Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

link:

Why does one write? What does one want to write? But first and foremost, the question should be why one writes at all. It is because of some inner demon as George Orwell used to maintain or something else, perhaps to get away from some burden off their soul. Even if we assume that is the case then why do people make it public, more importantly, why do they do it when it’s about their private life. Is it due to need for some sort of validation from others, but it can’t be so simple. Or it is because fundamentally we all are alike, which means all that glorified notion about the uniqueness of human beings does not stand true if we go to the very core of humanity. The various expressions of humanity- grief, happiness, sadness, anger, etc.- are fundamentally similar across the various herds of human beings. There may be another perspective too, we keep on stacking repositories of memories throughout our life, with older ones getting diminished with time. But there are some memories which we consciously keep suppressed through our life, perhaps because of some fear, or shame, these memories, which have been suppressed for long, strive to come out, to be expressed so that one could make peace with them.

May be I am writing because we no longer had anything to say to each other.


I have read A Woman’s Story by the author previously, which was about her mother, A Man’s Place is apparently about her father. The author writes here too in that familiar unbiased and dissociated manner- a neutral manner of writing- which marks perhaps a different sort of biography or a new genre altogether. It’s like reliving memories as you do with old suppressed memories, sometimes to re-imagine them, sometimes to get away with them. At times it gets difficult to dig up old forgotten memories so we invent them, the book lies somewhere there. 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 writing of the author is somewhat like a cross between family history and sociology, reality and fiction, it could be said to be an effort to delve deep inside your subconscious mind to find what lies there, a sort of unseen truth which could only be brought out to the life through something fragile but tangible such as words. Though it could not be regarded as realism as she chooses sparse, factual prose, perhaps it could be categorized as� autofiction�.


The author writes about her father in a way to grieve about him, she writes from a childhood of father, how it takes to shape that he, the hard-working man, lives through being a farm laborer to be a factory worker and eventually to own a grocery shop in a small town in Normandy. His father discovered the world through an army in Paris wherein the uniform provided a sense of equality among his companions from all over France. There have been many books that portray stories of such a man but the author here realizes that she could not tell it in the form of a novel as she believes that in order to tell the story of life governed by necessity, she has no right to adopt an artistic approach, or attempt to produce something ‘moving� or gripping�. She just collates her father’s words, tastes, and mannerisms, the main events of his life, all the external evidence of his existence, which is coincidently shared by her too. It is that sort of writing through selected facts and details which makes one feels as if one is moving away from the subject, one is freeing oneself from it, in this case, the subject is her father, the skeleton of the book takes over and ideas seem to develop of their own accord. Here lies an interesting dilemma, that is to indulge in personal reminiscences or to tear oneself from the subjective point of view.



The author takes the practical test for her CAPES examination at a lycee in Lyon and goes on to become a teacher, her life takes a remarkable shift � from being a daughter of working-class parents to step into the realms of the intellectual world (the foundation of that laid by her education) which her parents are hardly aware of. Here opens a gulf between her parents and her world as both belong to completely different worlds, the gulf is hard to overcome, though the author undertakes it through her more than able pen. The author reveals a cold observation of a sort of demureness, a sense of shame which haunts her father throughout his life, the place of language, a mannerism which though does not come naturally to him but he held them in high esteem despite his limitations due to his background. Though his father had been a countryman at heart with his life completely different to that of her daughter but eventually he found satisfaction in the fact that despite his own limitations (one day he said: ‘Books and music are all right for you. I don’t need them to live.) he had been able to provide a life of grace and class to her daughter which led her ultimately to be part of the ‘civilized� world.

His great satisfaction, possibly even the raison d`etre of his existence, was the fact that I belonged to the world which he had scorned him.






There have been a few references in the book which shows the inadequacy of the life of the father of author, however, beneath the surface it represents something more poignant and deeper about our life itself. There is one reference to the male sexual organ of her father when his body is undressed in front of the author, she happens to see penis of her father. Suddenly, her mother covers it up, saying -Hide your misery, my poor man! in a humorous tone, it connects to shame and inadequacy felt by her father due to his humble working class background wherein he is doomed to a life of solitude and distrust; the shame that also binds him to his social settings and prevent him to move along with the flow time and evolution.


The author also touches upon the inadequacy of language itself to convey our memories, our feelings. She reflects upon the deficiency of the language to portray the simple, ungraceful country life of father. The real personal experiences of life can’t be conveyed through language as words get falter when pushed to their very limits, so in a way language was the inadequacy of Ernaux like her father. It reminds me of Maurice Blanchot here who wrote extensively about language and literary theory. Perhaps it’s hard to assuage the wounds of hearts with words of reason.

Looking back, I realize that anything to do with language was a source of resentment and distress, far more than money.


The author has been able to create the detached and objective narrative about her father as we have seen in A Woman’s Story but I did not enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the account of her mother’s life, perhaps something was missing in it, the depth of emotions is probably not as much as was in A Woman’s Story since somehow, we did not feel very connected, neither with her father nor with herself. It is still a quite powerful read despite its flaws, the control Annie Ernaux has on narrative, the honesty with which she portrayed account of her father doesn’t get dismayed with guilt- another classic example of autofiction, the genre brilliantly exploited and defined by the author.


3.5/5