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New Oxford Review, Jan-Feb 2023

a good learner

"He used to say I was a good learner, never a good worker. Work was only ever done with your hands."

~~ from A Man's Place by Annie Ernaux

A Man's Place

"He was both worker and shopkeeper and, as such, was doomed to a life of solitude and distrust. He didn't belong to a union. He was afraid of the right-wing Croix-de-Feu partisans, who marched through L-, and of the Reds, who were after his business. He kept his ideas to himself. You don't want ideas when you're in trade.

"They gradually carved a niche for themselves over the years, hovering above the poverty line, but only just. Because they granted credit, they had kept the large, working-class families, the ones who were always down to their last penny. They realized that it was the needy who supported them and were understanding, seldom refusing to 'chalk it up'. At the same time, they felt they had the right to give a good talking-to to those who turned up penniless, and to scold the child who had been sent to the shop empty-handed by his mother because it was the end of the week. 'Tell your mother she'd better pay, or else I'll stop serving her.' They were no longer on the side of the humiliated."

~~ from A Man's Place by Annie Ernaux

how low my mother had fallen

"Worse was to come, something I could never have imagined. I opened the drawer of her bedside table to make sure she still had some biscuits. I saw what I believed to be a cookie and took it. It was a human turd. I slammed the drawer shut in utter confusion. Then it occurred to me that if I left it there, someone would find it, and that subconsciously, I probably wanted this to happen so that they could see how low my mother had fallen. I found a piece of paper and went to flush it down the toilet. I recalled a scene from my childhood: I had hidden some excrements in my bedroom cupboard because I felt too lazy to go downstairs and use the outdoor toilet."

~~ from I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux

an ample tip

"Instead of their original destination, they drove downtown and ate lunch at a fancy burger joint. He felt good — joy, even. The portions were generous; the mood was right. He left an ample tip."

~~ from "An Amazing Turn" by Alex Kudera

Sartre's Nausea

"The little old lady needed to go to the can, wobbling on her crooked, spindly legs, squealing as usual. She spent a long time in there while I saw beside my mother. I recalled the spell of gastroenteritis I had suffered in tenth grade; I was reading Sartre's novel Nausea. Like the old lady, I saw hunched over my swollen belly. It was a cold, sunny month of February."

~~ from I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux

shack jobs

"'Shack jobs' is how the poet Charles Bukowski described live-in lovers. He wasn’t such a primitive, but early on he felt the lack of space. There were two bedrooms, and he more or less took one. He stayed in there as much as he could."

~~ from "An Amazing Turn" by Alex Kudera

swatting a fuzzy green ball

"Now, years later, he recognized that with a child on the way, this would elude him — enough money to avoid worry. To feel secure and at peace. And he’d certainly never finish writing that book. No, sir. From now on, his life would be a working one. He would scramble for dollars. Get a kid through college? He’d probably never have enough. No weekday mornings and afternoons on tennis courts. That much was assured. He wouldn’t be wasting his time swatting a fuzzy green ball."

~~ from "An Amazing Turn" by Alex Kudera

the way to her mouth

"She couldn't find the way to her mouth, her hands kept wandering off to the right. I helped her to eat her cake. When her fingers were empty, she continued to raise them to her lips. I wonder if a child does that; I can't remember."

~~ from I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux