Welcome to Litsy!

While I was writing this book, my attention was immediately caught by any news item... attributed to the year 1952.... I felt that these events brought home the reality of that far-away year and my identity as a child. In his novel Fires on the Plain, published in 1952, the Japanese author Shohei Ooka writes: 'All this may just be an illusion but all the same I cannot question the things I have experienced. Memories too belong in that category'

To be like everyone else was people's universal ambition, the ultimate dream. Those who were different were thought to be eccentric or even deranged. The dogs in our neighbourhood were all called Rover or Spot.

“My father tried to kill my mother one Sunday in June, in the early afternoon.” So starts Shame, written about events from when the author was 12. It‘s an interesting exploration of Catholic school in the 1950s but lacks a bit of the oomph one would expect from that first sentence. I‘ve only read a few of hers so far, and this one is the weakest. Low pick for me.

Generally I don‘t like short books, and then there‘s Ernaux. It‘s hard to explain, but she has a way with words that just pulls you in. In this one she explores the shame after her father tried to kill her mother. The day was 15th June 1952. A day that forever changed her and she is trying to look at that through the society she lived in at home, at school and its aftermaths.

A look into how the events of one summer permanently alter a 12 year old girl's perception of life.