The Young Man, review of a memoir

Book author: Annie Ernaux

The Young Man is a memoir where the author tells us about her affair with a much younger man. It was a short memoir followed by a short autobiography. But the lyrical prose of her writing caught me.

Reminds me of a very favorite Bengali movie of mine - Abohomaan where a director at his old age falls for a young actress half his age. The rationality of their affair was shown in the movie - the actress reminded him of his wife, at her younger age. I would have probably read the book as a scandal if not Annie points the reader at the charm of a younger lover, thus the rationality I was not aware of before. The charm is not limited to the body, it’s more about the time. In the author's words, it was her lover’s age that enabled her travel time and see herself as younger version of her.

with A., I felt as if I were reenacting scenes and actions already past—from the play of my youth. Or indeed as if I were writing/living a novel whose episodes I was constructing with care.

I knew that if I was with a twenty-five-year-old man, it was so that I would not continually be looking at the timeworn face of a man my age, the face of my own aging. When A.’s face was before me, mine was young too. Men have known this forever, and I saw no reason to deprive myself.

Annie celebrated her affair/love, however temporarily it was. A way to look at life, not being guilty about something she enjoyed. Maybe she would have felt guilty if she could not write about this experience.

I remembered another summer Sunday, when I walked between my parents down the same promenade at age eighteen with all eyes upon me because of my very tight dress that had earned me an irritable reproach from my mother for not having worn a girdle which, she said, “covers you up properly.” I felt as if I were the same outrageous girl again—this time, without the slightest sense of shame, but a sense of victory.

I enjoyed that it was very short but captured the essence the author wanted to share. My second read of Annie. Her unique writing style, naming the characters with alphabet, caught me again. The plot is not as deep as Happening, but perfect read for cozying up after a busy day at work. Or may I say, for a guilty read…