This short novel (English: The Event, the translation title 'Happening' is a miscast) is, of course, first and foremost the shocking story of a femaleThis short novel (English: The Event, the translation title 'Happening' is a miscast) is, of course, first and foremost the shocking story of a female student, in 1963 France, who becomes unintentionally pregnant and has to search for a clandestine abortion. Apparently, this is autobiographical and that makes it even more terrifying. Ernaux's style is clinically precise, very descriptive and recording (in fact, rather remembering). Because it is told in the first person it also resonates much more than her award-winning Les Années from so much later that in most part uses the impersonal third person. But this booklet is at least as interesting as a form of memoir. Ernaux wrote it 37 years after her own experience. And she also deliberately presents it as an attempt at reconstruction, based on her diary at the time. To her dismay, she finds that in her active memory she only retains memories of material things, not of feelings or moods. And so she has to reconstruct that emotional aspect herself so many years after date. That is not obvious. Moreover, there is also the question of why she is now writing this, after 37 years. It is a question that she goes into several times in this novel, and that she ultimately answers: “that my body, my sensations and my thoughts become writing, something intelligible and general, my existence completely dissolved in the heads and lives of others. » In other words: sharing with others, women in the first place. It is perhaps the motto that can be placed on Ernaux's entire oeuvre....more
In our daily life we’re constantly confronted with rules, conventions, and arrangements; a lot of them are formal (laws or coded regulations), but mosIn our daily life we’re constantly confronted with rules, conventions, and arrangements; a lot of them are formal (laws or coded regulations), but most are informal. It is a very important part of the process of growing up to get to know these rules and learn to cope with them. It is also a never ending job, because the rules constantly change, as there is a lot of contradiction between them, but especially as people tend to disregard the rules and live their own lives. Even more, it is almost impossible not to break or “bend" any rule, and sometimes a life is built upon the decision to deliberately go against the rules.
In essence, this is what this novel is about. ‘The rules of the cider house’ are the admonitions that are listed on a paper, in the house of the black pickers in an apple-orchard in the American state Maine. The illiterate men do not understand the list, but follow their own set of rules and cope with their difficult situation; for example: “a little violence between them is acceptable, but not so much that authorities have to come in”. It takes a while for the main character of the novel, Homer Wells, to become aware of this situation. Homer grew up in an orphanage, run by the unruly doctor Larch. Larch is specialized in deliveries and abortions, combining this “Work of the Lord” with a growing ether-addiction. He trains his favorite orphan Homer to do deliveries and he becomes a surrogate father for him; though Homer refuses to do abortions because for him fetuses have souls, he does not contest the right of women to a free choice; in other words, he’s wrestling with the rules and making his own choices.
After some twists and turns Homer ends up in the Maine orchard, gets entangled in a kind of love triangle and as a result has a son; in these human relations also there’s a lot of wrestling with the rules (although here Homer prefers to “wait and see”). But in the end, Homer succeeds in making his own choices, developing his own set of rules.
I had some trouble getting through the first third of the novel because Irving only very slowly puts the pieces of the puzzle on the table, but after that moment the story and the main characters captivate you and never let you go. I was happy that the classic Irving-ingredients (bears and other circus-elements, sudden events that change the whole setting) were not included; only the iconic doctor Larch and the violent orphan Melony introduce some absurd-hilaric elements. In this sense, this novel is far more homogeneous than Irvings other books; and consequently, this gives the message (about the rules) more power. A special note deserves Irvings militant view on the question of abortion: the author does not conceal his pro-choice-stand, although he describes the medical interventions with such detail that it could shock some readers. But, even here he leaves room for other points of view.
On top of that there is the ever present wisdom, the very mild, tolerant way to judge people’s actions, the comical situations… Typical Irving, I guess. I really loved to read this novel....more
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