Annie Ernaux, La Place (1983): Lecture 1

b. 1940

Early Publications:

Les Armoires vides (1974)

Ce qu’ils disent ou rien (1977)
La Femme gelée (1981)
La Place (1983)
Une Femme (1988)

(+ 7 more works published since 1988)

The Question of Genre

First 3 works: novels

= (a) examples, formally speaking, of ‘fictional autobiography’

= (b) examples of ‘autobiographical fiction’

The 3 novels are quite angry, impassioned, indignant in tone (the third
has strong feminist themes)

Works 4 and 5:

Change of tone: more objective, less overtly emotional – cf ‘écriture

plate’
Change of focus: less self-concerned/self-centred (but still written in first
person)
Change of generic status: no longer ‘novels’ or ‘fictions’ (applies to all
E’s writing since 1983)
What kind of non-fiction?

La Place and Une Femme form a pair of texts that are generic hybrids,
mixtures of generic types.

Main constituents = autobiography, biography, sociology (and/or

ethnography)

AE has described these 2 works as examples of ‘récit auto-socio-

biographique’…

Autobiography

… as understood in a very general sense: not traditional ‘life-story’, but

a non-fictional text written in the first person, a text in which the je who
takes charge of the narrative (or is responsible for it) can be equated with
the actual author of the text (Ernaux herself).

Biography

… understood as a non-fictional text whose narrator writes about the life

of another (equally non-fictional) person.

Cf Phillipe Lejeune’s model for distinguishing between fictional

autobiography, autobiography, and biography:

Fictional autobiography: Author ≠ Narrator = Protagonist

Autobiography: Author = Narrator = Protagonist

Biography: Author = Narrator ≠ Protagonist

Q. How does La Place come to be a mixture of autobiography and
biography (or an example of ‘auto/biography’?

A. Her biographical subject is her own father.

i.e. not a traditional biography but a biography of an ordinary person, a

person from within one’s own family. Hence the dual focus of La Place
as a text that is at once biographical and autobiographical.

Cf back-cover blurb of the book (approved if not actually written by

Ernaux) for advance demonstration of this dual focus.

Sociology/Ethnography

= breaking away from autobiography, subjectivity, subjective memory.

= search for the social truth of her father’s condition as a petit
commerçant.
= desire to collect facts: her father’s words, gestures, tastes, attitudes,
values, as determined by his social condition. She wants to record ‘tous
les signes objectifs d’une existence que j’ai aussi partagée’ (p. 24).

Father viewed not just as a particular individual, but as a representative

of his class.

But, this sociological ambition is itself in large part determined by

Ernaux’s own autobiographical circumstances – her entry into the
bourgeoisie = a form of betrayal. Her attempt to understand the truth of
her father’s condition sociologically, and not just subjectively or
personally = part of her attempt to expiate her deep sense of guilt, part of
her attempt to find some kind of reconciliation with her father and with
her own origins.
Back to generic mix:

An alternative to AE’s ‘récit auto-socio-biographique’ might be ‘auto-

bio-ethnographie’.
Background… traditional conception of ethnography:

“The direct observation of the activity of a particular social group, and

the description and evaluation of such activity, constitute ethnography.
The term has mainly been used to describe the research technique of
anthropologists, but the method is commonly used by sociologists as
well.” (Dictionary of Sociology, Penguin)

Today we have a broader understanding of the term. Ethnography now

considered to be applicable to familiar (not just remote, exotic) contexts,
to social groups/activities that are local, part of ‘here’ or ‘home’. This is
the sense of ‘ethnography’ often invoked in the notions of ‘auto-
ethnography’ and ‘bio-ethnography’ as used in critical thinking today.

Example:

“… autoethnography is defined as a form of self-narrative that places

the self within a social context. It is both a method and a text, as in the
case of ethnography. Autoethnography can be done by either an
anthropologist who is doing “home” or “native” ethnography or by a
non-anthropologist/ethnographer. It can also be done by an
autobiographer who places the story of his or her life within a story of
the social context in which it occurs.” (Deborah E. Reed-Danahay,
Auto/Ethnography, Berg, 1997)

— numerous elements here apply to Ernaux (see terms in bold)

— but we must add ‘bio-ethnography’ to ‘auto-ethnography’