Mention Based On Books Lives Other than My Own: A Memoir
| Title | : | Lives Other than My Own: A Memoir |
| Author | : | Emmanuel Carrère |
| Book Format | : | ebook |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 256 pages |
| Published | : | September 13th 2011 by Metropolitan Books (first published 2009) |
| Categories | : | Autobiography. Memoir. Nonfiction. Cultural. France |
Emmanuel Carrère
ebook | Pages: 256 pages Rating: 4.05 | 3023 Users | 370 Reviews
Explanation Toward Books Lives Other than My Own: A Memoir
From the acclaimed Emmanuel Carrère, an act of generous imagination that unflinchingly records devastating loss and, equally vividly, the wealth of human solace that follows in its wakeIn Sri Lanka, a tsunami sweeps a child out to sea, her grand-father helpless against the onrushing water. In France, a young woman succumbs to illness, leaving her husband and small children bereft. Present at both events, Emmanuel Carrère sets out to tell the story of two families—shattered and ultimately restored. What he accomplishes is nothing short of a literary miracle: a heartrending narrative of endless love, a meditation on courage and decency in the face of adversity, an intimate and reverent look at the extraordinary beauty and nobility of ordinary lives.
Precise, sober, and suspenseful, as full of twists and turns as any novel, Lives Other Than My Own confronts terrifying catastrophes to illuminate the astonishing richness of human connection: a grandfather who thought he had found paradise—too soon—and now devotes himself to helping his neighbors rebuild their village; a husband so in love with his ailing wife that he carries her in his arms like a knight does his princess; and finally, Carrère himself, longtime chronicler of the tormented self, who unexpectedly finds consolation and even joy as he immerses himself in the lives of others.
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| Original Title: | D'autres vies que la mienne |
| ISBN: | 1429973285 (ISBN13: 9781429973281) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating Based On Books Lives Other than My Own: A Memoir
Ratings: 4.05 From 3023 Users | 370 ReviewsRate Based On Books Lives Other than My Own: A Memoir
This book left me fairly baffled. I didn't understand why Carrère had written it, or why he structured it the way he did. He took two unrelated events: on holiday in Sri Lanka he witnessed the effects of the tsunami, and met a French couple who lost their four-year-old daughter. Later, after he and his partner return home, his partner's sister, whom he barely knows, becomes ill and eventually dies of cancer at the age of 33. Well, there is a connection between these events I suppose: him. WhyDevotees may have noticed that Ive been reading Carerre this summer theres something hypnotic to his styling, a suspense in seeing how his life unfolds. This is a great distillation of his auto-biographical essay form, and the best of his minor books, far superior to MY LIFE AS A RUSSIAN NOVEL. As I consider his output since 1999, it seems that he spends years on books about his complex, enigmatic men with his memoir briefly shining through, and then suddenly explodes with a connective tissue
Impressed by his careful portraits of loss, a child to the tsunami at Sri Lanka, and a wife and mother to cancer. The writing is not just empathetic but keenly aware of the limits of empathy. He is hard on himself, particularly on his writerly egotism, especially in the earlier chapters. One wishes that either he complicates that simple self-criticism or amplifies it with detail and illustration, but perhaps the latter choice would have tipped the delicate balance of the book. As it is, the two
Familiar with the phrase 'truth can be stranger than fiction'; here I am left with the feeling that 'truth can be as compelling as fiction'.Emmanuel Carrère was on holiday in Sri Lanka with his girlfriend when the tsunami struck, they had been considering separating and then found themselves in a whirlwind period where the relative significance of these reflections was crushed by that incoming wave and the devastation it wreaked on others."Everything that has happened in those five days and was
I found this memoir to be very different, honest and intimate. The structure is strange - the first third or so of the novel focuses on the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which the author witnessed as a tourist in Sri Lanka, while the remaining portion focused on the death of his 33 year old sister-in-law from cancer. Near the end of the novel, Carrère elucidates the connection between these events: "Every day for six months I deliberately spent several hours at the computer writing
The most unexpected, beautiful, touching book I have read ... at least in a very long time. Also - a gorgeous book for lawyers, speaking to our power to impact the lives of those we serve.
The first third of the book (a description of the aftermath of the tsunami is Sri Lanka and its effects on a family who lost their child) was really compelling, but as soon as the author got into the story of his sister-in-law and her death from cancer, my interest waned. The author's egocentrism and self-congratulation were kind of funny at first, but soon got really, really old. How much can you insert yourself into the story of someone else's death when you barely knew her? And what is the
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