Taking the form of random journal entries over seven years, Exteriors captures the feeling of contemporary living on the outskirts of Paris. Poignantly lyrical, chaotic, and strangely alive.
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From Publishers Weekly
Ernaux's best subject is Ernaux. Her autobiographical novels like Cleaned Out, A Woman's Story, A Man's Place and Simple Passion succeeded brilliantly because Ernaux is mordantly critical of every character?especially her own. As the title suggests, this isn't a meditation on Ernaux's inner workings but rather a writer's notebook of observations from which Ernaux herself is largely absent. Most of the pieces arise from rail trips between Paris and her home in Cergy-Pontoise, "a new town 40 kilometers outside of Paris." Ernaux's keenest insights are into the uncomfortable relationships between those who live on society's fringes and those more securely in its center. She describes a man leaning against a wall in a subway corridor: "He was not asking for money. Drawing level with him, one noticed that his fly was open, revealing his balls. An unbearable sight?a shattering form of dignity." She recalls pedestrians who carefully avoid a section of pavement inscribed by an absent petitioner: "To buy food. I have no family." Contrasted with this is the tortured relationship between people and materialism. "I realize," she says, "that I am forever combing reality for signs of literature." But these are just signs. Assembled in this loose and largely unremarkable series of vignettes, they are not yet literature.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French
Original Language: French
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A command of language to die for,
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This review is from: Exteriors (Hardcover)
Exteriors is Ernaux for Ernaux fans - this is not a narrative but rather a collection of entries regarding every day life observed closely. This is also the first book I read by Ernaux - I was hooked by the writing style. Ernaux has the unusual ability to write prose that appears on the outside to be highly descriptive of the exterior of events. Yet in this careful observation, she portrays a highly interior response to the externals.The description of the clerk in the shopping mall has remained in my memory for years as has her description of the changing landscape of transit stations. Few authors could make such details interesting, even fewer make them significant. Ernaux succeeds at both.
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