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Getting Lost
Getting Lost | Annie Ernaux
5 posts | 6 read | 5 to read
The diary of one of France’s most important, award-winning writers during the year she had a passionate and secret love affair with a Russian diplomat. Getting Lost is the diary Annie Ernaux kept during the year and a half she had a secret love affair with a younger, married man, a Russian diplomat. Her novel, Simple Passion, was based on this affair, but here her writing is immediate, unfiltered. In these diaries it is 1989 and Annie is divorced with two grown sons, living outside of Paris and nearing fifty. Her lover escapes the city to see her there and Ernaux seems to survive only in expectation of these encounters, saying “his desire for me is the only thing I can be sure of.” She cannot write, she trudges distractedly through her various other commitments in the world, she awaits his next call; she lives only to feel desire and for the next rendezvous. When he is gone and the desire has faded, she feels that she is a step closer to death. Lauded for her spare prose, Ernaux here removes all artifice, her writing pared down to its most naked and vulnerable. Getting Lost is as strong a book as any that she has written, a haunting, desperate view of strong and successful woman who seduces a man only to lose herself in love and desire.
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batsy
Getting Lost | Annie Ernaux
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Pickpick

I gained such admiration for writers & the act of constructing a book in reading this; Ernaux's elegant A Simple Passion is lovely, erudite, & concise, & it came out of a period of sexual & romantic obsession which is chronicled in great detail in Getting Lost, her unedited journal from that time. Reading the journal can often be boring & tiresome (it is so hard, from the outside, to understand a person's specific desire for someone who seems

batsy so tediously ordinary, as S, Ernaux's married Russian lover, is.) As such, I find it hard to rate journals. But while I was impatient at the start of it, it was the perfect book to read in snippets in hotel rooms & the beach, & it got better as the affair inevitably came to its end lol. I loved it when Ernaux stepped outside of herself & S to ruminate: "Love and writing are the only two things in the world that I can bear, the rest is darkness". 1y
Suet624 Lovely review and I‘m glad you enjoyed it. 1y
andrew61 Great review. I have the years somewhere so will dig it out . 1y
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sarahbarnes Great review. I really liked this one too. I want to read more by her. 1y
batsy @Suet624 Thanks, Sue! 1y
batsy @andrew61 Thank you! I'm excited to read The Years, too. 1y
batsy @sarahbarnes Thank you! I'm keen to read more by her, as well. The Years and I Remain in Darkness in particular. 1y
kspenmoll Wonderful thoughtful review. 1y
batsy @kspenmoll Thank you! 1y
92 likes9 comments
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Suet624
Getting Lost | Annie Ernaux
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Panpan

Both of these statements are true. I can attest to them both. This journal takes place over 18 months & is the intimate detail of her affair with a married man. @batsy this is the book that we were happy that Simple Passion was not. 😀 it‘s a tedious repetition of waiting to see him, crying, mooning over a man who seemed to be unworthy of her obsession. But that‘s the thing - when you are caught up in one it‘s hard to give it up & unexplainable.

batsy It is a bit of a tough read in terms of seeing all of her insecurities laid bare! I'm almost towards the end of this but it made me appreciate even more the work that goes in to turn a journal into a book. 1y
Suet624 @batsy You are much more generous than I. I imagine it hit a trigger for me, as I know I wasted time in my life in a situation much like this and it brings it all back. I can tell this is something I need to review within myself - I cringed and I judged during the whole book. I clearly feel the same way about myself and how I behaved. And why didn't I put it all down in a book and make some money from my torment. :) (edited) 1y
48 likes2 comments
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emmaturi
Getting Lost | Annie Ernaux
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Pickpick

This is the diary of Annie Ernaux, while she had an affair with a married man in Paris. I am conflicted as I found it interesting but at some point I got annoyed by her going on about this man. I would like to read more of her work though.

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Amor4Libros
Getting Lost | Annie Ernaux
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This is my second Ernaux and I am in love with her writing! Can‘t put this one down.

Hooked_on_books I‘ve read two of hers and feel the same way! I‘m so glad I‘ve discovered her. 1y
Amor4Libros @Hooked_on_books She is amazing! I‘m so happy for us and our discovery and that we still have a good backlog to get through 🙂 1y
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Leftcoastzen
Getting Lost | Annie Ernaux
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Pickpick

My first Ernaux.One side of a love affair,told in journal form .French writer & married Soviet diplomat fall into a passionate affair.Takes place in the 80s , no cells, if you miss the call, the rendezvous is lost .Like analyzing all the tiles of a rubiks cube, she gets lost in the memory of the trists, fears it will end,self loathing galore for her inability to work , her obsessive ups & downs.I thought it felt authentic, how lost we can become!

sarahbarnes I just had to take this one back to the library because I ran out of time to read it, but I recently read Simple Passion (my first of hers) and loved it. I definitely still want to read this one. Great review. 2y
Leftcoastzen @sarahbarnes Good to know ! I would like to read more of her books. 2y
batsy Great review! I can't wait to read Ernaux. 2y
vivastory I have a couple of her books on my shelves and can't wait to read them. Also, what a boon her Nobel must have been to Fitzcarraldo! 2y
Leftcoastzen I love Firzcarraldo editions ! This was an ebook special. 2y
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