anabellaedpb's review against another edition
4.0
Es increible leer sobre como los celos la consumen y le generan hasta dolor físico, lo lees y lo sientes como una enfermedad, es un sentimiento irracional porque de volver con esa persona tampoco querrias tener la relación que soliais tener, aun así los celos que ella siente son hacia todo que la otra es y ella no, en lo que falla en lo que no ha sido suficiente, hablamos entonces de un problema de autoestima y un sentimiento de inferioridad, pero sobretodo envidia la costumbre y el cariño de la rutina que ella solía tener con el que ahora el lo tiene con ella.
bookchew's review against another edition
5.0
“The strangest thing about jealousy is that it can populate an entire city, the whole world, with a person you have never met.”
I started this in the bath last night and finished it while the water was still hot. At just 62 pages, The Possession is classic Ernaux: abbreviated and intense.
In this raw account, Ernaux analyzes her obsession with the woman her ex has begun dating. She seems surprised by her own preoccupation and its repercussions:
"It produced stirrings that I had never felt before, released a kind of energy, powers of imagination I didn't know I had; it held me in a state of constant, feverish activity. I was, in both senses of the word, possessed."
I love Ernaux's writing for the same reason that it is off-putting to some: she shamelessly unveils the most shameful recesses of the mind. The parts of ourselves we'd never admit—like the ferocity that awakens and the stunningly violent impulses that come bounding through when we've lost a lover—are not off limits for her.
And yet she moves through the bleakest admissions with cool self awareness and restraint:
"I felt a primordial savagery rise up inside me. I caught glimpses of all the acts I would have been capable of if society hadn't constrained my impulses."
Ernaux describes her writing as “brutally direct, working-class and sometimes obscene." It is all of those things. It is also concise, inspired, and oddly titillating.
She says writing The Possession is "perhaps not so different from that of sticking needles" in a voodoo doll. And to read The Possession is every bit as cathartic, this short text a sort of pin pricked effigy of all of our lovers, and the partners that replaced us.
I started this in the bath last night and finished it while the water was still hot. At just 62 pages, The Possession is classic Ernaux: abbreviated and intense.
In this raw account, Ernaux analyzes her obsession with the woman her ex has begun dating. She seems surprised by her own preoccupation and its repercussions:
"It produced stirrings that I had never felt before, released a kind of energy, powers of imagination I didn't know I had; it held me in a state of constant, feverish activity. I was, in both senses of the word, possessed."
I love Ernaux's writing for the same reason that it is off-putting to some: she shamelessly unveils the most shameful recesses of the mind. The parts of ourselves we'd never admit—like the ferocity that awakens and the stunningly violent impulses that come bounding through when we've lost a lover—are not off limits for her.
And yet she moves through the bleakest admissions with cool self awareness and restraint:
"I felt a primordial savagery rise up inside me. I caught glimpses of all the acts I would have been capable of if society hadn't constrained my impulses."
Ernaux describes her writing as “brutally direct, working-class and sometimes obscene." It is all of those things. It is also concise, inspired, and oddly titillating.
She says writing The Possession is "perhaps not so different from that of sticking needles" in a voodoo doll. And to read The Possession is every bit as cathartic, this short text a sort of pin pricked effigy of all of our lovers, and the partners that replaced us.
jaiari12's review
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Body shaming
edzee_lcnm's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.5
I've had Annie Ernaux on my to-read list since she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022 and additionally since she's been quite buzzed about on my "bookstagram" circles - plus, to be perfectly honest, I needed to catch up on my annual book goals after a reading setback for the past couple of months, so a 64-page "book" seemed to perfectly fit the bill, ha!
But while I can see the appeal of Ernaux's work. It felt very personal (almost autobiographical) and visceral, scathing and raw which I sense is her trademark, but this brief tale of a women scorned and "possessed" by jealousy after her lover leaves her for another woman was not a great fit for me right at this moment, despite truly believing Ernaux achieved her goals here. It's all a bit repetitive and "cuckoo for cocoa puffs" -- but isn't that what a possessed feeling of jealous would and should be?
I impulse-purchased this one thanks to a super-duper Kindle sale, but see this is one of Ernaux's lower rated works on Goodreads. I also own "Happening," her highest rated work on Goodreads, so I am sure I will give that one a shot - as again, I can certainly understand why she won the Nobel Prize. Landing on an 3.5 stars for technical merit, tho if had to round to a whole number would round down to a 3 stars for overall enjoyment (tho given its short length, I'm tempted to give it another short when in a better frame of mind).
But while I can see the appeal of Ernaux's work. It felt very personal (almost autobiographical) and visceral, scathing and raw which I sense is her trademark, but this brief tale of a women scorned and "possessed" by jealousy after her lover leaves her for another woman was not a great fit for me right at this moment, despite truly believing Ernaux achieved her goals here. It's all a bit repetitive and "cuckoo for cocoa puffs" -- but isn't that what a possessed feeling of jealous would and should be?
I impulse-purchased this one thanks to a super-duper Kindle sale, but see this is one of Ernaux's lower rated works on Goodreads. I also own "Happening," her highest rated work on Goodreads, so I am sure I will give that one a shot - as again, I can certainly understand why she won the Nobel Prize. Landing on an 3.5 stars for technical merit, tho if had to round to a whole number would round down to a 3 stars for overall enjoyment (tho given its short length, I'm tempted to give it another short when in a better frame of mind).