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De Vidas Ajenas (2009)

by Emmanuel Carrère(Favorite Author)

3.87 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

8433975633 (ISBN13: 9788433975638)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Anagrama

review 1: Carrere is a sharp writer and a terrifically frank narrator. Included here are testaments of tragedies that occurred in proximity to Carrere -- though not to him -- and the context of his life as he experienced and documented them. Should I care that his marriage might have been saved because he bore witness to the sorrows others experienced? I say yes. While he is at the center of the story in many ways, it's not self-indulgent to me. He's present as a narrator, he's honest (even when it is offensive) but I never felt like he was was appropriating the "lives of others" to tell his own story. I did feel a lack of intentionality or clear vision -- I think much of the book was owed to the fact that he and Etienne had an instant connection, Etienne had a story to tell, and Ca... morerrere decided to take the commission. The rest of the book was built around that. It worked for me, it might not for you.
review 2: Carrere's earlier books, namely "The Adversary" and "The Mustache," are probably more memorable long term, but this one took a larger emotional toll. As a married father of young children, I realize I'm precisely the type of reader most vulnerable to these two tales of grief though. As he writes late in the book:“Every day for six months I deliberately spent several hours at the computer writing about what frightens me the most on this earth: the death of a child for her parents and the death of a young woman for her husband and children. Life made me a witness to those two misfortunes, one right after the other, and assigned me—at least that’s how I understood it—to tell that story. Life has spared me such unhappiness and I pray will continue to do so.”I understand why some find fault with how much Carrere inserts himself into the story, making a story about the grief of others into a memoir about himself. It's not to everyone's taste, but he certainly has the storytelling chops to pull it off. As with "The Adversary" though, his participation feels necessary to turn such tragedies into something larger. less

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