Henk's Reviews > The Years

Saw the adaptation of this book in The Hague and London, and both times someone fainted during the abortion scene, showing the continued power of the story of Ernaux and the theatrical superpowers of Eline Arbo: https://ita.nl/en/people/eline-arbo/1...
Capturing life after World War II in France through one woman’s life. Big trends like consumerism, sexual liberation, AIDS, decolonization racial tensions and unemployment coalesce with pictures from the authors life
Memory like sexual desire never endse

An erudite work, more essay and history piece than novel.
I love Annie Ernaux her writing, but this book is an especially ambitious work that sets out to capture post-World War II France. The Years uses pictures as basis of recollections. From initial family observations and catch phrases that parents use: Limits: don’t ask for the moon or things that cost the earth, be happy with what you have to the desire to grow up as a kid: Nothing is certain except her desire to be grown up.
Paris was beauty and power and the big city calls. The post war years are sparse initially, We lived in a scarcity of everything but people are optimistic about what lay ahead: Progress was the bright horizon of everyone’s existence

The narration is detached, and the novel uses a lot of sweeping statements to describe the day and age. At times Ernaux recognises that the perspective used in the book is not universal: The times are not the same for everyone.
To be fair there are fun anachronisms captured as well, like arsenic cures against masturbation.

Big societal changes are captured, like youth asking more of their lives and the freedoms they want You ask too much of life and the rise of consumers and tourists: It was the dawning of the society of leisure
Growing up as a female is hard (For girls shame lay in wait at every turn), and the way Ernaux writes time definitely seems to go ever faster but all the changes feel less and less impactful to one who has established her life through the rapid succession of decolonization, the advent of consumerism, sexual liberalism, women’s rights, May 1968, AIDS, racial tensions, unemployment. There is disappointment and reflection (As if her only progress in life is of the material kind) and the sense of the end nearing is evident near the end of the book: The infinite ceased to be imaginary

A sweeping book, following both a life and development of a nation, full of observations that one can only have after a life lived and fully experienced.