Happening

by Annie Ernaux

There was no point naming something that I was planning to get rid of.

What gave me the courage to go on living that afternoon was the voice of a woman who was to hit rock bottom and die. I passionately hoped that life had brought her some small glimmer of happiness

the pain I was about to inflict on myself would be nothing compared to the suffering experienced in death camps. This thought gave me courage and heightened my determination. Also, knowing that hundreds of other women had been through the same thing was a comfort to me.

There is no such thing as a lesser truth. Moreover, if I failed to go through with this undertaking, I would be guilty of silencing the lives of women and condoning a world governed by male supremacy.)

Other people’s fear was the last thing I needed; they could do nothing for me.

our primitive memory chooses to portray the past as a basic juxtaposition of light and shade, day and night.

I have no idea which words will come to me. I have no idea where my writing will take me. I would like to stall this moment and remain in a state of expectancy. Maybe I’m afraid that the act of writing will shatter this vision, just like sexual fantasies fade as soon as we have climaxed.)

But you don’t need to picture reality to feel it around you, and knowing that life went on for most people made me wonder, “what on earth am I doing here?”

At that point I killed my own mother inside me.

these are merely literary emotions; in other words they generate the act of writing and justify its veracity.)

Maybe the true purpose of my life is for my body, my sensations and my thoughts to become writing, in other words, something intelligible and universal, causing my existence to merge into the lives and heads of other people.