This was in many ways a good, insightful read about the transformation of the left from the 1970s till present times, the social challenges of personal emancipation, but most of all about how much class is structuring society and thinking, based on the experience of a gay man.

I highly recommend reading Lynsey Hanley's book 'Respectable. The experience of class' (www.goodreads.com/book/show/29744398-respectable) as well. The two books complement each other very well: Both authors describe their experiences of the social struggle of being working class while going through higher education and being examples for 'social mobility' and its realities.

Eribon's experience as a white male identifying gay person in France, born 1953, who aspires to be an intellectual and feels the urge for a clear break with his social upbringing and family is another facet of the same class reality Hanley, born two decades later, describes from the perspective of a white female identifying heterosexual in the UK, though due to their different identities and surroundings they approach and react differently to the class challenges in many ways.

Just as Eribon remarks: "... it is also true that each individual is a member of multiple groups, either simultaneously or in succession. Sometimes these groups overlap; they are always evolving and forever transforming themselves.", which is very true when comparing these two books, it is also eminent after reading them, though, that the overlap of class has a massive, almost identical influence on their lives which illustrates how vital it is to talk and think about class when striving for a better society.