Sara & Cariad's Weirdos Book Club - A Man's Place by Annie Ernaux

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

This week's book guest is A Man's Place by Annie Ernaux.Sara and Cariad discuss fathers, French class, adolescence, farms and more! Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you!A Man's Place by Annie Ernaux is available to buy here or on Apple Books here.Sara’s debut novel Weirdo is published by Faber & Faber and is available to buy here.Cariad’s book You Are Not Alone is published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy here.Follow Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club on Instagram @saraandcariadsweirdosbookclub and Twitter @weirdosbookclub Recorded by Ben Williams and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Artwork by Welcome Studio.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah Pasco. Hello, I'm Carriad Lloyd. And we're weird about books. We love to read. We read too much. We talk too much. About the too much that we've read. Which is why we've created the Weirdo's Book Club.

Join us. A space for the lonely outsider to feel accepted and appreciated. A place for the person who'd love to be in a real book club, but doesn't like wine or nibbles. Or being around other people. Is that you? Join us. Check out our Instagram at Sarah and Carriad's Weirdos Book Club for the upcoming books we're going to be discussing. You can read along and share your opinions.

Or just skulk around in your raincoat like the weirdo you are. Thank you for reading with us. We like reading with you. This week's book guest is A Man's Place by Annie Ano. What's it about? It's a woman reflecting on her life with her father and the life of her father. What qualifies it for the Weirdo's Book Club? Well, it's deeply personal without being dramatic.

So weird. In this episode we discuss fathers. French class, adolescence and farms. Carriad. Sarah. We have a very thin book. Oh, it's so thin. It's so light.

You barely know it's in your bag. I mean, it's basically a pamphlet. It's a size-wise. Not contents-wise. It's a theatre programme. So this is a man's place by Annie Erner. Ere No. So...

Annie Eir-Nor. I love this author and I love this publisher. And I was with Josh, who works for Faber. We were in Bath. We were waiting for a taxi. And he was telling me a story about the only thing Sally Rooney had agreed to do. and it was interviewing Annie Elnour. But the pronuncias and her surname, which he pronounced properly,

made me think that something awful had happened in the street. Because he was saying, oh, Sally Rooney, she agreed to interview Annie. Oh, no. And I said, what? And I thought that taxi hadn't arrived or there'd been a crash. And he was like, winner. Enno. Winner of the Nobel Prize in the Easter.

With the Nobel Prize, you don't know the nominations. You don't know the winner. Oh, really? Yeah. They're not telling you've been nominated. So anyone can say they've been nominated and you aren't to be disproved because I heard you were up for it this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Isn't, weren't you? Last year. Last year. Oh, right, last year. I've, to be honest, quite a few years. It's almost, I was like, don't worry about it, guys. Yeah.

Just when I'm 80, let me win. It's like the James Acaster of Red of President. Yes. I've been nominated that many times for the Nobel Prize. It's almost... You're the Acosta of the Nobel. Yeah, it's almost. almost embarrassing. I might stop writing because it's just too much to keep getting nominated.

It's a Fitzcarrado edition. We love Fitzcarrado. We love Fitzcarrado. Anything they publish is probably going to be fucking incredible. And we should just say it's translated by Tanya Leslie as well. She's still writing, Annie. She is 83. She had a book come out last year, which people say fucking incredible. Which book was the one last year? It's the one about having an affair with a man 30 years younger than you. Hello. That's my life. husband's six years younger than me. She's written 20 books in a career spanning 50 years, and she won the Nobel Prize in 2022.

Yes. And the latest book is about her affair with a man, 30 years her junior. The young man. The young man. I love it. Say what you see. Yeah.

Don't spend ages on the title. There's no point. There's no point. I've never read any. I have read a woman's story, and I read Happening. Oh, yeah. And a woman's story is about having a termination of a pregnancy. as a young woman.

And it's really, I guess what, everything I've read of hers, it's really honest without trying to add any flowery writingness to it. She's so simple and clear. Yes. Her writing is like straight. What I loved about this book in particular is it felt like occasionally she, she was writing about reining herself in.

