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Writing from Experience:
ThePlaceof the Personalin FrenchFeministWriting
Lyn Thomas and Emma Webb
Abstract I
m
z
Through a discussion of the work of Marie Cardinal and Annie Ernaux, this article
aims to problematize the anglophone academic world's tendency to associate _
French feminisms predominantly with avant-garde or highly theoretical texts. The
work of Ernaux and Cardinal is presented alongside a discussion of its reception I
by readers and critics in France, and by academics in English-speaking countries.
The first part of the article identifies aspects of Ernaux's and Cardinal's works ,
which cannot be encompassed within a critical framework based on the dichotomy
between naive realism on the one hand and the politically and linguistically radical
text on the other. Ernaux's plain language, for instance, is clearly very unlike the
linguistic experimentation of 'feminine writing'; nonetheless the emphasis on social
class in her writing constitutes a political intervention which is at least equally
valid.
The reception study in the second part of the article provides further evidence of
the relevance to gender politics in France of Cardinal's The Words to Say It (1975)
and texts published by Annie Ernaux in the 1980s and 1990s. The ambivalent
response of critics seems to indicate the troubling nature of writing which com-
bines the codes of realism and autobiography (or autobiographical fiction in Car-
dinal's case) with the depiction of taboo subjects such as menstruation, or a
daughter's response to her mother's debilitating illness and death. The article also
charts the widespread popularity of these texts in France, particularly with women
readers, and gives some examples of the pleasures described in letters to the
authors. In conclusion, we argue that the ambivalent space between popular and
high culture occupied (albeit differently) by Ernaux and Cardinal may be particu-
larly effective in terms of gender politics, and that even in the late 1990s, the per-
sonal may be as political as ever.
Keywords
French feminisms; women's writing; autobiography; reception; Marie Cardinal;
Annie Ernaux
27
Introduction
z
What kind of images spring to mind when French feminism is referred to?
The towering, but in some eyes tarnished, figure of Simone de Beauvoir?
Those women in 1968 who despite their male companions' rhetoric of
equality found themselves making the coffee and typing up the minutes of
the revolutionary councils? The stylish and spacious des femmes bookshop
in rue de Seine, or its literary equivalent - the linguistic complexities of the
very different writers grouped together under the label ecriture feminine?
The aim of this article is not to assess the impact of these events and per-
sonalities on the present, but to explore an area of feminist writing in
France which is not part of these images, and which generally receives less
attention in the anglophone world.
We will be looking at the work of two writers - Marie Cardinal and Annie
Ernaux - who perhaps have more in common with feminist autobio-
graphical writing published in Germany, Holland, Britain and America
since the 1970s, than with the 'feminine writing' associated with France
(see Felski, 1989). The first person writing of Ernaux and Cardinal, which
in both cases is heavily based on personal experience, may be seen as
slightly passe when compared with the radical linguistic and political
experimentation of writers such as Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous or
Monique Wittig. The use of the first person, and the (albeit to different
degrees) publicly acknowledged links between the writer's life and her
work seem to relegate Ernaux, Cardinal and others to an unfashionable
backwater, a literary flashback to the 1970s which, unlike flared trousers
and platform shoes, has not undergone a revival. We will be arguing that
Ernaux's and Cardinal's more conventional approach to literature does not
preclude them from making a significant contribution to the possibility of
cultural and political change for French women, and that, on the contrary,
many aspects of their work profoundly challenge both their readers' pre-
conceptions, and the gender inequalities of French society.
