Some interesting quotes here and there, but nothing memorable that will truly stay, at least for me. I think that movin into an upper social class is easier when it’s making money through trade and being richer than your family was. Note: In my notes at one point in the book early on I made this comment, ‘can’t believe what I’m reading. ernaux ile gerçekten aynı frekansta, ne bileyim, aynı ses dalgası düzeyindeymişiz gibi hissediyorum. I think he was proud of Annie as she went through college, but apparently he was sort of jealous of her at times and she was ashamed of him at times.

An affecting portrait of a man whose own peasant upbringing typified the adage that a child should never be better educated than his parents. Ernaux’s approach to the past doesn’t include nostalgia, which at times feels a bit strange, but perhaps suits her not fitting in but very observant personality.In their 2019 interview with the author , The Guardian referred to her as "perhaps the greatest chronicler of French society in the last 50 years – a kind of guardian of collective memory. The truth is, it's difficult to unpack our parents and our relationships with them because it also requires tapping back into a version of ourselves who may be quite different from the one we've now become. Lo primero que llama la atención del libro, hasta para quién como yo haya leído a Ernaux, es el tono seco y cortante, como si la historia fuera contada a regañadientes, obligada, como si nosotros, sus lectores, fuéramos como aquellos clientes del colmado de sus padres que, por necesidad, suplicaban que les fiasen cuando ellos mismos llegaban muy justitos a fin de mes.

He feels perpetually inferior, and overcompensates for that with a stoic and 'proper' outward persona. It's the ability to take all those factors into account which makes Ernaux such an astute observer of history and memory, context and class. Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux’s cold observation in A Man’s Place reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. The author takes the practical test for her CAPES examination at a lycee in Lyon and goes on to become a teacher, her life takes a remarkable shift – from being a daughter of working-class parents to step into the realms of the intellectual world (the foundation of that laid by her education) which her parents are hardly aware of.My friend and I were talking about this in relation to another topic recently, and discussing how the mother/child bond is quite natural and innate - she carries you for nine months, then feeds and nurtures you from birth - whereas the bond with our fathers is forged (or perhaps forced) over time and through circumstances. The social conventions observed by my mother, and for that matter the rest of the neighborhood, had nothing to do with dignity. Despite the obvious influence (and indeed nature) of history and memory in her books, Ernaux does not like to be considered a memoirist or have her work referred to as autobiography. The meaning is broader in French and saying a man’s place discards Ernaux’s struggles with finding her own place in her new world.

There is a translucent quality to the way that she colours her mother’s life in the book that is dedicated to her, but her father’s life here is depicted as a packed up, boxed entity.The men of that generation (and perhaps most generations) operate behind a frosted glass wall that diffuses direct emotional connection.

ve bu yüzden de bu kısacık, hiçbir fazlalığı olmayan, sade yazım şekli de bendeki etkisini daha da büyütüyor. Il posto è lo spazio invisibile che separa gli esseri umani, quella distanza che va a crearsi tra le vite delle persone e che la letteratura può cercare di descrivere, senza poter colmare.

They were convinced that being well-read and well-mannered were marks of an inner excellence that was innate.