Yeah. Because as a writer, the writing wants to take over. Yeah. And if you're trying to write about memory or a real person, a real incident, self doing it. So it was, yeah, that and then happening was about school. And obviously, are they nonfiction as well? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. She's just a writer. It's like a proper writer. It's just writing things down that's happened to her. And we want to read it because she's

that good at writing. It's so French. She's so French. She's so French. And you're so there. Yeah. And so you're looking at sentence going, how did you get me into a cottage by just describing a hedge? She's sublime. You're so there. Sublime. Sublime. So I added this into my basket for both of us. Yeah, you gave this to me pre this podcast, I think. Yes, because I saw it and it was about a dad.

Yes. I didn't realize it was about a dad. Well, and then as we started reading, it literally couldn't be more of a dead dad book. It's a dead dad book. Yeah. You gave it to me. You must have told me it's about dead dad, didn't listen.

And a man's face started, I thought it was about a husband. So I just assumed a man's place it's going to be about husband. So I reading it was like, it's a bloody dead dad book. Yeah. It really is. It really is a dead dad book. It's absolutely about her dad who dies. Yes. And her relationship with him.

Her relationship with him and then just considering his life very deeply. Can I just read a tiny bit? Just to go back what we're saying, how she writes. So this is her just talking about writing this book. Naturally, I experience no joy in writing this book. An undertaking in which I must remain close to the words and sentences I have heard. Occasionally I've resorted to italics. Not because I wish to point out a double meaning to the book.

reader and so draw them into my confidence, something I've always rejected, whether by means of irony, pathos or nostalgia, but simply because these particular words and sentences define the nature and the limits of the world where my father lived, and which I too shared. It was a world in which language was the very expression of reality. Yeah. Fah, I know. Anio, yes. That distinction she made about language, the importance of language to their reality. Yes. It then feels like it's this rule that she keeps to throughout the book. I never ever was reading a passage going, oh, you've let yourself go a little bit there.

Absolutely. You're reading genius. We read lots of books and this is one where you pick up and you're like, oh, I'm reading one of the great writers of my time. Like, this is incredible writing. There is anything she couldn't make interesting. No. Because a lot of this is quite dull.

It's so dull. It's about nothing. It's like, describing a man in a shop, a man in a garden. Someone says to you, let me tell you about my dad. He was extremely working class. And I became, and she became a teacher. It's not like she had this incredible, mad separation from her family. She just literally got a teacher's qualification.

So her dad was pulled out of school as a, I think a 12 year old, anyway, you know. A proper farming, pre-war, like, countries, French countryside. And she finished school. And his insecurity about that is what the book is about. If I was going to say to someone, it's like, you know, a parent trying to do what they can for their child and then being, and then feeling like they exist in different worlds. Yeah, like giving your child that opportunity and then watching them not be able to communicate with you. He speaks a dialect. Losing them.

So he speaks Normandy dialect, which is obviously different to French. And, you know, at times when he's angry or frustrated, he can't, he can only communicate in the Normandy dialect. She refuses to use that because she's being educated and she sees it as beneath her. So language immediately separates them. Class separates them. She's become middle class because she's trained as a teacher. But it also separates her in the middle class. So.

Yes, she's not, her friends are much posher than she is. This book is the first time I've really been in the company of someone using the word bourgeois correctly. Yes. And then go, oh, yes. And I wish actually for this episode we did have a French person who understands French class properly. Yeah. Because I can't just impose working class onto this. It does feel similar.

But also I think what you have to put in context is historical class structure. If you're talking about agricultural class pre-war, and then the industrialisation coming in with World War I and World War II and what happens to France after that. So not only is she separated from her father in that way, from language, education, she's all separated that he grew up in a world where you slept in barns, they were outside toilets, running water wasn't a thing.

Like, it's so much closer to Victorian times. And he wasn't conscripted her father because of his age. He was too old and he was ill. Something was wrong, wasn't it? Yes. So he also has that thing of serving his country by staying and being useful. Yeah. And she's able to maintain a relationship with her mother in a very sort of mother-daughter way.

