a photo is finitude. A song is the happy sensation of time, a photo its tragic side. I've often thought that one's whole life story could be told just with songs and photos.”
February 8, 2025
wow a beautiful book
October 19, 2023
exquisito
April 25, 2025
Vaig fer la ressenya l’any 2023 i no em deixa afegir una nova. Llegit per segona vegada, aquesta vegada pel tfg. El llibre neix d’una idea superintel·ligent. Escriure sobre les fotografies és una manera de mantenir l’existència de l’amor de l’altre? Fer fotografies no és suficient i es necessita l’escriptura? Fotografiar és la prova material que Annie Ernaux i Marc Marie s’estimen o que no s’estimen? El límit de la fotografia és el desig? Com es fotografia el desig? Fotografiar les coses que s’acaben em sembla un acte tan fort. És voler fer perdurar el desig, això és impossible, però sí que gràcies a les fotografies hi ha més realitat en l’amor, però també més mort, tot el que veiem s’ha acabat, ja no existeix, aquell desig ja no és res avui en dia. Però que bonic el sentit del llibre, sempre ho penso que em fascina la idea d’aquest llibre, no hi ha recerca estètica en la fotografia, només desig perquè sinó el sentit es perd. Només es tracta de representar el caràcter fugisser del que van viure, representar l’amor i la mort. La fotografia en si m’és igual, però em fascina la qüestió de temporalitat que encarna, voler deixar materialment una presència, fer alguna cosa amb la urgència del desig que s’acaba…
October 25, 2022
Annie Ernaux tiene una capacidad de convertir lo cotidiano en literatura que me deja fascinada.
"El uso de la foto" probablemente sea uno de los libros más extraños que he leído, en el que, a través de una serie de fotografías, Annie Ernaux y Marc Marie presentan una especie de diario íntimo. Un experimento que nos permite colarnos en la mente de ambos y conocer sus anhelos, miedos y reflexiones más intimas. Quizás por eso se lee con tanta facilidad.
Mención especial para Marc Marie cuyas partes me han gustado tanto como las de Ernaux, o incluso más.
"El uso de la foto" probablemente sea uno de los libros más extraños que he leído, en el que, a través de una serie de fotografías, Annie Ernaux y Marc Marie presentan una especie de diario íntimo. Un experimento que nos permite colarnos en la mente de ambos y conocer sus anhelos, miedos y reflexiones más intimas. Quizás por eso se lee con tanta facilidad.
Mención especial para Marc Marie cuyas partes me han gustado tanto como las de Ernaux, o incluso más.
February 5, 2025
Such a genuinely moving contemplation on death, pleasure, will to live and love. I read this in a very special moment in my life and I loved every second of it, will definitely be rereading it. I love you Annie Ernaux !!!!!!!!!!
"Whether through photographs, or writing, we strove each time to give greater reality to moments of pleasure that were fleeting and impossible to represent. To capture the unreality of sex in the reality of what it leaves behind."
"Whether through photographs, or writing, we strove each time to give greater reality to moments of pleasure that were fleeting and impossible to represent. To capture the unreality of sex in the reality of what it leaves behind."
October 5, 2024
I have read the Fitzcarraldo Edition of this book, not currently available to select.
My last few white Fitzcarraldo Editions have all contained black and white photos for the first time. I like this new evolution – it reminds me of the Granta ‘magazine’ which I have subscribed to from time to time and which have reached issue 168 this year. For a writer who is such an expert at painting pictures with words this is also quite a change to have both the picture and the words alongside. But we go one step further, since we have have both Ernaux’s words and also those of her lover, Marc Marie, to describe two interpretations of the same scene.
The premise is that the pictures are taken in the mornings when the lovers re-encounter the piles of clothes they have left on the floors of various rooms on their way to making love. In hall ways, kitchens, lounges as well as bedrooms. Their rule is that the clothes are not to be moved or rearranged in any way. Also, given that this all happened in the age just before digital cameras, there is also a wait for the film to be finished and then taken to be developed. In this period of time, exact dates and times are forgotten. I like this because the pictures represent a memory which without them would have become indistinct, one evening blurred with another.
