Name: Simple Passion
Rating: 3.940476190476191 (63 reviews)
ISBN: 9781583225745

Annie Ernaux

A woman plots the emotional and physical course of an all-consuming affair with a married man, during which she loses herself in her passion before the relationship comes to an end. By the author of A Woman's Story. Reprint.

Simple Passion

Sarah Christine Gill

In the course of conversation, the only subjects that escaped my indifference were those related to this man, his work, the country he came from, and the places he'd been to. The person speaking to me had no idea that my sudden interest in their conversation had nothing to do with their description or even the subject itself, but with the fact that one day, ten years before I met him, A. had been sent to Havana on an assignment and may have set foot in that very night club, the Fiorendito, which they were describing in minute detail, encouraged by my attentive listening. In the same way, when I was reading, the sentences that gave me pause were those concerning a relationship between a man and a woman. They seemed to teach me something about A. and lent credibility to the things I wished to believe. For instance, reading in Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate that 'people in love kiss with their eyes closed' led me to believe that A. loved me since that was the way he kissed me. After that passage, the rest of the book returned to being what everything else had been to me for a whole year - a means of filling in time between two meetings.

I would drink in the sentences that I thought betrayed his jealousy, the only proof of his love in my eyes. After a while I realized that 'are you going away for Christmas?' was no more than a simple, practical question, to decide whether or not to fix a meeting, and certainly not a roundabout way offinding out if l was going skiing with someone else (maybe he even wanted me to leave so that he could see another woman). I often wondered what these afternoons of lovemaking meant to him. Probably nothing more than just that, making love. There was no point looking for other reasons. I would only ever be certain of one thing: his desire or lack of desire. 

Sometimes I told myself that he might spend a whole day day without even thinking about me. I imagined him getting up, drinking his coffee, talking, and laughing, as if I didn't exist. Compared to my own obsession, such indifference stupefied me. How could this be? Even he would have been astonished to find out that I never stopped thinking about him from morning to night. There was nothing to suggest that my attitude was more justifiable than his. In a way, I was luckier than him.

I felt like rereading one or the other of the books I had skimmed through when A. was around. The feeling that the waiting and the dreams of that period had crystallized within the pages and that I would rediscover my passion, intact. Yet I was reluctant to do so, postponing the moment when I would open the first page, almost out of superstition, as if Anna Karenina were some esoteric work in which it would be forbidden to turn a particular page on pain of ill fortune.

He had said, You won't write a book about me.' But I haven't written a book about him, neither have I writ- ten a book about myself. AIII have done is translate into words words he will probably never read, which are not intended for him - the way in which his existence has af- fected my life. An offering ofa sort, bequeathed to others.

Helen 

We were burning up a capital of desire. What we gained in physical intensity we lost in time. 

not even the sound of his voice could make me happy. It was all infinite emptiness, except when we were togeth- er making love. And even then I dreaded the moments to come, when he would be gone. I experienced pleasure like a future pain.

I measured time differently, with all my body. 

I discovered what people are capable of, in other words, anything: sublime or deadly desires, lack of dignity, attitudes and beliefs I had found absurd in others until I myselfturned to them. Without knowing it, he brought me closer to the world.

When I was a child, luxury was fur coats, evening dresses, and villas by the sea. Later on, I thought it meant leading the life ofan intellectual. Now I feel that it is also being able to live out a passion for a man or a woman.

soochie

“Naturally I feel no shame in writing these things because of the time which separates the moment when they are written—when only I can see them—from the moment when they will be read by other people, a moment which I feel will never come. By then I could have had an accident or died; a war or a revolution could have broken out. This delay makes it possible for me to write today, in the same way I used to lie in the scorching sun for a whole day at sixteen, or make love without contraceptives at twenty: without thinking about the consequences.

(It is a mistake therefore to compare someone writing about his own life to an exhibitionist, since the latter has only one desire: to show himself and to be seen at the same time.)”

Fiona

From the very beginning, and throughout the whole of our affair, I had the privilege of knowing what we all find out in the end: the man we love is a complete stranger.

B.A. Bacigal

“The man we love is a complete stranger”

Sabrina D. 

It occurred to me that writing should also aim for that — the impression conveyed by sexual intercourse, a feeling of anxiety and stupefaction, a suspension of moral judgement. 

A panel of young people interviewed by the women’s magazine Marie-Claire strongly condemned the love affairs of their mothers, either divorced or living on their own. One girl remarked bitterly: ‘All my mother’s lovers could do was to help her escape into her dreams.’ Who could ask for more?

Songs accompanied and legitimized my own experience. 