They go shopping or they talk about hats. And her mom isn't as intimidated by her. No. Her mom delights in it, I think. And she wants to learn from her. So she sort of borrows. Phrases and, like, books. And she's not, her mum is not an intellectual.

She isn't trying to, like, oh, you're having the life I should have had. But she doesn't, she isn't threatened in a way that her dad is so clearly. It's a character study of her dad, which I think, this is the reason it's such a good dead dad book, is most people who write about their dad's, I am one of those people. You are also one of those people. It's very hard to have a perspective on your father. in that way, but I feel like it's such a clear and unsentimental perspective of what her dad is and was.

Well, I was reading this thinking, this must be universal. And I'm sorry if anyone's listening going, no, no, that's not my experience of having a dad. But it's about losing your dad and adolescence. Yeah, yeah. Well, some of us literally. Yes. As a girl grows older, losing your dad as a girl. It's so much more complicated than just little girl and dad.

Little girl and dad, simple. Caring, caring for a child. Yeah, because he sounds like he was a good dad when she was a kid. I think he was a good dad all along. Yeah, but they have a nice relationship and he takes on a bike. It's simple. Yeah, really simple. And she doesn't question him.

They fall over, they're hurt, you pick them up. They're hungry, you feed them. And that becomes so much more complicated with age, adolescence, the outside world, ambition. So it's a very, very, very small story about things that are not extraordinary. Yeah, it's so ordinary. But it feels very, very universal.

Yeah. I suppose she's so good. Because it said is a universal story of a teenage girl rejecting her father. It must be that the majority of people could tell you a version of and that's when I stopped understanding my dad or I was frustrated that my dad couldn't understand me.

I think you could use it for any, you know, any teenager rejecting their parents, not necessarily the father-daughter relationship, but that is particularly what she's looking at, which is something we obviously particularly relate to being. Maybe that's right. Maybe the universality is as a teenager, you start to work out who you are and then you start to feel your parents either not keeping up with that or wanting you to be someone slightly different. Or not having the ability to be the person that you are.

Like that's what's so painful in this book is that her father can in no way be the human she's becoming. Like he doesn't have it in him. Literally, he can't speak the language. His upbringing is so far removed from hers that he can't meet her no and that is sad well the the feeling of feeling stupid yeah and how you can't take that away from someone he's not stupid no he's not at all no one is stupid he just doesn't use book language i suppose he wasn't given that opportunity there's also attention that he in no way chooses to have an interest in her life like i know what you're saying he's not stupid but he doesn't say he doesn't say wow tell me about this he's he's he's he's he takes it as an attack on him every time she says a word he doesn't understand and he's not

generous or open-hearted and that he's not vulnerable brene brown would say he's not vulnerable he's not willing to do the work and be vulnerable but what i think is so nice is she gives you enough of his background to explain why it's impossible for this man and that's why and the work she's done to understand him yeah later writing this down in this very unenjoyable way yeah it doesn't read like oh it's you know the pages the words have dashed off she streaming out of her. She's been so careful. So considered. And that's why it's one of those light books that's so good

because you feel like every sentence has been quadruple million checked. So is this what I want to say? I'm going to ask you, so we've talked about grief a few times because obviously lots of books have death in them. But the depiction of death in this book how did you find it? Brilliant. Yeah. A brilliant death. Oh my God. Well, you know, because we've had this conversation before

where you've said, oh, it's a grief book. And I'd be like, no, it's not a grief book. But this one really. This is a grief book. But it's not focusing on the grief. So I wouldn't particularly recommend it for someone who's grieving. I wouldn't be like, oh, this is a grief book. But I would recommend it for anyone who has a relationship with their father.

They want to investigate, which I think is most people. But the way his death is dealt with is, like everything we've said, unsentimental, clear, sighted, very choice language. The observation I thought that was so insightful is that, uh, the levels of grief in the community. So the father owned cafe and shop at the time that he died. And so some people are allowed to go and sort of say their respects to the body and some people aren't based on, I guess, the level of relationship as well. Who he liked.