In many ways we are following on from the work of Rita Felski, who has
argued that 'the reception of French feminism in the English-speaking
world has been highly selective, focusing on Helene Cixous and other pro-
ponents of l'ecriture feminine to the detriment of alternative positions'
(Felski, 1989: 20). We will discuss the reception of Ernaux and Cardinal,
both in order to suggest reasons for the dominance and exclusions identi-
fied by Felski, and to argue for the importance of their work in terms of
its accessibility and wide popularity in France, particularly with women
readers. First, however, we will provide a discussion of the contemporary
relevance of writing which operates predominantly, in Cardinal's case,
2 within the conventions of autobiographical fiction and, in that of Annie
Ernaux, in accordance with Lejeune's autobiographical pact (where the 1
coincidence of name and identity of the author and narrator of the text I
defines the mode of reading; Lejeune, 1975). If the need to bring women's E
experience into literature led to a flowering of feminist autobiographies in c
the 1970s, to what extent does the reading and writing of personal life- 3
-4
dinal, writing the personal was seen as a political act which would
empower women through the exploration of their marginal status and >
exclusion from public discourse. Cardinal's background as a middle-class |
French woman born and brought up in Algeria led to a fragmented sense
of self, and to a need to write as an affirmation of her identity. This process
is particularly apparent in The Words to Say It, where Cardinal employs
the Bildungsroman (self-discovery novel) format and an intimate first-
person narrative voice to recount the story of a woman's struggle to over-
come debilitating psychological problems. The writing of her own
life-history led Cardinal to a sense of sisterhood and shared gender experi-
ence, which are foregrounded in the text: the narrator achieves an auton-
omous identity, in part through her conversion to the feminist cause
(Cardinal, 1975).1
For Ernaux, it was the need to express and explore her own experience of
class-based oppression and the losses involved in the process of changing
class through education which moved her to write. If class is in many ways
Ernaux's dominant theme, it is never separated from issues of gender and
sexuality. In The Frozen Woman, notably, Ernaux explores the inter-
relationship of these areas of oppression, in a first-person narrative focused
primarily on 'clearing the path of my development as a woman' (Ernaux,
1981: 63). Later, in A Womans Story, Ernaux makes the combination of
political and personal motivation in her writing abundantly clear; she is
concerned to bring her working-class culture of origin into literature,
through the account of her mother's life: 'My mother, born into an
oppressed culture she wanted to escape from, had to become history herself
so that I could feel less alone and artificial in the dominant world of words
and ideas which, according to her wishes, has become mine' (Ernaux,
1988: 106). 29
The growing emphasison differencewithin the feministmovement,and
the postcolonial and postmodern distrust of totalizing discourseshave
meant that writers working in this genre often come under fire for what is
seen as a naive emulationof patriarchalvalues and modes of communi-
cation. It is interestingto considerthe extent to which TorilMoi's seminal
analysisof the differencesbetweenFrenchand Anglo/Americanwomen's
writinghas had the perhapsunforeseenconsequenceof constructingcom-
municative writing2 as the 'other' of feminist literature (Moi, 1985).
Indeed,while Moi providesa balancedcritiqueof the respectiveschools
of thought,those readingthe text might be temptedto exoticizethe ecrit-
ure in Frenchwomen's writing and to oversimplifyits Anglo/American
counterpartas crude social realism.As Rita Felskihas argued,it may be
dangerousfor feministsto overestimatethe political potentialof the dis-
ruptivetextualstrategiesof ecriturefeminine. Felskiremindsus that 'there
exists no obvious relationbetweenthe subversionof languagestructures
and the processesof social struggleand change'(Felski,1989: 6). Making
a similarpoint, PatriciaWaughwarns against the conflation of the aes-
thetic and the political spherewhile arguingthat feminism'must believe
in the possibilityof a communityof addresssituated in an oppositional
space which can allow for the connectionof the "smallpersonalvoice"
(Doris Lessing'sterm)of one feministto anotherand to other liberationist
movements'(Waugh,1992: 195). The positiveresponseof women readers
to the texts of Marie Cardinaland Annie Ernaux,discussedbelow, seems
exemplaryboth of Felski'sbond betweenreaderand writer,and Waugh's
'communityof address',suggestingthat their widely read and accessible
texts are far from being politicallydefunct.
Although Cardinal's writing is heavily based on her own life, her contin- .
ual rewriting and reinvention of her past history indicate a sophisticated z
understanding of the constructed nature of autobiographical narratives. z
Cardinal does not, in fact, base her work on the conventional autobio- .
graphical pact outlined by Philippe Lejeune as a prerequisite for the generic
classification of a text as autobiography. Indeed, she has argued that her 3
possible.
