A Man's Place: Annie Ernaux

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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. 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. My friend and I were talking about this in relation to another topic recently, and discussing how the mother/child bond is quite natural and innate - she carries you for nine months, then feeds and nurtures you from birth - whereas the bond with our fathers is forged (or perhaps forced) over time and through circumstances. All I had to do was sail through the following hour and I would be allowed to do the same as she did for the rest of my life. Everything that touches on language is, in my memory, a cause for resentment and painful bickering, much more than money.

Over the course of the book, Ernaux grows up to become the uncompromising observer now familiar to the world, while her father matures into old age with a staid appreciation for life as it is and for a daughter he cautiously, even reluctantly admires.Não há floreios, nem adjetivos, nem sentimentalismos ou ao menos choro, mas a vida como ela acontece.

The original French title is La place and I wonder why they changed it in English for A Man’s Place. 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. Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her exams for a teaching certificate. In the course of the aforementioned interview with The Guardian to celebrate the release of I Remain In Darkness , she says: “It’s the work of a novelist to tell the truth. The tone is flat and I think some readers might describe it as emotionless, but it is because of the tone that I see many emotions swirling.Her interest is in examining the breakage … Ernaux is the betrayer and her father the betrayed: this is the narrative undertow that makes A Man's Place so lacerating. Coming from her blue-collar household, Ernaux has also a hard time reconciling her family story with her reading. It's the ability to take all those factors into account which makes Ernaux such an astute observer of history and memory, context and class.

Sadly the link doesn't take you to the thesis itself, but I'm keen to track it down as she references another author who is new to me: Daniel Pennac . I can’t imagine any reader doesn’t think in some way of the same thing, that his complicated life is worth telling. The author emphasises at every turn her father's keen sense of his own inferiority and his constant, secret fear that his speech, his writing, his clothes or his manners would disgrace him, and her, in the eyes of those he believed to be his superiors. It's no surprise that Tanya Leslie was the first person to translate Ernaux's work into English - first for Seven Stories Press in the US - and that she went on to translate six of her books, starting with A Girl's Story (whose title probably influenced the English version of A Man's Place ). Ernaux usa uno stile anteriore, mette fra la penna e il sé sulla pagina una distanza oggettiva che crea una storia di fiducia e innocenza e nel linguaggio lirico ci consegna un segreto fedele al riparo necessario, alla comune salvezza, alla sorvegliata destinazione.Làm sao để có thể tường tận được những dằn xé của người bố về xuất thân của mình, về nỗi khao khát được trở thành một người trong cái cộng đồng đã chối ông mà không có sự quan tâm đến những điều nhỏ nhặt đối với người mà mình yêu thương?

Afterwards, in the headmaster’s office, the inspector said to me disapprovingly: ‘You really dragged your pupils along, didn’t you. No início, senti que faltava tristeza, dor e transbordava revolta e crítica à classe social de agricultores e operários na qual tinha nascido. In British English (I can’t speak to others) ‘one’ has class connotations, so that’s probably why that wasn’t used. On the surface, A Man's Place works perfectly well as a title to reflect what the book is about, but coming back to the original French it feels somewhat reductive.There's a desire to rise above and transcend his own roots, as well as to impress those of a 'higher class' with his decorum and manners. Annie Ernaux's father died exactly two months after she passed her practical examination for a teaching certificate.