And who their mother likes it. But some people are just coming sort of for a look. Yeah. And some people are affected. And so the daughter, as the daughter is seeing, some people actually are saddened. She describes how people keep saying the last time they saw him alive. Because there is that shock when someone suddenly disappears where they want to go, but he was just here two days ago.

He was just here. You know. Because he has quite a quick death, doesn't he? Yes. It's not very well. And they don't really know he's dying really. There was something she said, I can't find it, but the way the mum said it, the mum standing on the stairs and says, it's over.

It's over or something. And Annie's like, what's she talking about? And Annie's also there with her child, seeing him become a grandparent and how wonderful the grandparent he is, how happy her child is in this mad farm. But I think when somebody writes things that are so real, that makes all other writing look like pretending. Yeah. Like the way she describes the conversations they have.

So it's very measured. So we start off with his death before we have any attachment to any of the characters. And then we get to know him a little bit more and then we come back to the death. none of it ever felt like I was trying to be emotionally manipulated No, she's not, she's just telling you the facts Lots of writing is supposed to be emotionally manipulating us and that's not a criticism, that's what it's supposed to be doing

is entertaining, we want to be stimulated whereas this book goes much deeper So we mentioned on a different episode About sort of reading together in a nightclub Yeah, yeah, yeah And this is the kind of book where you wouldn't want to be too cozy lying down You wouldn't want to necessarily be on a beach Yes, that's what I'm trying to say

You could have an espresso and a srestra and a cigarette and be... I think that's what Annie wants you to do. Yeah, definitely. Sort of very deep-brained about it. Can I read a bit? He said, the rest of the time he led a quiet life. When I got back from school, he'd be sitting in the kitchen right next to the door that

led to the cafe. He would look up. Ah, here comes the girl. I'm starving. There's nothing wrong with that. Take whatever you want. Happy to feed me at least. We talked about the same things we did when I was a little girl.

Nothing more. Like that three, like three bits of dialogue. You know, you know their relationship. Happy to feed me at least, I thought was... Like he can feed her and he can say here comes the girl, but he cannot engage with her life, what she's doing, anything. I'm going to impose modern... You know, it's that love language thing.

Yes. And it's a very, very unflowery way of saying he did love me. Yeah, he did. He lit in his way. And caring. Feeding someone is actually huge, especially for someone who was hungry for so much of his life. I know, I know.

Like the description actually, just sorry to jump around so much. There's that one. one where the farmers are all fed meat and the meat's moving because there's worms underneath it. Because they've got no food. So knowing that detail about his dad's life and then him going nothing wrong with that, got to fill that belly, really means something? Yeah.

And I think also it's very bittersweet because it's always from the hindsight of after his death. Yes. This is remembering. You know she's arranged all these thoughts after he's died. She's been able to see him. And this is the thing about death. When somebody dies, you have their full narrative. And so you can stand back.

And that's why people say things like how they live their life. Because you can suddenly properly see there's an end to this life. There's a line from his funeral, which was the first thing that I underlined because I found it so beautiful and so sad at the same time. He was an honest, hardworking life, a man who had never done anyone any harm. Yeah. Because that could sound like a nothing sentence. as in there's no activity in it but actually it's huge

to not do anyone any harm I know that's huge and it's huge to say about a parent they didn't do me any harm because actually I know and that's why it's such a good book because it's not afraid to go into the depths as you said of like teenage girl father relationship how disappointed she is with him

like I think that's the other thing this book is full of it she is upset and hurt and disappointed with him as a teenager and then when he died she's able to look back and go, which is a very modern thing to do, to go, well, I understand why he behaved like that. But she doesn't shy away from how much she was embarrassed of him.

I think this is that, as you describe it, it's so clear. What's really difficult of being an adolescent is not being able to switch off the judgment of your parents. So you sort of hate them, but making you feel the way about them that you do, which you hate your horrible, harsh judgment of them. They are your, you know, have been the majority of your world, and you think the most, you know, shallow.

