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

B.A. Bacigal

“The man we love is a complete stranger”

Shelby Doherty

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 myself turned to them. Without knowing it, he brought me closer to the world.

Yet it is that surreal, almost non-existent last visit that gives my passion its true meaning, which is precisely to be meaningless, and to have been for two years the most violent and unaccountable reality ever.

The prospect of rediscovering "life's little pleasures" - meeting friends, going to the cinema, enjoying a good meal - has become less horrific. I am still in the age of passion (one day I will no longer be aware that I wasn't thinking of A when I woke up) but it has changed, it has ceased to be continuous.

I would wake up in the middle of the night, and remain in a confused state until morning, awake, incapable of thinking. I wanted to lose myself in a deep sleep but he continued to hover above me. I didn't want to get up. I would see the day stretch ahead of me, with no plans. I felt that time was no longer taking me anywhere, it only made me grow old.

During the day I tried desperately to find things to do, so as not to remain idle, otherwise I felt I would be lost (the meaning of the word was vague: to have a nervous breakdown, to start drinking, and so on). For the same reason, I made efforts to dress and make up properly, and to wear my contact lenses instead of my spectacles, although this required considerable courage. I couldn't watch television or leaf through magazines; all the advertisements, whether they are for perfume or microwaves, show the same thing: a woman waiting for a man.

When he rang to arrange a meeting, his long-awaited call had no effect on me and I remained locked in the same state of anxiety as before. My condition was such that not even the sound of his voice could make me happy. 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.

These fleeting moments of detachment were prompted by external factors; I did not wish for them. On the contrary, I avoided every opportunity that might tear me away from my obsession - books, social engagement, and the other activities I used to enjoy. I longed for total idleness.

Sometimes I told myself that he might spend a whole 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 filled me with wonder. How could this be? He himself 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 could experience only absence or presence.

As soon as he left, I would be overcome by a wave of fatigue. I wouldn't tidy up straight away: I would sit staring at the glasses, the plates and their leftovers, the overflowing ashtray, the clothes, the lingerie strewn all over the bedroom and the hallway, the sheet spilling over on to the carpet. I would have liked to keep that mess the way it was - a mess in which every object evoked a caress or a particular moment, formaing a still-life whose intensity and pain could never, for me, be captured by any painting in a museum.

I would have like to have done nothing else but wait for him.

I had no future other than the telephone call fixing our next appointment. I would try to leave the house as little as possible except for professional reasons (naturally, he knew my working hours), forever fearing that he might call during my absence.

In fact I have only vague memories of the things I did, the films I saw, the people I met. I behaved in an artificial manner. The only actions involving will-power, desire, and what I take to be human intelligence (planning, weighing the pros and cons, assessing the consequences) were all related to this man

From September last year, I did nothing else but wait for a man: for him to call me and come round to my place

Silva

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.

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.)”

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.

Helen 

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.

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.

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.

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

Sarah Christine Gill

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.

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.

“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

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

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