Björn reviewed Les années by Annie Ernaux
None
3 stars
"To capture a time I'm no longer in."
The Years is an autobiography that feels like few others - if anything, it feels like an expanded version of Perec's Je me souviens. Ernaux describes her life as part of a generation, a nation, a culture, a gender, a political affiliation, etc from 1940 up to 2008. Almost none of the anecdotes, characterizations and airing of secrets that most autobiographies have (certainly nothing like Happening), instead it comes across as a neverending stream of now in the past tense; names, songs, events, movie titles, imperssions, photographs, interspersed not with details of what they are but of what they meant to the narrator and, presumably, to her compatriots. Most books are destinations; this is a vector, a subject moving through 4-D time. Palimpsest time, as she calls it; all the layers of memories that make up a person.
Ernaux's prose …
"To capture a time I'm no longer in."
The Years is an autobiography that feels like few others - if anything, it feels like an expanded version of Perec's Je me souviens. Ernaux describes her life as part of a generation, a nation, a culture, a gender, a political affiliation, etc from 1940 up to 2008. Almost none of the anecdotes, characterizations and airing of secrets that most autobiographies have (certainly nothing like Happening), instead it comes across as a neverending stream of now in the past tense; names, songs, events, movie titles, imperssions, photographs, interspersed not with details of what they are but of what they meant to the narrator and, presumably, to her compatriots. Most books are destinations; this is a vector, a subject moving through 4-D time. Palimpsest time, as she calls it; all the layers of memories that make up a person.
Ernaux's prose is captivating, and a lot of her reasoning thoughtworthy. It's just that... and this is by design, as per the foreword's statement that this is an attempt to capture all the memories that make her her, but it all feels a bit exclusive. Not being a French boomer woman, there are so many references here I don't get, and I can either pause every three pages and go on a long wikiwalk (which feels like it would be missing the point of the book) or I can just shrug and go with it (which makes a lot of her philosophising feel a bit generic).