But also it's such a change from when you're a child and you think they're perfect, everything they say is amazing. It's so wonderful thinking your mum is a princess, a most beautiful person in the world, and your dad knows everything and can protect you from everything. And then being like, oh, they don't know what they're doing. They don't fucking know what they're doing. And that realization of like they're human, which is really hard,

even when they're doing nothing hugely wrong other than existing. What did this book make you feel about your relationship with your dad? Where I feel very lucky with my dad, not just his survival. Is my dad and quite a rare quality has changed and changed vastly for the better. Oh, that's a great quality. It's amazing. In terms of being willing to adapt and move forward. To listen.

Yeah. To take on the feedback. Like his relationship with me and my sisters, one of which is actually she's in Australia at the moment with him, my younger sister. Like, that's a massive thing for a parent to do. to listen to the thing of like, you didn't do this and you did that. Yeah, and to not throw it away and be defensive. And it's taken years.

Yeah. And so that's what I kept thinking is, if you are lucky enough to have a parent who is alive, who you can do the work with. Because there's the other side which is a parent who is alive and you can't. Yeah. You just feel like, okay, it's just stasis. We can do this. A book we really want to talk about Gwendolyn Riley, My Phantoms, shows the tragedy of them still being there and you can't move past. I do think that is terribly painful for people.

And I know so many people experience with their parents is like, oh, I could never tell them they're doing anything wrong. And I could never say, well, hey, can we communicate like this? It's like, this is how it is. That's the end of the conversation. The very least someone can do is go, I didn't mean to do it. I can see why it made you feel that. Or I'm sorry that something felt you that way.

Give you the space to say it. And I think that's what this book is like ringing with is like she couldn't quite say these things when he was alive. He wasn't a man who wanted to talk. And he said this language thing. He didn't have the language himself and he didn't like her using proper French. No, there's a bit where she says he insists on her using proper French, but obviously he doesn't want to talk about feelings. But he insists because he's got her this education that she speaks properly.

But it's a language that he doesn't use. So I think it's very heavy with things unsaid in a way. And what does that mean? It means you lose intimacy with somebody, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. If you're not. But yet there's still so much love, like you said. That's what I think she's captured is the complexity of perhaps not being able to communicate with someone.

They don't know your inner thoughts. They don't know what you care about. But you still, the love is still there. Yeah. That's very hard to get down in words. Yeah. And also why your very existence can sort of prickle someone and it's not your fault and it's not their fault. I love her interruptions as she's writing about her.

as a writer writing. Yes. Because towards the end, she also describes how she doesn't want to finish it. Yes, which I really related to. Having written a book about my dad. So when you were writing your book and you did have to go back to memories of your childhood or your dad being sick, was there this sense of at some point I'll have to resolve or have an ending?

It was horrific having to go back to the memories, particularly. of him, the childhood stuff was fine, but the memories of him getting ill, being told, because obviously it's like two, three months of my life that are very, like, intense. That was really, really hard. And then as the book missed deadline after deadline, I did have a moment and I was like, oh, I don't want to finish it. That's what's happening. I don't want to finish it because I'm saying another goodbye.

Yeah. Because it's another like, I'm probably not going to write about you in this way or live these feelings again. And I was like, oh, in a therapy session. It was like, I'm struggling to, because I struggle with endings anyway because my dad died. And I struggled to finish that book because it was like, yeah, it's you're living with them again. And even if you're talking about them dispassionately or passionately or investigate your relationship, they are alive in the writing process.

And your connection with them is alive in your imagination and then having to put that to bed going, well, that's done. I wonder with writing as well if there's that narrative, that version of a narrative, then becomes permanent whereas something about thinking about someone, memories. It's much more fluid. Yeah, it's thinking about them this way today

in this mood, thinking this, you know. Well, also you capture, like she's capturing an essence of a person and you are capturing your memory of them, not anyone else's, obviously like her mum would disagree or his friends would disagree, and you are capturing... Do you think he had friends, her dad? Yeah, I don't know.

He seemed to have such a solitary, Life. I just want to read this when she describes him. He was a cheerful man. He would often joke with the customers who enjoyed a good laugh, veiled references to sex, scatological illusions, irony was not his forte. On the radio he listened to quiz shows and the chansoners. He was always ready to take me to the circus to see silly films, to the fireworks. At the fun fair we'd have gone on the ghost train and the big dipper. It's no coincidence class-wise, smutty jokes.

