The Confessions of Annie Ernaux: Autobiography, Truth, and Repetition
2004; Indiana University Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2979/jml.2004.28.1.65
ISSN1529-1464
Autores Tópico(s)French Literature and Critical Theory
ResumoAnnie Ernaux writes books which she consistently describes as painful to write and shameful to expose to the public.1 She describes herself as needing to believe that she will accidentally die before the book becomes public in order to bear the mortification of exposure {Seperdre 42), the publication of books which she says will make the regard ofthe other impos? sible to her {La 132), and which she sees as having shamed her family and even her region of France as well as herself {L'ecriture comme un couteau 51).2 At the end of Passion simple, Ernaux writes that ending the book causes her anxiety because it means that she will now have to let others judge her actions, making her ashamed: Continuer, she writes, c est aussi repousser l'angoisse de donner ceci a lire aux autres. Tant que j'etais dans la je ne me souciais pas de cette eventualite. Maintenant que je suis allee au bout de cette necessite, je regarde les pages ecrites avec etonnement et une sorte de honte (69). (To continue is also to push back the anxiety of giving this to others to read. So long as I was in the necessity of writing, I did not worry about this eventuality. Now that I am at the end of this necessity, I look at the written pages with surprise and a kind of shame.) The writing of these books is described by Ernaux as difficult, dangerous, and hazardous, as requiring courage to write and to make public,3 and yet is also described as written through an inner compulsion, as though she had no choice but to write and expose them, or lacked the strength to resist. We see, for instance, that she writes ofthe necessite d'ecrire, and presumes that it is equally necessary to publish, although she tells us that financially she is not required to {L'ecriture comme un couteau 117).
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