Title:: [[The Use of Photography]] Authors:: [[Annie Ernaux]], Marc Marie Tags:: #memoir #nonfiction Read:: [[2024-10-31]] Instagram :: https://www.instagram.com/p/DB0_SHPu64H/ ## Editions - Edition:: [[Fitzcarraldo Editions]], 2024 - Original Copyright:: 2005 - Pages::132 ## Purchase * Bookshop.org:: https://bookshop.org/a/94437/9781644214138 ## Annotations Translated by Alison L. Strayer Ernaux and Marie document in photo and words the artifacts strewn about by the path of passion preceding their physical relationship. As you might imagine, the pictures clearly and beautifully distinguish these encounters between those that materialized deliberately and those that were pure fucking.  They do this not just for documentation purposes. The act of reviewing these photos is itself deliberate - they have clear guidelines around seeing them for the first time together. This afterplay becomes foreplay and the content machine keeps churning.  This alone makes the memoir worth reading, but it’s the fact that Ernaux is being treated for breast cancer throughout this relationship that distinguishes it for me. Her awareness of her own mortality dances around all of the recollections until she realizes what else the photos reveal: “When I look at our photos, it is my body’s disappearance that I see. However, what matters to me is not that my hands and face have ceased to exist, or that I can no longer walk, eat, or fuck. It’s the disappearance of thought. Several times I’ve said to myself that if my thoughts could continue elsewhere, dying wouldn’t matter to me.”