Yeah. And those sort of big fun things. like, you know, with the fortnight holiday, which in Essex working class, that's the thing. Yeah, yeah. To have those moments out of... But it's like scheduled joy. Yeah, scheduled joy is perfect.

The working class life, especially what he grew up with, is so like full of drudgery and pain and coldness and hunger. And then you have... This is when we go and do our enjoyment. Yeah. It's done. Now we go back to this life. Just while we're on that,

the way that her family despises their customers. Oh, yeah. So it's a vintage shop where, number one, lots of people who are very poor, as are they, sort of existing, which means that stuff is on credit. Yeah, they have to provide credit for everybody. And then their hatred for people who don't come into the shop, the fact that they don't go to the bakery next door because the baker doesn't shop with them. They go to the big supermarket.

For a kilometre, their bread. Yeah. I found all of that so amusing. Yeah. Because, of course, that's how you'd feel as a shop. I have an ego around stand-up. And so you'd have all of these versions of that, like a stand-up who doesn't stay to watch your set. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. time when they're headlining,

bye guys, sorry, I can't stay, I just don't want to. All of these little ways that we sort of note. We know our status. Yes. You're always noting status and what people mean to you. And the fact that people come in when they've forgotten something from their big shop, they don't come in there for their things. How hard.

To be a little shop is so hard. They didn't particularly want to be shop owners. Like he was working in a factory and the mum is working in a factory at one point. It was just the easiest thing financially for them to do to try and improve. It's the mum's idea, isn't it? And she describes, isn't it? Like, they have this, like, what now would be considered a beautiful French country shop and they rip everything out and they put new things in.

They don't like the old stuff. They don't like it because, of course, it's old and horrible. That was one of the descriptions that told so much is that when they are doing things up, he doesn't want anything fancy or anything. And by fancy, it sort of means, like, preference. Yeah, yeah. And he just says, well, just what everyone has, just the normal way. Yeah.

What do you want down here in terms of, like, painting or decorating where anyone would go, what colour do I? like. He doesn't know what he likes. He doesn't know what he likes. He doesn't matter what he likes. Just the normal way. Yeah, just like everyone else. I thought that was really sad. It is sad, isn't it? Yeah. Because again, such an indication of a life where no one has ever asked you what you want your space to look like. Because he's never had that option. Getting to choose something that you like is a privilege. It's a privilege. Exactly. Exactly. And then being like... And most of us would think, oh, you know, my bedroom or my living room. Or at least my dream, if I had the money, I would do it like this. And he hasn't even

allowed himself to dream that. It's just like, just whatever normal people do, whatever normal colour and what normal sofa, I'll just have that. Yeah. But that's what I thought again is so interesting, the way she paints that agricultural life that he's come from, the farm life, of how hard it is.

And again, that feeling of history. And child labour. Yeah, full child labour. There's a couple of times we realised that it's odd having children now to imagine a time where, so she describes or she mentions at one point a daughter being married off and the mum's not wanting to happen too early

because they lose three quarters of a wage bracket. Yeah, I know. Because your kids work and you need their money for the house to survive and the same with a dad pulling a child out of school, which is what happened to her father. The dad's coming in going, it's enough now. Yeah. Because now you work full time.

Even though you were already out at, you know, harvest and weekends and everything. That's what happened to my mum. Not child labour. But she was forced out at school because they needed the money. Like that was, yeah. because it was like, why would you go to school past 16 and you can get a job and bring money in? And I remember like my mom telling me that,

me being really like, couldn't get my head around. What do you mean? She was like, well, I had to go and get a job at 16, 15, 16. It's like, what? And again, that leap between generations of like imagining me at 15 having to go to the city and be in the, I would have been fired in a minute. Because the thing that I would be like, well, and then you steal my money.

Yeah, because you're living at home. And if you want to keep your money, you've got to move out. Tough. It's very interesting how quickly expectations change. Yeah, like exactly, in one generation. And I think that's what she captures so well of like one generation making a different choice, being allowed to stay at school, being educated, people recognising her intelligence. And obviously like now she, again, come back to her.

