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savvylit's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
This unusual memoir follows Annie Ernaux and her peers from the 1940s up until the early 2000s. Using primarily a collective perspective via the pronoun "we," Ernaux tracks cultural trends and global events that affected her generation.
Not only is the structure of this memoir quite unique but the subject matter is as well. Reading The Years, I felt able to empathize with Ernaux and her peers in ways that I probably wouldn't have were this memoir focused on only one person's perspective. Ernaux's signature no-frills language allows us readers to see how the era of her birth shaped her entire generation. Born at the end of World War Two, coming of age in the progressive 1960s, having children born in completely different circumstances, beginning to use the Internet... Somehow Ernaux brings historical facts to life in a rather engaging way despite the distance that an impersonal "we" point of view provides.
Not only is the structure of this memoir quite unique but the subject matter is as well. Reading The Years, I felt able to empathize with Ernaux and her peers in ways that I probably wouldn't have were this memoir focused on only one person's perspective. Ernaux's signature no-frills language allows us readers to see how the era of her birth shaped her entire generation. Born at the end of World War Two, coming of age in the progressive 1960s, having children born in completely different circumstances, beginning to use the Internet... Somehow Ernaux brings historical facts to life in a rather engaging way despite the distance that an impersonal "we" point of view provides.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Xenophobia, Racism, War, and Sexism
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