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percystjoan 's review for:
Shame
by Annie Ernaux
as someone who also grew up religious in a rural neighborhood, raised by a lower class family, this book was strikingly familiar. although I couldn't have grown up further from 1950s France, the all-encompassing shame that is created by religion, class division, and traumatic experiences in childhood crosses boundaries of time and space. anyone who has felt that kind of shame, fostered by harsh religious rules and inescapable exclusion from those socially better than you, can see themselves reflected in ernaux's descriptions of the ways shame consumes and sickens us.
i love ernaux's concept of creating an "ethnological study" of herself. as she piles detail upon detail about her hometown and the private school she attended in her younger years, an incredibly vivid picture forms. it almost felt like walking through the streets with her, or like growing up alongside her and feeling the weight of societal rules become more and more oppressive.
this book is heavy, I can't really describe it any better than that. while the possession was similarly heavy, creating an oppressive, overwhelming depiction of rage and jealousy, shame is suffused with a feeling of deep sadness and exhaustion. it so perfectly describes the feeling of constantly laboring against the expectations of others, knowing you'll never be able to meet them but continuing to struggle regardless.
in one particular incident, she describes the shame she feels at her classmates seeing her mother answer the door in her nightgown. she never even considers that if her mother had a bathrobe she could've covered up and the shame would've been avoided - "in my system of thinking, which ruled out the existence of bathrobes, it was impossible to escape shame."
it's such a perfect anecdote to show the feeling of growing up and realizing that there are more things to be ashamed of than you even realized. you're caught in that in between stage where you're beginning to realize that the way you live, things that are completely natural to you, make you a target for other's mockery - but you haven't yet even conceptualized of a way to avoid this judgment. it leaves you helpless in a way that ernaux perfectly captures with her matter-of-fact prose.
this is definitely a book that pulls no punches and I felt drained by the time I finished it, but I would highly highly recommend! ernaux does an excellent job of really hunting down an emotion and capturing its every last detail - her work is simultaneously highly specific to her own experiences and yet also universal. I am so excited to read more from her!
i love ernaux's concept of creating an "ethnological study" of herself. as she piles detail upon detail about her hometown and the private school she attended in her younger years, an incredibly vivid picture forms. it almost felt like walking through the streets with her, or like growing up alongside her and feeling the weight of societal rules become more and more oppressive.
this book is heavy, I can't really describe it any better than that. while the possession was similarly heavy, creating an oppressive, overwhelming depiction of rage and jealousy, shame is suffused with a feeling of deep sadness and exhaustion. it so perfectly describes the feeling of constantly laboring against the expectations of others, knowing you'll never be able to meet them but continuing to struggle regardless.
in one particular incident, she describes the shame she feels at her classmates seeing her mother answer the door in her nightgown. she never even considers that if her mother had a bathrobe she could've covered up and the shame would've been avoided - "in my system of thinking, which ruled out the existence of bathrobes, it was impossible to escape shame."
it's such a perfect anecdote to show the feeling of growing up and realizing that there are more things to be ashamed of than you even realized. you're caught in that in between stage where you're beginning to realize that the way you live, things that are completely natural to you, make you a target for other's mockery - but you haven't yet even conceptualized of a way to avoid this judgment. it leaves you helpless in a way that ernaux perfectly captures with her matter-of-fact prose.
this is definitely a book that pulls no punches and I felt drained by the time I finished it, but I would highly highly recommend! ernaux does an excellent job of really hunting down an emotion and capturing its every last detail - her work is simultaneously highly specific to her own experiences and yet also universal. I am so excited to read more from her!