She's, you know, in her 80s, she's a Nobel Prize winning author. I'm running out of words to be hyperbolic about her intelligence. It may be feel a loss of feelings. So she's reflecting again. And while I was writing this book, I was also marking papers and sending out model essays because that's what I'm paid to do. Right, okay, business. That's a job. Business.

These intellectual games aroused the same feelings in me as luxury. A feeling of unreality and wanting to cry. God. She's marking papers, which is what teachers do, but she's also aware that this is a level of life, which is play. Yeah. And perhaps it doesn't really mean anything. And it's intensely enjoyable. As luck, it's luxury.

I mean she describes her dad just here which says on another occasion he was dumbfounded to hear me speak English with a hitchhiker who'd been given a lift by one of the customers the fact that I'd learnt a foreign language at school without ever visiting the country was beyond his comprehension he often said by way of apology you know we didn't force her she had it in her about learning he used to say I was a good learner never a good worker work was only ever done with your hands yeah that was really interesting as well isn't it and the thing is she does work with her hand she's a writer yeah like but it and she obviously toyed was really fucking hard over her work. They sort of, I guess, I guess again it's that fear thing, but she learns all the time. She's always studying. They see the light on under her door. That's what she does in her spare time because she enjoys it and they distrust it.

Yeah. And they're fearful of it. And you're needing to say to people, this wasn't us. Yeah, this is, we didn't, yeah. We don't know what's wrong with her. And also it's like, I won't brag about her. I won't take any reflected glory, which another kind of parent really, really would.

You know, I had nothing. Look at, look at my. child, I did this. And he doesn't take the credit. But there must be something about looking at their life and her. She doesn't really express this, but not wanting what they've got.

Yeah. Wanting something else. But then it's interesting. That's why I think she's so good, because it's so complex because she's talking about, I don't want their life. I don't want to be a wife you know, bitterly sniping at my husband the whole time because I sort of hate the way they speak to each other. Yeah, that's so funny.

Yeah. I thought that she captured the way two parents who obviously sort of paint each other sort of love each other so brilliantly. But she also she also has an empathy and an understanding for their life and their love. Like again it's just so

it's so weirdly unsentimental for a book that's very emotional. And a child talking about their parents usually I mean and we would forgive it. That's all you have is sentiment because you know how can you see them clearly? They're your parents. How has she managed to see her dad this clearly? I think, I mean I guess she is writing a lot of

long time after he's died but still like so he dies in 67 and she's writing as in the 80s which you know again I don't know that's the gap maybe when I started writing about him as well like to compare myself as Danny I know you do need that amount of time I think to seek for a parent to be dead that long you to live your life become completely separate for them and then be able to go oh I can actually see who that human was now

he and my mother would invariably address each other in reproachful tones even when they were showing concern. Don't forget to take your muffler and why don't you sit down for a while sounded like insults. So brilliant. Isn't it? So brilliant. It's how married people speak to each other. They've been married too long.

Everything's slightly irritated. And she's also, she's told us already that language was their reality. Yeah. So they mean what they say. Yeah. But there's something else in the way that they say it because they've lived together for a really long time.

And then she does describe them arguing. Sometimes she would snap. talking about her mother, you weren't cut out to be a shopkeeper, meaning you should have remained a factory worker. He responded to the insult by shedding his customary reserve. Slatton, I should have left you back where I found you. I mean, that's old school. It's old school.

Heterosexual couple, wowing. I got a bit of hello-al-lo vibes occasionally. I think I imagine it was running. You're up yourself now, you're a shopkeeper when you're terrible at it. Well, you're a slatton. Yeah. It's a brilliant book. I feel like the same as we did with Deborah Levy,

all we've done is say how good it is, but I can't recommend it enough. No, I think we said a lot more because it's fucking brilliant. So Deborah Levy, we absolutely love and love her writing, but there's so much more in this book in terms of things I don't know, French class, and what the author is trying to tell me about. It's definitely made me want to read more Annie Earner. Well, let's read all of Annie Eurna. And she's still going and she's still writing.