Marc Marie describes some of these feelings:
As always with Annie Ernaux her frankness and ability to say the things that everyone else would hold back, are what sets her apart. In the case of this book and this relationship, she is in the midst of undergoing cancer treatment. Her affair continues, as does her lovemaking, but at the same time she speaks frankly about her treatment:
Ernaux’s cancer treatment was obviously successful, as this book was written in the early 2000s and she is still very much alive, but an immediate impact it has on her was one of seeing through other’s descriptions:
A word on the photographs themselves. I love them. I love how candid they are. They are a perfect accompaniment to the frankness of her words. The lacy underwear, the strappy sandals, the unmade beds. The piles of discarded clothes on the kitchen floor which can only speak of lust and an inability to wait for the bedroom. Because they are real and urgent they are a perfect adjunct to the words that follow.
As a brief aside Marc Marie talks about Brussels – a city that I visited two or three times to work in for a few days. Not as a tourist, but with one or two long days in an office followed by dinner somewhere. He and Ernaux visit for a few days too but he recalls it from living there as a boy:
That one word ‘reticent’ is perfect, it completely encapsulates my memory of the place from many years ago, a memory and a sentiment that I have never been able to pinpoint or properly put into words until that moment. Perfect. All it needed was one word.
My last few white Fitzcarraldo Editions have all contained black and white photos for the first time. I like this new evolution – it reminds me of the Granta ‘magazine’ which I have subscribed to from time to time and which have reached issue 168 this year. For a writer who is such an expert at painting pictures with words this is also quite a change to have both the picture and the words alongside. But we go one step further, since we have have both Ernaux’s words and also those of her lover, Marc Marie, to describe two interpretations of the same scene.
The premise is that the pictures are taken in the mornings when the lovers re-encounter the piles of clothes they have left on the floors of various rooms on their way to making love. In hall ways, kitchens, lounges as well as bedrooms. Their rule is that the clothes are not to be moved or rearranged in any way. Also, given that this all happened in the age just before digital cameras, there is also a wait for the film to be finished and then taken to be developed. In this period of time, exact dates and times are forgotten. I like this because the pictures represent a memory which without them would have become indistinct, one evening blurred with another.
Marc Marie describes some of these feelings:
Week after week, the photographs accumulated, several dozen in all. The spontaneous act of taking photos became a matter of ritual. But always, at the moment when I collected my things and destroyed that harmony, my heart sank, as if each time I were desecrating the relics of a sacred place. To us it was as beautiful as a work of art, as remarkable for the play of colours as for the interaction between the different fabrics as if, though immobile for the moment, they were preparing to creep towards each other and perpetuate our gestures. The crime lay not in what we’d done, but in the action of undoing it.
As always with Annie Ernaux her frankness and ability to say the things that everyone else would hold back, are what sets her apart. In the case of this book and this relationship, she is in the midst of undergoing cancer treatment. Her affair continues, as does her lovemaking, but at the same time she speaks frankly about her treatment:
When this photo is taken, my right breast and the submammary fold are a brownish colour, burnt by cobalt, with blue crosses and red lines drawn on the skin to precisely indicate the area and the points to be irradiated. At the same time, I have been prescribed a postoperative chemotherapy protocol that is different from the previous one, and, every three weeks, for five days in a row, even at night, I have to wear a kind of harness, a belt around my waist with a bumbag containing a plastic bottle, in the shape of a baby bottle, filled with chemotherapy products. It has a thin transparent plastic tube coming out of it, ending with a needle stuck into the catheter and covered by a dressing. Strips of adhesive tape hold the tube in place against the skin. Its heat causes the chemo liquids to rise and flow through my veins. Because of the bag on my belly, I cannot close my jacket or my coat, and I have difficulty hiding the plastic tubing attached to the bottle and threaded up under my jumper. When I am naked, with my leather belly, my vial of poison, my multicoloured markings and the tube running across my upper body, I look like an extraterrestrial.
Ernaux’s cancer treatment was obviously successful, as this book was written in the early 2000s and she is still very much alive, but an immediate impact it has on her was one of seeing through other’s descriptions:
I can no longer abide novels or films with fictional characters suffering from cancer. What possesses those authors, how do they dare to invent these kinds of stories? Everything about them seems fake, to the point of being ridiculous.
A word on the photographs themselves. I love them. I love how candid they are. They are a perfect accompaniment to the frankness of her words. The lacy underwear, the strappy sandals, the unmade beds. The piles of discarded clothes on the kitchen floor which can only speak of lust and an inability to wait for the bedroom. Because they are real and urgent they are a perfect adjunct to the words that follow.
As a brief aside Marc Marie talks about Brussels – a city that I visited two or three times to work in for a few days. Not as a tourist, but with one or two long days in an office followed by dinner somewhere. He and Ernaux visit for a few days too but he recalls it from living there as a boy:
Since our arrival on Friday, we’ve been going from place to place in the pouring rain – Uccle, the Bourse, the rue de Midi, the rue du Marché aux Poulets, the Métropole bar, the place de Brouckère – Brussels as I have always known it, not really hostile, just reticent.