(Ernaux,1997b: 12) 3
2
The critical reception of Ernauxand Cardinalin France X
The interestin writerssuch as Cixous and Irigaraywhich is so noticeable I
in the anglophoneacademicworld is arguablyratherless in evidencein 3
France.In recentyears, for instance,Irigarayhas found a more receptive Z
audience for her ideas among Italian feminists;Whitford argues that
Holland and Italy are the Europeancountriesmost interestedin her work IZ
as a philosopher(Whitford,1991). In general,women writersin France n
However,it was CleanedOut which affectedme the most, since for the first
time, actually,despite the fact that I read a lot, I saw situationsand feelings
describedwhich I thought I was alone in experiencing,and which weighed
heavilyin my life, and still do.
(E, aged 50; 12/9/88)
Certain texts are particularly powerful for women readers: A Woman's
Story and 'Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit' attracted a high percentage of
letters from women (80 per cent and 60 per cent respectively), perhaps be-
cause of the focus on the mother/daughter relationship which, as Irigaray
has argued, is not widely represented in Western patriarchal culture
(Irigaray, 1989). Of particular importance generally is the notion that
Ernaux has expressed a hitherto unavowed experience, and that, through
reading her, the women concerned have found a voice. Thus, a number of
readers repeat Ernaux's words in order to express their own grief, or antici-
pated loss:
My parentsareveryold, but still alive ... but I know that when they die, I will
also have lost - if I may use your movingphrase- 'the last link' or at least the
strongest'with my world I came from'.
(E, aged45, teacher;8/2/88)
One woman even constructs a brief narrative of her life, based on the title
of Ernaux's third book, A Frozen Woman: 'A woman transfixed (figee) at
twenty, not quite thawed out (degelee) by forty' (E, aged 50; 12/4/88).
As is the case for Cardinal, a striking aspect of Ernaux's letters from
women is the desire to see her as a friend. Some women readers address
her as Annie, and use the familiar 'tu' form; many others invite her - to
dinner, lunch, or even for a holiday. One woman provides an idyllic vision
of a sisterly chat with Ernaux: 'Another, less rational motive: the desire to
J12 talk with you, about life, death, writing, oblivion, whilst striding along
pathsthroughmountains,the thyme-scentedscrublandof the south, or by z
the sea' (F aged 57; 5/3/97). Again like Cardinal,Ernauxbecomesa role- o
model and an inspiration:
z
Thisbook[PassionPerfect]wasmybibleformanymonths,I draggedit about m
It was in my bagandmy memory.Yourbookwas my
withme, everywhere. 3
in
guidinglight mydestructive witha man.Youweremymodel,I
relationship r
admiredyouforbeingableto facethefinalbreak-up. I
(E, aged 26) m
Notes
illnessin 'Jene suis pas sortie de ma nuit' that 'what was exorcismhas become >
exhibitionism'(Matignon1997). Whilstfor JeromeGarcinin Le Nouvel Obser- I
vateur,Ernauxhas transformed'this finalsong of love into an obscenedescrip- z
tion of physicaldegradation'(Garcin,1997a). m
45
Cited works by Annie Ernaux
(1974) Les Armoiresvides, Paris:Gallimard,translated1990 as CleanedOut by
CarolSanders,Illinois:DalkeyArchivePress.
(1981) La Femmegelee, Paris:Gallimard,translated1995 as A FrozenWomanby
Z LindaCoverdale,New York:FourWallsEightWindows(now SevenStoriesPress).
(1984) La Place, Paris:Gallimard,translated1991as Positions by TanyaLeslie,
London:QuartetBooksand 1992, A Man'sPlace,New York:SevenStoriesPress.
(1988) Une femme, Paris:Gallimard,translated1990 as A Woman'sStory by
TanyaLeslie,London:QuartetBooks, and New York:SevenStoriesPress.
(1992) Passion simple, Paris:Gallimard,translated1993 as Passion Perfect by
TanyaLeslie, London:QuartetBooks, and 1993 as SimplePassion, New York:
SevenStoriesPress.
(1996) 'Fragmentsautour de PhilippeV.', L'Infini,56, Winter:25-6, translated
1999 as 'FragmentsaroundPhilippeV.', by LynThomas,in this volume.
(1997a) La Honte, Paris:Gallimard(not translated).
(1997b) 'Jene suis pas sortie de ma nuit', Paris:Gallimard(not translated).
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48