I mean, what an incredible... I think you have to be alive to win the Nobel Prize, so maybe that really incentivised. you've got a final line oh okay I have a question for you actually because the actual last paragraph of the book yes that's the first thing why I was like I don't quite understand what you're saying with this oh I loved it

did you explain to me okay well if you haven't read the book you don't have this in this section but if you have she has a section a paragraph at the end where she's talking about queuing in a supermarket and one of her former students remembers her and says is obviously embarrassed that she's working into a supermarket

and says like kind of oh it didn't work out with my technical school which they have two, I think same as Germany that you can go to like academic school or technical school. Annie says she seemed to think I still remembered her history but I'd forgotten why she'd been sent to technical college I said goodbye.

She was already on the next customer moving the stuff along with her left hand or the right jabbed mechanically at the cash register. For me I love that paragraph because it sums up class and education and what it means. And what her dad was struggling. kind of what her dad was struggling with

and also from her point of view that you don't always remember the effect that you have on people like she doesn't remember this pupil but this pupil for her it's like oh you were miss her no you were this incredible teacher and I let you down and now you're seeing me work at a supermarket and you're going to realise I fucked up my life

but Annie isn't making that judgment Annie is just buying her food so is it a bit like with her dad her dad was very aware of her learning and she didn't mean to have that effect on purpose so she doesn't mean to have this effect on the I mean, you could definitely write an essay about that. I think she doesn't mean to,

but also there is an element of Annie that is separate from that person that is looking at her going, I am on the other side, I don't remember you, I'm still a Nobel Prize winning author. But it's not superiority, it's just... I think it's just truth. It's just Annie's giving her truth again of like... And then the girl at the till, she moves on, she carries on doing her job for the next person,

and then Annie has disappeared. And she's doing herself with her hands. She's working. she's working she's doing something with her left hand or jabbing away with the right hand and for Annie that's like you're working but yet for you you still feel like I failed the technical school therefore this is a failure

rather than like what does it mean we're all just people trying to I just thought that it is unusual paragraph compared to the rest of the book it kind of drags you into the present yes it's suddenly you're not in 1960s France you are like in 80s France she's an older woman yeah she's an experienced teacher she's got pupils that are, you know, grown up.

Her dad's been dead for a while. Yes, you're right. It brings us to now. It just drags you forward and you're like, yeah. She's so good I didn't understand it until it explains me. She's so good she does that in one fucking paragraph at the end. I mean, I would say if you write, it's one of those books that's incredible, but also that teeny bit depressing because it's so good you wonder what's the point of anyone else writing anything.

I think it's how you learn. I think it's how when you look at your own paragraph and you go, I don't know why, but I hate it. Yeah. It's really good to read someone and go, oh, okay, sometimes I'm not trusting words to say things. I'm not trusting clarity. I'm trying to over, if I wrote this book, it'd be like, right, okay, so I feel this way about my dad, okay? And it's because he did this thing and okay, you might say this, but I definitely, he didn't say it, but I felt it so it must be true. Her and Debra Levy are a complete exercise in if you want to make your writing more clear.

And in terms of our skinny reads. Yes, skinny reads. But actually, you never whist through them because they tend to be condensed. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you have a huge amount in them and they're very, very well written. Does that mean big books have got loads too many words in? I don't know.

I don't want to be the judge. We're not the one saying it. But Annie, uh-no is showing you. I mean, it's just that thing about genius, isn't it? It's like some people can take, you know, all the words, and have to say a point and Annie's doing it in like 70 pages. And actually, the other thing about this publishers, 75, Fitzcaraldo, and why people should go and have a look at them.

They're on Instagram. But lots and lots of their authors will be people that you haven't heard of and then you realise it's an absolute genius. Yes, and lots of translated work as well. Yes. Which Stillborn was another one that we covered. That was Fiscarado as well. Which we hadn't heard of and hadn't read.

Thumbs up. Fun brows. Fun brows for Annie. Oh yes. We're listening to the Weirdo's Book Club. My novel Weirdo and Carriad's book in paperback, you are not alone. Are both available now.

Merci love reading with you. You know,