That one word ‘reticent’ is perfect, it completely encapsulates my memory of the place from many years ago, a memory and a sentiment that I have never been able to pinpoint or properly put into words until that moment. Perfect. All it needed was one word.
Read
January 31, 2025photos lie, always.
January 14, 2025
Not a lot of rise and fall, but any writing by Annie Ernaux is beginning to make me feel like I’m passing through a dim room with an open window in the early morning. Even the smallest details enter this wan wash of grace, a rinse that doesn’t rescue them from their inconsequentialness, and rather lets them shine wetly there, where they are. The last passage of him giving her head went so crazy I almost cried.
I read this for the most part in transit—in the backseats of cabs, in train cabins, in brief passings—and so I felt a hint of these large & little transits of 2003, the summer when I was born. Not riveted by Marc Marie’s half of the writing, but his presence gives the total work an edge. Evidence of her faraway sickness (its instrumentations, its dreads, its pleasures), her neuroses and neutralities about him, their sex, their lives, are mingling, thrown up like floaters in a visual field against time. An elegant and effortless homage. “Eroticism is the approval of life unto death.” So it is, Annie, so it fucking is!!!!
I read this for the most part in transit—in the backseats of cabs, in train cabins, in brief passings—and so I felt a hint of these large & little transits of 2003, the summer when I was born. Not riveted by Marc Marie’s half of the writing, but his presence gives the total work an edge. Evidence of her faraway sickness (its instrumentations, its dreads, its pleasures), her neuroses and neutralities about him, their sex, their lives, are mingling, thrown up like floaters in a visual field against time. An elegant and effortless homage. “Eroticism is the approval of life unto death.” So it is, Annie, so it fucking is!!!!
January 11, 2025
Absolutely extraordinary, surprising, creative, erotic, meditative. Only a Frenchwoman could have experienced and written with such passion about breast cancer.
"Perhaps nature is what remains of the desire of a vanished god, of his immense orgasm, the big bang in which he disintegrated, and at the origin of the world, there is the same principle that endlessly throws living beings against each other."
"Perhaps nature is what remains of the desire of a vanished god, of his immense orgasm, the big bang in which he disintegrated, and at the origin of the world, there is the same principle that endlessly throws living beings against each other."
June 29, 2025
my heart aches a little bit after reading that, i think if the pics had been in colour i would have been there more but i just think the separation of their narrative is beautiful and also the way ernaux writes about love and sex is just so beautiful. nothing is on it’s own no man is an island
also she mentions fiona apple and i love her so this is your sign to listen to i know by fiona apple
also she mentions fiona apple and i love her so this is your sign to listen to i know by fiona apple
July 13, 2023
«... desesperado por no poder retener la felicidad»
January 29, 2025
This was beautiful and bursting with love and shared moments of joy, sadness, and just memory in general between this couple. I could read a hundred more of this kind of book from a hundred other pairs of people. Maybe I’m being dramatic but this is the first book I’ve read in a while that’s made me want to buy my own copy of it. Shoutout Emma for telling me to read this!!
October 30, 2022
Utilizar la fotografía al servicio de la literatura o, lo que es muy parecido, al servicio de la construcción de la memoria.
Este planteamiento me fascinó, más aún si el tipo de fotografías empleadas representan no el momento culminante, sino su fantasma en el suelo (aunque, a cuentas hechas, los relatos hablan más de memoria que de pasión).
Pese a esa premisa, el desarrollo no ha acabado de convencerme. Por un lado porque sigo sin conseguir conectar con la escritura de Annie Ernaux (reconozco sus virtudes y creo que quizás son precisamente esas las que no me permiten entrar en unos textos a priori escritos con una simpleza estudiada, descarnados y profundos pero que tienen como objetivo la vinculación única de literatura y vida, que crea sin duda una mística particular y necesaria [sobre todo para la mal denominada "escritura femenina"] pero, por otro lado, acaba imposibilitando los juegos de las palabras que otorgan un tono lírico o lúdico que crea otra dimensión en la narración) y por otro porque tampoco conseguí creerme del todo el proceso de construcción de la historia (supuestamente ambos autores, Ernaux y Marie, acordaron seleccionar las fotos y escribir sobre cada una de ellas sin saber lo que había escrito el otro, aunque leyendo los relatos me parece casi imposible que ambos utilicen las mismas metáforas y rememoren incluso momentos pasados que no estaban vinculados con la imagen. Más bien veo en todo eso la hábil mano de un excelente editor). Estas dos cuestiones, unidas al hecho de que los relatos de Ernaux tienen siempre la misma estructura y de que en su conjunto se van desinflando, hicieron que no disfrutara de este interesantísimo experimento literario como había creído poder disfrutar en un principio.