It was all infinite emptiness, except when we were together making love. And even then I dreaded the moments to come, when he would be gone. I experienced pleasure like a future pain. 

my first ernaux! read for women in translation month

Regan Martin

Hey little book that walked into my life and caught me by surprise~ Yeah yeah, I understand and have heard the calls for decentering men…but holy fuck did Annie Ernaux capture “passion” and yearning and desire and the obsession that comes with it all. An illness really, a madness says the author. But Ernaux leaves her passion for a married man flayed upon the table for all to see and poke at. This book so purely captures something real in spite of social norms and morality and the eyes of the reader that may in other cases have rendered that emotion down out of fear or shame. As she states “writing should also aim for that— the impression conveyed by sexual intercourse, a feeling of anxiety and stupefaction, a suspension of moral judgement” for the sake of the truth, the reality of the feeling. This was captivating in its honesty and reminds me that one fear I have regarding my own writing is the “consequence” of “people’s judgement.” But without tending to that worry, look at what could be had—something brutal in its realness, something that can connect me with some French lady in a world and time I have nothing to do with. 

I had the pleasure of taking in this treatise on the physical, emotional, spiritual totality of a crush while lounging in Union Station. The colors and textures around me accentuated the beautiful cover of this book. 

All in all, I love it when a book comes into my life unexpectedly > is devoured > and then merged into my understanding and DNA as a human and a writer (tbd)~

Hey little book that walked into my life and caught me by surprise~ Yeah yeah, I understand and have heard the calls for decentering men…but holy fuck did Annie Ernaux capture “passion” and yearning and desire and the obsession that comes with it all. An illness really, a madness says the author. But Ernaux leaves her passion for a married man flayed upon the table for all to see and poke at. This book so purely captures something real in spite of social norms and morality and the eyes of the reader that may in other cases have rendered that emotion down out of fear or shame. As she states “writing should also aim for that— the impression conveyed by sexual intercourse, a feeling of anxiety and stupefaction, a suspension of moral judgement” for the sake of the truth, the reality of the feeling. This was captivating in its honesty and reminds me that one fear I have regarding my own writing is the “consequence” of “people’s judgement.” But without tending to that worry, look at what could be had—something brutal in its realness, something that can connect me with some French lady in a world and time I have nothing to do with. 

I had the pleasure of taking in this treatise on the physical, emotional, spiritual totality of a crush while lounging in Union Station. The colors and textures around me accentuated the beautiful cover of this book. 

All in all, I love it when a book comes into my life unexpectedly > is devoured > and then merged into my understanding and DNA as a human and a writer (tbd)~

Sparked a whole few month course discourse in my head about if I had ever loved before or if I had mistaken it all for infatuation. Or maybe I’m just 19. Well, no, I’ve definitely had it once. . . and everything after was just a poor reminiscence of how good I had it. 

vied angelo

ernaux accentuates the use of writing as a way to preserve the raw truth of the experience before time fades it into ordinary memory. she highlights its use in human desire: as a form of documentation of a universal human state, and as a means of approaching one's feelings and passions with clinical detachment. a book that stands up for the refusal to romanticise a shameful act, yet also embraces the refusal to apologise for it. 

i think this book really highlights the ways in which women are willing to live in comparison to those who aren't, the all-consuming passion of how women feel so deeply in both the wrongs and the rights. here it serves as a documentation of that insanity and that raw passion for the life women strive to live for. our feelings are all-consuming, when you're in it, you're alive. when you document it, you feel the burning passion of your livelihood through the words. a living proof of feelings being felt. stunning stunning stuff.

ernaux accentuates the use of writing as a way to preserve the raw truth of the experience before time fades it into ordinary memory. she highlights its use in human desire: as a form of documentation of a universal human state, and as a means of approaching one's feelings and passions with clinical detachment. a book that stands up for the refusal to romanticise a shameful act, yet also embraces the refusal to apologise for it. 

i think this book really highlights the ways in which women are willing to live in comparison to those who aren't, the all-consuming passion of how women feel so deeply in both the wrongs and the rights. here it serves as a documentation of that insanity and that raw passion for the life women strive to live for. our feelings are all-consuming, when you're in it, you're alive. when you document it, you feel the burning passion of your livelihood through the words. a living proof of feelings being felt. stunning stunning stuff.

Though I enjoyed and even related with this novella, I still find it as to be quite incomplete so that is why my ratings are lower than I previously gathered it to be

meimei

𝜗𝜚⋆₊˚⟡ ݁ 𝐴𝑛𝑎𝑖𝑠 ₊ . ˚⊹ ᰔ 

Annie Ernaux a une plume incroyable, néanmoins ses histoires ne sont pas pour moi. J'ai beaucoup de mal à être prise dans ce qu'elle écrit, je n'arrive pas à me concentrer sur ses propos et c'est dommage car je pense que le livre est quand même profond et bien écrit. 

Encore une fois, deux étoiles pour la plume mais je m'arrête là pour ce qui est de cette auteure (pour l'instant). 

