so-soI love a memoir, and the memoir bits were great. Thoughtful reflection on what it's like to grow up gay in a working-class community in a small French town, and the things lost along the way to becoming a Parisian writer/ academic.
But for me, a little bit of Sartre, Foucault and Merleau-Ponty quoting goes a Long Way.
There's no doubt that we can include Madness and Civilization in that part of our library that includes books that "call to us,†as Patrick Chamoiseau puts it, books that make up a "library of feelings" and help us to overcome the effects of domination within our own selves.
To use an insult is to cite the past. It only has meaning because it has been used by so many earlier speakers: a dizzying word that rises from the depths of time immemorial, as one of Genet's verses puts it.
Yet, for those at whom it is aimed, it also represents a projection into the future: the dreadful presentiment that such words, and the violence they carry, will accompany you for the rest of your days.
Or there was the time when, after I had made mention of Simone de Beauvoir, this same ultra-Catholic professor, an extremely powerful presence in the philosophy department, interrupted me and curtly interjected: "You seem to be unaware that Mademoiselle de Beauvoir treated her own mother disrespectfully.".... "Mademoiselle"! I laughed for months each time I thought of this way of referring to her.
Have I retained any memories from these years? ....it is of my father coming home dead drunk... He is standing at one end of the room and taking every bottle he could lay his hands on-oil, milk, wine- -and throwing them one by one against opposite wall, where they shatter. My brother and I are crying, huddled up against our mother, who is simply repeating, in a voice crying of both anger and despair, at least watch out for the kids?"
pickHat mir gut gefallen weil es einen auf mehreren Ebenen herausfordert und packt. will auch wieder Mehr Theoriebücher lesen. #readtheyear #suhrkamp #french #sociology
Eribon nach Ernaux. Wie die beiden ausgehend von einem Foto Weltgeschichte oder soziologische Analyse auf den Punkt bringen ist echt toll. Das erste Kapitel von Rückkehr nach Reims hat mich persönlich voll gepackt. #frenchliterature #editionsuhrkamp #suhrkamp
Last night I got a lovely parcel of books from none other than @saresmoore . Wow! This one, Sarah writes, was mentioned in a review of a book I recently read and reviewed, Louis's 'The End of Eddy,' and it's a memoir about another gay Frenchman returning to his—whatever the French equivalent is of 'redneck'—hometown. Sounds utterly fascinating – thank you so much! Two more books coming next…
'Le retour dans le milieu d'où l'on vient- et dont on est sorti, dans tous les sens du terme- est toujours un retour sur soi et un retour à soi, des retrouvailles avec un soi même autant conservé que nié.'
Rückkehr nach Reims | 
