Shame and Philosophy

Francey Russell

Shame is all over Annie Ernaux’s work, and so is philosophy. It is impossible to miss the relentless omnipresence of the former: shame is a title, a topic, a gift, a trap. Shame is the abiding atmosphere that both sustains and splinters the author’s consciousness and her prose. Ernaux is either writing from shame, or of shame, or—more rarely—remarking on shame’s absence: in Getting Lost, a chronicle of a late love affair, Ernaux observes that “for five years I’ve ceased to experience with shame what can be experienced with pleasure and triumph (sexuality, jealousy, class differences).” Only someone otherwise swamped with shame would note such rare relief.

Yet a reader might miss the more flickering presence of philosophy—though philosophy flickers consistently, making an appearance in some form or another in almost every one of her books.