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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
fast-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Ernaux's book, which is really a long essay, is a look at a big superstore (i.e. Wal-Mart) in France. There is much here to make you think. Her comments about how one shops in one as well as the rise of self checkout are good. And the idea of the store as being more accepting of others than the country in general is intersting.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
El principio, luces que non son artificales...sino que muestran un camino hacia la mirada y su cuestionamiento...la aparicion de por tanto una cultura.
Ernaux nos concentra en la experiencia de un supermercado, que se vuelve gran superficie con el paso del tiempo. Un Alcampo que podría ser el que se posiciona en un centro comercial como el Gran Plaza de Majadahonda, o el Plaza Río madrileño, pero desde sus orígenes. La autora es una persona que no se cuestiona que está haciendo antropologia sino que vive su experiencia desde el mito, como sí de una prisionera del capitalismo busca la luz al porque realiza el rito de comprar.
Mi apertura crítica a leer a Ernaux sólo acaba de empezar.
Ernaux nos concentra en la experiencia de un supermercado, que se vuelve gran superficie con el paso del tiempo. Un Alcampo que podría ser el que se posiciona en un centro comercial como el Gran Plaza de Majadahonda, o el Plaza Río madrileño, pero desde sus orígenes. La autora es una persona que no se cuestiona que está haciendo antropologia sino que vive su experiencia desde el mito, como sí de una prisionera del capitalismo busca la luz al porque realiza el rito de comprar.
Mi apertura crítica a leer a Ernaux sólo acaba de empezar.
Annie Ernaux hace un análisis socioeconómico de la Francia contemporánea a partir de sus visitas al hipermercado Alcampo
Je vois ce le message que AnnieErnaux a voulu faire passer malheureusement je ne pensais pas lire un livre sur Auchan
I guess this is what happens when Ernaux runs out of diaries to adapt …
But joking aside, it's not every day that somebody makes you look differently at something you see everyday. I don't really like supermarkets all that much, they're just too big and loud and crowded (though malls are really the worst, I say, looking twice my age), but I can certainly appreciate Ernaux’s appreciation, and maybe I am being too harsh, these big and mostly clean modern creations of capitalistic overreach that work as the contemporary mingling spot, an oasis in the middle of the city, we don't talk, but we co-exist in our way to a filled tabled, cupboard, birthday party, and so on, the sign of our times. It used to be the church that overtook our lives by laying its grubby mitts on the inevitable aspects of it, birth, death, marriage, midwinter holidays; now supermarkets offer the priests worthy competition by working to lay claim to even more with their seasonal sales & an offering for every need you can’t but they can think of.
Ernaux can't help but feel hopelessly her social class, her economic class, her skin colour etc; a well-off white middle-aged (or more) literary writer slumming; but she's not cruel, and she's not that condescending, she really sees herself more a part of it, even if she's better educated than most people you meet there.
The collection of her trips to the store is certainly meandering, and one can easily joke about how she's trying to overcome writer’s block by writing about whatever happened to be in front of her and incidentally she was in a store, but her laconic observations, informed by her literary education & liberal views, while keeping her at a distances due to the inherent position of a cold observer, they draw us nearer to ourselves, moving in the supermarket corridors, heads lost in our lists and needs, occasionally stumbling into a well-placed attention grabber, buying the candy we didn't need or looking at the screaming items in our carts we didn't want, drowning through the self-service, and once out, running in liberation.
Ernaux is quite happy with the time that comes before the running, even if she is also harshly critical of the overwhelmingly capitalistic zeal of the place, the money in your pocket the most important thing, the customer far second, the employee even further behind, and the person making the things in Bangladesh not even registering at all. It’s quietly fascinating to see it through her eyes, even if I'll keep running myself.
But joking aside, it's not every day that somebody makes you look differently at something you see everyday. I don't really like supermarkets all that much, they're just too big and loud and crowded (though malls are really the worst, I say, looking twice my age), but I can certainly appreciate Ernaux’s appreciation, and maybe I am being too harsh, these big and mostly clean modern creations of capitalistic overreach that work as the contemporary mingling spot, an oasis in the middle of the city, we don't talk, but we co-exist in our way to a filled tabled, cupboard, birthday party, and so on, the sign of our times. It used to be the church that overtook our lives by laying its grubby mitts on the inevitable aspects of it, birth, death, marriage, midwinter holidays; now supermarkets offer the priests worthy competition by working to lay claim to even more with their seasonal sales & an offering for every need you can’t but they can think of.
Ernaux can't help but feel hopelessly her social class, her economic class, her skin colour etc; a well-off white middle-aged (or more) literary writer slumming; but she's not cruel, and she's not that condescending, she really sees herself more a part of it, even if she's better educated than most people you meet there.
The collection of her trips to the store is certainly meandering, and one can easily joke about how she's trying to overcome writer’s block by writing about whatever happened to be in front of her and incidentally she was in a store, but her laconic observations, informed by her literary education & liberal views, while keeping her at a distances due to the inherent position of a cold observer, they draw us nearer to ourselves, moving in the supermarket corridors, heads lost in our lists and needs, occasionally stumbling into a well-placed attention grabber, buying the candy we didn't need or looking at the screaming items in our carts we didn't want, drowning through the self-service, and once out, running in liberation.
Ernaux is quite happy with the time that comes before the running, even if she is also harshly critical of the overwhelmingly capitalistic zeal of the place, the money in your pocket the most important thing, the customer far second, the employee even further behind, and the person making the things in Bangladesh not even registering at all. It’s quietly fascinating to see it through her eyes, even if I'll keep running myself.
*2.5/5. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s definitely the least interesting Ernaux book I’ve read so far. There are a few interesting takeaways and passages, but ultimately much of what she has to say about the mega store chain feels expected, and she spends much of the book describing an experience I’ve spent countless hours of my life in. It lacks the revealing of unspoken truths that defines so much of her work