The Possession [Paperback]

Annie Ernaux (Author), Anna Moschovakis (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2, 2008

Self-regard, in the works of Annie Ernaux, is always an excruciatingly painful and exact process. Here, she revisits the peculiar kind of self-fulfillment possible when we examine ourselves in the aftermath of a love affair, and sometimes, even, through the eyes of the lost beloved.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born in 1940, ANNIE ERNAUX grew up in Normandy. From 1977 to 2000, she was a professor at the Centre National d’Enseignement par Correspondance. In 1984, she won the Prix Renaudot for her book La Place. Among the novels she has published in America are A Woman’s Story, a New York Times Notable Book, and A Man’s Place, a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Product Details

• Paperback: 62 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press (December 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583228551
• ISBN-13: 978-1583228555
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.2 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,298,143 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ernaux has done it again, March 31, 2009

By 

Toto "[e-mail]" (Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Possession (Paperback)

Precise, exact writing about jealousy and obssession after the end of a love affair. Ernaux excells at writing about the human experience in the most concise language imaginable. Powerful work. A quick, but long-contemplated, read.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Little Book, May 23, 2011

By 

M. Nicolai "Mel Nicolai" (Fair Oaks, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Possession (Paperback)

In 62 pages of controlled, polished, very intelligent prose, Annie Ernaux recounts, in the words of her narrator, "an exercise in the abandonment of intelligence." I say 'recounts' with a certain hesitation, because, as with all of Ernaux's novels, it is unclear to what extent The Possession is autobiographical. Not that it matters.

The first-person narrator has broken off her relationship with her lover and is immediately occupied, in the double sense of both 'preoccupied' and 'possessed,' by the idea of the woman who has taken her place. Unable to extract information from the man, she becomes obsessed with uncovering the identity of his new lover.

One does not have the sense that, by learning about the new woman, the narrator hopes to gain some crucial insight into herself. Rather, she is at the mercy of this double occupation, and must simply live through it, like a woman who must watch to the end a play she neither likes nor understands, but feels, against any real likelihood of success, she must decipher. As the narrator says, "In the state I was in, of uncertainty and the need to know, the most tangential clues could become brutally relevant. My talent for connecting the most disparate facts into a relation of cause and effect was prodigious."

There is present a third occupation, that of the author, Annie Ernaux, by language and the process of writing. In her earlier novel, Passion Perfect, it occurs to the narrator that writing should aim for "the impression conveyed by sexual intercourse, a feeling of anxiety and stupefaction, a suspension of moral judgement." This seems a fitting description of the dilemma and intent of The Possession.