Les années

By: Annie Ernaux

Narrated by: Marina Moncade

Au travers de photos et de souvenirs laissés par les événements, les mots et les choses, Annie Ernaux nous fait ressentir le passage des années, de l'après-guerre à aujourd'hui. En même temps, elle inscrit l'existence dans une forme nouvelle d'autobiographie, impersonnelle et collective.

Marina Moncade est la voix sensible et délicate d'Annie Ernaux qui regarde en elle-même pour retrouver le monde, la mémoire et l'imaginaire des jours passés.

©2008 Éditions Gallimard (P)2015 Éditions Gallimard

La vie

La description d’une vie de la guerre a nos jours avec des phrases courtes, chirurgicales et toujours parfaitement choisies pour symboliser l’époque décrite.
Superbe…
un peu hermétique pour les non français et pas très fun.. mais la vie ne l’est pas tjrs ..

Marina Moncade leads me from Ernaux to Ferrante 📗

When Annie Ernaux won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, I decided to read Les années to find out what she's about. Having lived and worked in France, I was attracted to the book's subject. Although written in the third person, it's her autobiographical account of France from 1941 to 2006. Some also view Les années as her most accomplished book.

The reader, Marina Moncade, is a stage, film and television actor. She appears to be in a position to be selective about what books she takes on. Her only audiobooks, apart from Les années, are the four novels that make up Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels. In French, these are L'amie prodigieuse, Le nouveau nom, Celle qui fuit et celle qui reste and L'enfant perdue. People who haven't read the Ferrante novels may be familiar with the television series based on them.

I'm impressed with Ernaux and I'm interested in her writing style from a technical perspective. Consequently, I've purchased her latest book, Le jeune homme, which is very short and should lend itself to technical analysis. I think that Moncade is an excellent match for Les années, and I'm overdue to read a Ferrante novel. A copy of L'amie prodigieuse, and Moncade's audiobook, is probably a good place to start.

Be aware

excellent writer, great storyteller but devastatingly sad, if you have a hint of depression she can kick you off the cliff