Annie Ernaux's memoir spans from the end of the Second World War to the 2000s. Rather than tell a single life in the usual way, she writes of herself as she, building the story out of photographs, songs, advertising slogans, news items and the objects of daily life. Cultural shifts form the backbone: postwar austerity, Algeria, May 1968, the women's movement, consumer society, the arrival of the internet. Personal events such as education, marriage, abortion and motherhood appear within these changes.
Readers who want to see how a memoir can capture a generation will find a new method here. It suits anyone interested in French social history and in the ways memory and time reshape us, told by a woman who rose from a working-class background.
Deep, inward-looking, contemplative and open-ended; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Mindful Reader. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2008
- Language
- EN
