How women remember novels: 'Petite Nuit' by Marianne Alphant and 'Comment j’ai appris à lire' by Agnès Desarthe

Abstract

Whereas reader autobiographies written by male authors frame the discovery of reading as an epiphany gloriously leading to a writing career, female writers sometimes recount a traumatic initial encounter with books, which can lead to self-annihilation (in the case of Marianne Alphant’s Petite Nuit, 2008) or a radical rejection of reading (in the case of Agnès Desarthe’s Comment j’ai appris à lire, 2013). The contemporary female reader, thus, is every bit at risk when exposed to reading as we imagined her to be in the 19^th century and in the wake of Madame Bovary’s catastrophic example. They lean into the worst clichés, describing themselves as emotional, sentimental, sexualized, childish or vulnerable. Instead of disproving those characteristics, Alphant and Desarthe show how embracing their own vulnerability puts them in a position where books could actually save them. This process of reappropriation leads to advocating new, more sensitive and humbler ways of reading and thinking about texts, turning the weak points of the female reader into assets.