Pese a todo lo anterior, algunas cosas me gustaron mucho y me sorprendieron gratamente: la escritura de Marie (sus relatos y su forma de contarlos me gustaron mucho más que los de su compañera) y el importantísimo gesto literario de Ernaux al escribir de forma tan desnuda sobre el cáncer.
En resumen, una lectura breve, distinta e interesante, pero menos intensa o sorpresiva de lo que podía esperarme de la unión de la escritura de dos autores de bandera.
Este planteamiento me fascinó, más aún si el tipo de fotografías empleadas representan no el momento culminante, sino su fantasma en el suelo (aunque, a cuentas hechas, los relatos hablan más de memoria que de pasión).
Pese a esa premisa, el desarrollo no ha acabado de convencerme. Por un lado porque sigo sin conseguir conectar con la escritura de Annie Ernaux (reconozco sus virtudes y creo que quizás son precisamente esas las que no me permiten entrar en unos textos a priori escritos con una simpleza estudiada, descarnados y profundos pero que tienen como objetivo la vinculación única de literatura y vida, que crea sin duda una mística particular y necesaria [sobre todo para la mal denominada "escritura femenina"] pero, por otro lado, acaba imposibilitando los juegos de las palabras que otorgan un tono lírico o lúdico que crea otra dimensión en la narración) y por otro porque tampoco conseguí creerme del todo el proceso de construcción de la historia (supuestamente ambos autores, Ernaux y Marie, acordaron seleccionar las fotos y escribir sobre cada una de ellas sin saber lo que había escrito el otro, aunque leyendo los relatos me parece casi imposible que ambos utilicen las mismas metáforas y rememoren incluso momentos pasados que no estaban vinculados con la imagen. Más bien veo en todo eso la hábil mano de un excelente editor). Estas dos cuestiones, unidas al hecho de que los relatos de Ernaux tienen siempre la misma estructura y de que en su conjunto se van desinflando, hicieron que no disfrutara de este interesantísimo experimento literario como había creído poder disfrutar en un principio.
Pese a todo lo anterior, algunas cosas me gustaron mucho y me sorprendieron gratamente: la escritura de Marie (sus relatos y su forma de contarlos me gustaron mucho más que los de su compañera) y el importantísimo gesto literario de Ernaux al escribir de forma tan desnuda sobre el cáncer.
En resumen, una lectura breve, distinta e interesante, pero menos intensa o sorpresiva de lo que podía esperarme de la unión de la escritura de dos autores de bandera.
February 25, 2023
Dos amantes fotografían durante un año las prendas enmarañadas que quedan tras de sí en el instante previo al sexo. Cada uno de ellos escribe un texto sobre esas fotos, creando juntos un diario íntimo, una autobiografía de su pasión. Qué fascinante, increíble y hermoso.
Nunca he llevado diarios de mi vida, salvo de viajes, y, sin embargo, hace un par de años escribí uno sobre una pasión. Desde la primera cita que tuve con una persona que me volvía loca, apunté un par de frases cada vez que lo veía, obsesionada con que perdurase eternamente esa sensación de ingravidez de los primeros encuentros. Me aterraba que, pasado el tiempo, cuando la rutina se asentase, cuando conociéndonos ya no nos sorprendiésemos, fuera incapaz de recordar el arrebatamiento que me había generado al conocerlo. Como tantas cosas, esa pasión se diluyó y el diario quedó aplastado entre cuadernos en las cajas de casa de mis padres.
Hoy, cuando he leído este libro, he vuelto a aquella época y me ha dado una punzada de envidia sana pensar que hubo personas como Ernaux y Marie que llevaron un poco más allá la osadía, convirtiendo el relato en uno compartido y en uno visual. Ahora mismo no puedo concebir nada más sexy ni erótico ni íntimo que una autobiografía visual. Qué sensorialidad tan sensual desprende este cuaderno de campo. Qué calor.
Un par de citas:
«En una novelita de Maupassant, una criada, para confesar que se ha acostado con el granjero, su señor, declara simplemente: “Hemos mezclado los zapatos”. Un día, M. y yo dejaremos de mezclar los nuestros».
