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Our Assessment:
B+ : effective, frustrated look at the world around her See our review for fuller assessment.
From the Reviews: - Return to top of the page - The complete review's Review:
La vie extérieure is almost a diary, consisting of observations and impressions from the period 1993 to 1999.
The entries are dated, but it's not her personal life that Ernaux is focussing on, but rather what she sees around her.
Few of the entries are longer than a page, and sometimes she goes months without an entry.
Ultimately it is less revealing about that period in (French/European/world) history than as a personal document -- another sliver in what adds up to the life-work of Ernaux.
La vie extérieure demande tout, la plupart des oeuvres d'art, rienThis 'exterior life' (reality itself) is more -- often much, much more -- than what can be recorded and dealt with on the page, a frustration felt throughout the book. Reality -- so often: terrible reality -- dwarves art (as well as everyday routines and preoccupations). The conflict in the former Yugoslavia gets numerous mentions, with Ernaux led to think her own relatively easy life (and specifically: what she does with it) fairly insignificant in light of that. Later, she addresses Iraq and Chechnya (noting: "Les Russes exterminent tranquillement les Tschétchènes. Personne ne s'en émeut"). There are also local social concern, including poverty and AIDS. She notes the blurred lines on television between reality and fiction, the popularity of (re-)creations of real life (and this long before 'reality TV' had really taken hold). The observations are often small ones: someone seen on the RER, cashiers in stores -- making for a focus on individuals in their many varied routines, the small sameness of everyday life that possibly dulls us to the outrages around us, specifically the neglect of those who suffer, both near and far. The longest entry -- just over two pages -- describes an event at which Taslima Nasreen speaks, a writer more obviously involved in the public sphere (both in her writings and due to the threats made against her person), though Ernaux sees it as just another part of the same spectrum (and seems as interested in the crowd-reaction as in Nasreen-as-writer) Ernaux can only turn to the page, venting her anger (and even, as she puts it, hatred). It is, of course, an act and expression of frustration. It's not even that much here is closely observed -- the scenes are quickly sketched, the observations small ones -- but it is finely done, an effective, even provocative little book. - Return to top of the page - Things Seen:
- Return to top of the page - French author Annie Ernaux was born in Normandy in 1940. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022. - Return to top of the page -
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