by Annie Ernaux
She lived through another winter. The Sunday after Easter, I went to see her with some forsythia. It was a grey, cold day. She was in the dining room with the other women. The television was on. She smiled at me as I approached. I wheeled her back into her room. I arranged the forsythia branches in a vase. I sat down beside her and gave her some chocolate to eat. She had been dressed in brown woolen socks that reached above her knees and a short smock that revealed her emaciated thighs. I washed her mouth and her hands. Her skin was warm. At one point, she grabbed at the flowers in the vase. Later on, I wheeled her back into the dining room. The television was showing L’Ecole des Fans.† I kissed her goodbye and took the lift down to the ground floor. She died the next day.
The following week, I kept remembering that Sunday, when she was alive, the brown socks, the forsythia, her mannerisms, her smile when I said goodbye, and then the Monday, when she was dead, lying in her bed. I couldn’t put the two days together.
Now everything is one.
It’s the end of February. The weather has turned mild and it often rains. Tonight, after I had done the shopping, I returned to the old people’s home. Seen from the car park, the building looked lighter, almost welcoming. There was a light on in what used to be my mother’s room. I was astonished to realize for the first time: “Someone else has taken her place.” It also occurred to me that one day in the twenty-first century, I would be one of the women who sit waiting for their dinner, folding and unfolding their napkins, here or somewhere else.
Throughout the ten months I was writing this book, I dreamed of her almost every night. Once I was lying in the middle of a stream, caught between two currents. From my loins, smooth again like a young girl’s, from between my thighs, long tapering plants floated limply. The body they came from was not only mine, it was also my mother’s.
Every now and then, I seem to be back in the days when she was still living at home, before she left for the hospital. Although I realize she is dead, sometimes, for a split second, I expect to see her come downstairs and settle in the living room with her sewing basket. This feeling—which puts my mother’s illusory presence before her real absence—is no doubt the first stage of healing.
I have just reread the first pages of this book. I was amazed to discover that I had already forgotten some of the details, like the assistant from the morgue talking on the phone while we were waiting, or the supermarket wall smeared with tar.
A few weeks ago, one of my aunts told me that when my mother and father started going out together, they would arrange to meet in the lavatories at the rope factory. Now that my mother is dead, I wouldn’t want to learn anything about her that I hadn’t known when she was alive.
I see her more and more the way I imagine I saw her in my early childhood: as a large, white shadow floating above me.
She died eight days before Simone de Beauvoir.
She preferred giving to everybody, rather than taking from them. Isn’t writing also a way of giving?
Naturally, this isn’t a biography, neither is it a novel, maybe a cross between literature, sociology, and history. It was only when my mother—born in an oppressed world from which she wanted to escape—became history that I started to feel less alone and out of place in a world ruled bywords and ideas, the world where she had wanted me to live.
I shall never hear the sound of her voice again. It was her voice, together with her words, her hands, and her way of moving and laughing, which linked the woman I am to the child I once was. The last bond between me and the world I come from has been severed.
Sunday 20 April 1986 – 26 February 1987
† It would be a mistake to speak only in the past. In an article published by the French newspaper Le Monde, dated 17 June 1986, the Haute-Normandie, where my mother was brought up, is subjected to severe criticism: “Despite recent improvements, this region is still suffering from appallingly low schooling standards.… Every year the French educational system turns out 7,000 unskilled school-leavers. These young people come straight from ‘remedial classes’ and therefore do not qualify for training courses. According to an academic expert, half of them ‘are unable to understand even two pages written to their standard.’ ”
† Probably the most popular women’s weekly in France between the two world wars. Originally launched in 1880 as Le Petit Journal de la Mode, subsequently renamed Le Petit Echo de la Mode and later known as L’Echo de la Mode, this Sunday magazine covered a wide range of topics, including fashion, dressmaking, knitting, cooking, and gardening. It also provided invaluable household tips, as well as advice on childcare and medical matters. Last but not least, it published feature stories and romantic fiction (the serials could also be bought separately, in bound volumes). It closed down in 1955.
† A highly popular satirical weekly founded in 1937 and named after the house mascot, a hedgehog, which proudly adorns the front page. Printed on green paper—“the color of optimism,” to quote the editor—Le Hérisson offers a blend of satire, political comment, humorous articles, cartoons, and quizzes.
† One of the more lurid Sunday tabloids.
† A Sunday afternoon program in which children are invited to the studio to imitate their favorite singer.
A SEVEN STORIES PRESS
READING GROUP GUIDE
A Woman’s Story
By Annie Ernaux
The following questions are suggested to enhance individual reading and invite group discussion regarding Annie Ernaux’s A Woman’s Story. We hope these questions provide additional topics for consideration and generate a stimulating dialogue with others.
Fora complete listing of Seven Stories Press books featuring Reading Group Guides, please visit our website, www.sevenstories.com.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Why do you think Ernaux chooses to title her book “A Woman’s Story”? To whom do you think it refers and why? What would you have chosen to title it?
2. Examine the quote from Hegel prefacing the book. What do you think he means by this? To what extent do you agree or disagree? How does this idea relate to the rest of the book?
3. Ernaux attempts to view her mother’s story in a purely objective context in order “to capture the real woman, the one who existed independently from me …” (this page) What techniques does she use stylistically to accomplish this? Do you think she is ultimately able to achieve her goal? Why or why not?
4. After her mother’s funeral, Ernaux writes, “Everything was definitely over.” (this page) What is over? What now begins? Similarly, what does Ernaux mean when she writes, “Now everything is one”? (this page)
5. Ernaux says she writes “as if there existed only one immutable order which would convey the truth about my mother (although what this truth involves I am unable to say).” (this page) Plot the sequence with which Ernaux relates the events of her mother’s life and death in the book. Why do you think Ernaux ultimately decides on this particular chronology? How does it connect with the larger themes of rebirth and growth? Can you find passages in the book to support your answer? And finally, in your opinion, what is the truth Ernaux wished to convey?
6. Why is Ernaux now able to “feel the power of ordinary sentences, or even clichés”? (this page)
7. As Ernaux reveals the story of her mother’s life, her own story is similarly bared. Compare the similarities and differences you discover between the two women in regards to their upbringing, their temperaments, their intellectual disposition, their aspirations, and their worldviews. Ernaux then predicts for herself a similar end to her mother’s: “one day … I would be one of the women who sit waiting for their dinner, folding and unfolding their napkins, here or somewhere else.” (this page) Why do you think she comes to this conclusion? Do you agree with this scenario? Why or why not?
8. Ernaux is careful to suspend judgment of her mother, of herself, and of those around her, calling herself “only the archivist.” (this page) What is she archiving? What moral and emotional de
mands does this position then place on the reader? Are there any passages you remember that particularly moved or shocked you? Would a different approach to her mother’s death have ultimately been more powerful? Why or why not?
9. Ernaux writes, “I would recognize that tone of conversation between a mother and her daughter anywhere in the world.” (this page) What are the universal signs of a mother-daughter relationship you find throughout the book? And in your own life?
10. What are some of the idealized misconceptions children have of their parents, sometimes well past the age of childhood? Find examples in the book as well as from personal experience. How does Ernaux react when these illusions are broken?
11. Ernaux writes, “The last bond between me and the world I come from has been severed.” (this page) To what extent is this true? What world is she referring to? What world does she now belong to? Find passages in the book to support your answer.
