I have first come across Annie Ernaux’s writing through her book “The Years“ which has been picked to be read by the “Barcelona Women’s Book Club” in September of 2023. Once I got through that one, I was instantly looking forward to get to some more books of the author’s soon. Luckily, “Happening” was chosen by that same book club a few months later and it ended up being an extremely valuable read. Centered around the theme of the author’s own abortion in France back in the 1960s, it gave an extremely personal insight into a vulnerable period in her life. This is a topic that will always be relevant, women’s rights to decide upon the fate of their own bodies but it is even more so now, at a time when it feels like some countries are going backwards in their development. The French president Macron having announced his intention to add the right for abortion to the French constitution in 2024 acts as an exemplary political decision and forms a contrast to the changes that could be observed within the last years in the United States (Adam, 2023).

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.

p. 75

What I especially enjoyed was getting insights on how the author approached the experience of writing her story from the past. The way the perspective went back and forth between herself back in the days and herself writing this story about forty years later. I always found it fascinating how detailed and exact autobiographical pieces of writing end up being, whereas I personally often struggle to remember events from just a week ago. Here it was openly stated of how the narrative came to life:

I shall try to conjure up each of the sentences engraved in my memory which were either so unbearable or so comforting to me at the time that the mere thought of them today engulfs me in a horror or sweetness.

p. 19

I have finished putting into words what I consider to be an extreme human experience, bearing on life and death, time, law, ethics and taboo – an experience that sweeps through the body.

p. 74

The way the author’s feelings and the events around her involuntary pregnancy were described was an important reminder on the advantages women can enjoy today, if they have the privilege of living in a place where abortion is legalised. Most importantly though, this piece of writing is relevant to illustrate that no matter whether abortion is legal or not, if someone has taken a specific decision in their lives, they will follow up on it, no matter the circumstances. It was shocking to read about the varied treatment and judgement one would get, depending on which social class a pregnant woman belonged to. How simply by one’s status in society the law could be more easily bypassed.

As was often the case, you couldn’t tell whether abortion was banned because it was wrong or wrong because it was banned. People judged according to the law, they didn’t judge the law.

p. 31

This was a topic that I hardly read about in literature until now and I wish it would be more broadly spoken about. I believe that many women reading about this experience would be able to relate to it, recognize their own feelings in the one of the author’s and not feel as alone with them anymore.

Although there was no cradle in my room, I too had delivered. I felt no different from the women in the next room. In some ways I felt wiser because of that absence. In my student bathroom, I had given birth to both life and death.

p. 69

I walked along the city streets, my body harbouring the secret of that night of 20-21 January as something sacred. I couldn’t decide whether I had reached the outer fringes of horror or beauty. I felt proud. A feeling not unlike that experienced by lone sailors, drug addicts or thieves, who have ventured where others fear to tread. A feeling that may partly have contributed to my writing this book.

p. 71

I’m still in awe at the honesty and the transparency around the way that the author was able to put her experience in words. This was a short yet impactful read, well deserved of its high average rating of 4,3 out of 5 ★ on Goodreads at the time of writing of this review. If you have drawn as much value as I did out of this short piece of writing, the book has also been adapted into a movie in 2021, “L’événement“. This story is an absolute suggestion from my side and one that has ramped up my appetite for more of Annie Ernaux’s writing.

★★★★★ (5/5)

_{^{Edition: ISBN 978-1-910695-83-8
Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2022 (first published in French in 2000)}}

Sources:

Adam, K. (2023): “Macron moves to add abortion to France’s constitution, reacting to U.S.”. The Washington Post. Last accessed: 28/12/2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/03/abortion-constitution-france/.