«Cenaremos fuera y yo bajaré, increíblemente ligera, subida a esas chinelas blancas, los peldaños de la escalera que lleva al jardín, en medio de la música de la cadena con el volumen a tope, pensando esa vez “otro hermoso verano más”. Porque toda la belleza, toda la esperanza y toda la tristeza están contenidas para mí en esa palabra, el verano».
Nunca he llevado diarios de mi vida, salvo de viajes, y, sin embargo, hace un par de años escribí uno sobre una pasión. Desde la primera cita que tuve con una persona que me volvía loca, apunté un par de frases cada vez que lo veía, obsesionada con que perdurase eternamente esa sensación de ingravidez de los primeros encuentros. Me aterraba que, pasado el tiempo, cuando la rutina se asentase, cuando conociéndonos ya no nos sorprendiésemos, fuera incapaz de recordar el arrebatamiento que me había generado al conocerlo. Como tantas cosas, esa pasión se diluyó y el diario quedó aplastado entre cuadernos en las cajas de casa de mis padres.
Hoy, cuando he leído este libro, he vuelto a aquella época y me ha dado una punzada de envidia sana pensar que hubo personas como Ernaux y Marie que llevaron un poco más allá la osadía, convirtiendo el relato en uno compartido y en uno visual. Ahora mismo no puedo concebir nada más sexy ni erótico ni íntimo que una autobiografía visual. Qué sensorialidad tan sensual desprende este cuaderno de campo. Qué calor.
Un par de citas:
«En una novelita de Maupassant, una criada, para confesar que se ha acostado con el granjero, su señor, declara simplemente: “Hemos mezclado los zapatos”. Un día, M. y yo dejaremos de mezclar los nuestros».
«Cenaremos fuera y yo bajaré, increíblemente ligera, subida a esas chinelas blancas, los peldaños de la escalera que lleva al jardín, en medio de la música de la cadena con el volumen a tope, pensando esa vez “otro hermoso verano más”. Porque toda la belleza, toda la esperanza y toda la tristeza están contenidas para mí en esa palabra, el verano».
Read
March 18, 2025at times distressingly explicit (had great fun reading aloud choice quotes to my friends) but an interesting look into the minds of these two people during their time together.
January 14, 2025
I listened to the audiobook (which isn't included in the GR database). It was ably read by Tavia Gilbert, but in this case there are two major disadvantages to an audiobook. One is that it took a while for me to realize that some of the descriptions were composed by Ernaux' lover, and that sometimes (?always) there were two versions describing the same photo. Secondly, the book would be better read as the print version, where one could see the photo that is being described. That wasn't possible for me at this point, because the print book is not yet available at my library, and I didn't want to wait until it was.
I very much appreciate Ernaux' journalism of personal experience. I was personally eager to read this volume because I've entertained a somewhat similar project, and I wanted to see how Ernaux carried hers out. Once I am able to see the printed version of the book, I expect I'll have more to say about it.
I very much appreciate Ernaux' journalism of personal experience. I was personally eager to read this volume because I've entertained a somewhat similar project, and I wanted to see how Ernaux carried hers out. Once I am able to see the printed version of the book, I expect I'll have more to say about it.
September 22, 2025
3.75 - I think compared to the other works of ernaux I’ve read the writing and its threading were not as taut. It is however a fascinating investigation into what it means to be present, the dynamics of photography and metaphysics, and the act of seeing / being seen/ portraying moments of intimacy and what they bring. Reading texts side by side that were written with no knowledge of the others and seeing the simultaneous contemplation of very similar topics and moments. The act of love making and photographing the aftermath becoming an archive of the intangible (the love making and the feelings and emotions that came with the periods leading up to and after it).
July 25, 2025
This is the first time I have read Annie Ernaux, and I understand why she receives all of the praise that she does.
I love memoirs, but with this book Ernaux expanded my idea of what a memoir could be, of what writing could look like. The concept, of people taking photos and then separately writing about them, is so simple and yet was so entrancing. The examination of the photos and the moments behind them revealed truths perhaps not discernible in a linear narrative, and the honesty of them felt raw and resounding.
What beautiful words - thank you to Angi for gifting this book to me.
I love memoirs, but with this book Ernaux expanded my idea of what a memoir could be, of what writing could look like. The concept, of people taking photos and then separately writing about them, is so simple and yet was so entrancing. The examination of the photos and the moments behind them revealed truths perhaps not discernible in a linear narrative, and the honesty of them felt raw and resounding.
What beautiful words - thank you to Angi for gifting this book to me.
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