Exteriors

Product Information

Her other works include Exteriors, A Girl's Story, A Woman's Story, The Possession, Simple Passion, Happening, I Remain in Darkness, Shame, A Frozen Woman, and A Man's Place. Exteriors is in many ways the most ecstatic of Ernaux’s books – the first in which she appears largely free of the haunting personal relationships she has written about so powerfully elsewhere, and the first in which she is able to leave the past behind her.

It forces one to cherish what’s been given to them, and recognize that peace cannot exist without a little bit of chaos.In this memoire Ernaux sets out to relate her observations during her daily outings on the train, in the supermarket or the mall like a series of snapshots. I read ones about her mother, her father, her early sexual life, an affair with an older, married man, an abortion, all in separate books, many based on detailed diaries she kept over the years.

One can either relate them in detail, exposing their stark, immediate nature, outside of any narrative form, or else save them for future reference, ‘making use’ of them by incorporating them into an ensemble (a novel, for instance).

i absolutely loved these journal entries (which may or may not be related to the fact that i myself have been making a note of such snapshots for as long as i can remember). Strangely enough, there exists another truth, the exact opposite: when we go back to a town we left a long time ago, we imagine that the people there will still be the same, unchanged. it builds up into this really cool portrait of paris in the late 80s, as well as giving you an idea of how ernaux views the world in an even more raw and unfiltered way than her actual prose does. Ernaux says, “I have sought to describe reality as through the eyes of a photographer and to preserve the mystery and opacity of the lives I encountered. in vignettes and snippet anecdotes, ernaux perfectly captures urban loneliness and absurdity, the feeling of catching a scene or eavesdropping on a private conversation that you don't have time to fully process yet still think abt from time to time.

Taking the form of random journal entries over the course of seven years, Exteriors concentrates on the ephemeral encounters that take place just on the periphery of a person's lived environment.The train crawls along, as the autumn conditions in Toronto necessitate caution when navigating the open-space areas of the subway track.

Satisfied that the things he craved will soon be his, or afraid that he might have ‘overspent’, maybe both.Committing to paper the movements, postures, and words of the people I meet gives me the illusion that I am close to them. Ez az első - és egyetlen, azt hiszem -, ami nem Ernaux életét tárgyalja, noha tulajdonképpen ezek a benyomások is személyesek. So I got involved, heavily involved, deeply involved, right down to ending up with a tube in my womb, all because of a not-very-clever comment, all because of myself.