The Years

By: Annie Ernaux

Narrated by: Anna Bentinck

The Years is a personal narrative of the period of 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television, and decades of advertising and headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and written notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the time, slogans, brands, and names for ever-proliferating objects are given a voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges. Ernaux makes the passage of time palpable. Time itself, inexorable, narrates its own course, consigning all other narrators to anonymity. A new kind of autobiography emerges, at once subjective and impersonal, private and collective.

On its 2008 publication in France, The Years came as a surprise. Although Ernaux had, for years, been hailed as a beloved best-selling and award-winning author, The Years was in many ways a departure: both an intimate memoir written by entire generations and a story of generations telling a very personal story.

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insightful, a subjective take at time passing

great performance and the story is oddly gripping. The completely objective voice with which we experience a subjective worldview is bizarre and extremely immersive

Mixed Feelings

This book is impossible to rate. It is a phenomenal cultural history 1940-2017, (France, but relevant to USA and Europe). Many insightful observations, and captures the mood of those years. The intentionally non-personal point of view makes it hard to listen to, if you like a good story. Yet it is fascinating at the same time and hard to put down. Well written. Well read.

A Reflection of a Trajectory

I imagine many won’t like this book because it is not conventional- not a story, not a novel. But what it is is a woman’s view of her life and a recollection of the elements that come together in a collage to create that which is similar to how we recall time, our lives, memories.
I found it poetic and mystical. I didn’t always agree or view things like the woman she talks about but who cares. She engaged me. Ahe kept me there with her - listening.

I felt as if I walked beside her through her life

Ernaux’s elegant writing style makes this more than a walk down memory lane for a person such as I who was born in the same year. Her lucid observations and evaluative commentary allow you into the room/world with her. Highly enjoyable.

An excellent book !

This is a must read … a story of our lives , unfolding !
Anna Ernaux has captured lives of women in the last 8 decades.