♡ 

Annie Ernaux a une plume incroyable, néanmoins ses histoires ne sont pas pour moi. J'ai beaucoup de mal à être prise dans ce qu'elle écrit, je n'arrive pas à me concentrer sur ses propos et c'est dommage car je pense que le livre est quand même profond et bien écrit. 

Encore une fois, deux étoiles pour la plume mais je m'arrête là pour ce qui est de cette auteure (pour l'instant). 

Annie’s attentiveness to temporality in both how she writes (/plays with tenses) and the themes that she writes about (recollections, imagined scenarios) is astonishingly thoughtful/perceptive and so reflective of how the past, present and future are always in a sort of constant superimposition at any given moment. This account of limerence is almost anthropological in its disentanglements of intimacy and desire and the physicality of a one-sided coin in romance. 

Aadhiya

author recommended by a friend, would like to read more of her work. Cool style, good story, would’ve been more impactful in a different time of my life, like after a breakup. Quick read, prob will come back to it 

Lila Nagy 

“I measured time differently, with all my body.” / “I could experience only absence or presence. I am merely listing the signs of a passion, wavering between “one day” and “every day,” as if this inventory could allow me to grasp the reality of my passion.”

shen

she understands my hesitation when it comes to writing :ʼ) 

i listened to this as an audiobook on a long roadtrip, and while i usually get distracted by my surroundings and let my thoughts wander, something about Ernaux's writing always keeps me intrigued. listening to this book felt like an hour in a therapy session, except the therapist is both your best friend and a complete stranger, who you just stumbled upon in the queue to the ladies room at some party. she (because of course she is a woman) has lived exactly your life, yet a completely different version of it. 

i loved how Ernaux simply embraced passion as an intrinsic part of herself, without judging wrong or right. while the object of her passion is a man, i did not feel this was a story of love. to me, it was a story of a person cabable of an immersion so deep that everything else becomes irellevant. a sometimes dangerous, but sometimes delightful trait...

Cecilie Spangsberg

i listened to this as an audiobook on a long roadtrip, and while i usually get distracted by my surroundings and let my thoughts wander, something about Ernaux's writing always keeps me intrigued. listening to this book felt like an hour in a therapy session, except the therapist is both your best friend and a complete stranger, who you just stumbled upon in the queue to the ladies room at some party. she (because of course she is a woman) has lived exactly your life, yet a completely different version of it. 

i loved how Ernaux simply embraced passion as an intrinsic part of herself, without judging wrong or right. while the object of her passion is a man, i did not feel this was a story of love. to me, it was a story of a person cabable of an immersion so deep that everything else becomes irellevant. a sometimes dangerous, but sometimes delightful trait...

she does not want u to know her but still wants to discuss it.... same !

pranya

Helena

“Now I was only time flowing through myself.”

“Those conversations, when I had continually responded to the other person by saying “me too, it’s the same for me, I did that too,” suddenly seemed futile, removed from the reality of my own passion. Rather, something was lost through these outbursts.”

“When I was a child, luxury was fur coats, evening dresses, and villas by the sea. Later on, I thought it meant leading the life of an intellectual. Now I feel that it is also being able to live out a passion for a man or a woman.”

"À partir du mois de septembre l'année dernière, je n'ai plus rien fait d'autre qu'attendre un homme : qu'il me téléphone et qu'il vienne chez moi." Annie Ernaux

Passion simple

Noah

Lu d’une traite, peut être pas au meilleur moment.

mina nayeri

I found Ernaux while I was reminiscing the times I spent with my beloved, and the lives I lived during the same. The void that love left in me, Annie Ernaux filled it. 

anushka

i hate to say that i felt like this put words to my experience

emma li

In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux's SIMPLE PASSION documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a connection with her beloved or is subject to her cold indifference. With courage and exactitude, she seeks the truth behind an existence lived entirely for someone else, and, in the pieces of its aftermath, she is able to find it.

syadrina

WHY IS SHE SO ME????? (devoured this in 45 minutes at waterstones really sorry but theres no way im spending 10 quid for a 48-pages book)

farah farooq

Morgan Thomas

Becoming more convinced that Ernaux is not for me (this is the second of hers I've read). I find her subject matter interesting but her sparse prose and short novels never seem to draw me in. Similarly to "Happening" there were parts that intrigued me (I related to some descriptions she wrote about longing, one particular one that stood out to me was in the course of getting ready to meet this man for an afternoon the anticipation of the particular moment when he would arrive) but overall the story felt lackluster. 
I felt bothered by the way she seemed so obsessed with a man who seemed to care little of her. Stuff like that exhausts me. I feel it exists beyond the normal bonds of obsessive pining. He is there but not fully engaged. Why wear yourself out for someone like that? I suppose passion has to logical reasons. I wonder if he too shared her passions. The last 20 pages or so somehow felt a little better, I think because the affair was over and she was beginning to try to piece things back together.

Simple Passion

Reviews

Highlights