by
Annie Ernaux
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There are beings who are overwhelmed by the reality of others, their way of speaking, of crossing their legs, of lighting a cigarette. They become mired in the presence of others. One day, or rather one night, they are swept away inside the desire and the will of a single Other. Everything they believed about themselves vanishes. They dissolve and watch a reflection of themselves act, obey, swept into a course of events unknown. They trail behind the will of the Other, which is always one step ahead. They never catch up.
There is no submission, no consent, only the stupefaction of the real. All one can do is repeat this can't be happening to me' or 'it is me this is happening to, but in the event, 'me' is no longer, has already changed. All that remains is the Other, master of the situation, of every gesture and the moment to follow, which only he foresees.
Then the Other goes away. You have ceased to interest him. He abandons you with the real, for example a stained pair of underwear. All he cares about is his own time now, and you are alone with your habit of obeying, already hard to shake: alone in a time bereft of a master.
wow
Over ten years have passed, eleven summers that raise to fifty-five the number of years that have elapsed since the summer of '58, with wars, revolutions and explosions at nuclear power stations, all in the process of being forgotten.
The time that lies ahead of me grows shorter. There will inevitably be a last book, as there is always a last lover, a last spring, but no sign by which to know them. I am haunted by the idea that I could die without ever having written about 'the girl of '58', as I very soon began to call her. Someday there will be no one left to remember. What that girl and no other experienced will remain unexplained, will have been lived for no reason.
No other writing project seems to me as - I wouldn't say luminous, or new, and certainly not joyful, but vital: it allows me to rise above time. The thought of 'just enjoying life' is unbearable. Every moment lived without a writing project resembles the last.
I have still not stepped through the portico of the camp. I am making no progress in my attempt to capture the girl of 58. It is as if I wanted to 'build her profile as meticulously as possible, adding never-ending psychological and social determinants', too many strokes to the portrait, thus rendering it illegible, whereas I could summarize with: 'Good student from a religious school in the provinces, raised in a modest home, aspires to an intellectual, bourgeois-bohemian lifestyle. Or, to adopt the language of magazines, 'a girl raised in an environment empowering to her self-esteem,' or, another variant, 'a girl whose healthy narcissism has been allowed free exercise.' I do not know if the girl in the car on her way to camp would have recognized herself in these descriptions. They certainly do not reflect the way in which she expresses or thinks of herself, though the words of Sartre and Camus on freedom and revolt may do. [...]
[...] should I adopt the view of French society in 1958, which reduced a girl's entire worth to a question of 'conduct', and say that in her naivete and lack of guile she is pathetic, laying the entire blame at her feet? Must I, as of now, move back and forth between one historical vision and another, between 1958 and 2014? I dream of a sentence that would contain them both, seamlessly, by way of a new syntax.
S . . . the beauty of it all: the very same desires, the same actions as at other times in the past, in ’58 and ’63, and with P. The same drowsiness, even torpor. Three scenes stand out. That evening (Sunday) in his room, as we sat close to each other, touching, saying nothing, willing and eager for what would follow, which still depended on me. His hand passed close to my legs, stretched out in front of me, and brushed them each time he put his cigarette ash in the container on the floor. In front of everyone. We talked as if nothing were going on. Then the others leave (Marie R, Irène, RVP) but F hangs back, waiting to leave with me. I know that if I leave S’s room now, I won’t have the strength to return. Then everything’s a blur. F is outside the room, or almost, the door is open, and it seems to me that S and I throw ourselves at each other. Then the door is closed (by whom?) and we are just inside, in the entry hall. My back, pressed against the wall, switches the light off and on. I have to move aside. I drop my raincoat, handbag, suit jacket. S turns off the light. The night begins, which I experience with absolute intensity (along with the desire never to see him again, as with other men in the past).
It’s been over a week since S has come around. Too long. I review my life since then, and am amazed by how many stupid, unpleasant events there have been: the meal with H, the young people’s book award in Montreuil, the last of my courses on Robbe-Grillet, and the lunch today. That life consists of this accumulation of endeavors, bland and burdensome actions, punctuated only occasionally by moments of intensity, outside of time, is horrifying. Love and writing are the only two things in the world that I can bear, the rest is darkness. Tonight I have neither.
Last night he called but I can’t have him over, Éric and David are here. Tonight was the film screening. His wife not there—“she’s a little under the weather,” his usual phrase, which doesn’t mean anything. Unless she’s pregnant . . . Watched the Russian film, sitting next to him. I only caressed his fingers. I drive home very quickly, playing cassettes with the volume turned up all the way, the song “Éthiopie,” and I understand, I remember my “lust for life” at eighteen, the despair that lay beneath, the same as that which I feel tonight, at forty-eight. All because of a man. And when I see him there, in the hall of the embassy, he seems forgettable—a pretty boy, nothing more. I’m rereading Anna Karenina.
lmao
Saw Too Beautiful for You. Nothing about it resembles my story and everything does. As I leave the cinema, I know it’s about me, and ordinary life and the contradictory relations between men and women. And I’d have liked not to have to leave the cinema and for this story not to end. Art as a shortcut. Phrases from the film that I could have said myself: “It’s nice to wait for a man,” and about noontime meetings in motels, “There are people who don’t need to eat lunch.” And then, “I am a woman who lives. I am a woman who keeps on living”[Josiane Balasko, weeping].
Dreamt I was trying to board a train with a suitcase. This takes place in the USA. The gap between the platform and step is too wide. I manage to get on the next train, with extra effort and attention, and keep hold of the suitcase. Can I keep the suitcase—S—and write?
For five years, I’ve ceased to experience with shame what can be experienced with pleasure and triumph (sexuality, jealousy, class differences). Shame spreads over everything, prevents any further progress.
I also thought that writing acted as a kind of morality for me. That is why I didn’t want to have affairs before, so I wouldn’t lose the obsession with writing. For a long time, a life of pleasure seemed impossible to me (it even does now) because I write. I forgave my husband’s pleasure seeking because he didn’t write. What else is there to do when you don’t write? Eat, drink, and make love.