Annie Ernaux, Tanya Leslie (Translator) – I Remain in Darkness

I Remain in Darkness is the companion to Ernaux’s A Man’s Place . This time the focus is on her mother. Unlike that volume, Ernaux does not go into her mother’s childhood in great detail or her married life. Rather the shift is on her mother’s illness.

From 1983 to her death in 1986, Annie Ernaux’s mother was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. Ernaux documents in diary style, her mother’s antics : forgetting people and hiding soiled clothes under pillows. At first Annie Ernaux decides that her mother should live with her but then it’s too much and she is transferred to a hospital. Eventually she does pass away.

However this is an Annie Ernaux book and from my experience there will be some philosophical subtext and I Remian in Darkness is about role reversal in mother/daughter relationships. Ernaux finds it uncomfortable that she is the mother to her own mother, when in actuality her role was daughter and nothing else.

The book is also (although it is denied) about how the body can be reduced to nothing. Each entry documents Ernaux’s mother’s regression and it seems odd how easily a grown up can go into a childlike state. Saying that this life reversal only heightens Ernaux’s love for her mother and by the time her death arrives Ernaux realises she was closer to her than her father – even to a point where writing I Remain in Darkness (the last line her mother ever said) was difficult.

In my review, I said that A Man’s Place had a poignant ending. This one has a high emotional factor and hits equally hard. With Ernaux minimal style one would think that any expression of emotion would seem cold and distant but it’s the exact opposite. I Remain in Darkness’ ending is heartfelt. The minimal style stops melodrama from seeping in.

Over the month of February I’ve been reading Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical series and I have only 2 left ( Happening and The Years) and I admit I’ll be a bit bummed when I finish The Years.

Many thanks to Fitzcarraldo for providing a copy of I Remain in Darkness