Annie Ernaux’s latest work of nonfiction, Look at the Lights, My Love, delves into the resigned complicity surrounding the contemporary reality of big-box stores in modern consumer culture. Originally published in France in 2014, the book provides a personal exploration of these large retail spaces.
Ernaux, renowned for her Nobel Prize in Literature and acclaimed for her ability to transform memories into art through disciplined journaling, is famous for works like The Years, Getting Lost, and Happening. These books are compilations of her diary entries that touch on themes such as gender, language, and class. Look at the Lights, My Love follows suit, focusing on Ernaux’s keen observations and reflections on superstores and their implications within a consumerist society.
Starting with an optimistic perspective, Ernaux highlights big-box stores as essential spaces in modern social life, offering entertainment and a refuge from solitude. She appreciates the diversity these spaces foster, allowing individuals of various backgrounds to interact and observe each other’s ways of life.
Spanning from November 2012 to October 2013, Ernaux’s journal entries capture her evolving feelings towards superstores. Initially excited about visiting, she eventually becomes disillusioned with the surveillance and commercial aspects, vowing to never return after cutting up her loyalty card.
Ernaux’s scrutiny exposes the oppressive nature of big-box stores as mirrors of a surveillance state, where individual actions are closely monitored. She also sheds light on how these retail giants reinforce societal divides and perpetuate desires for excessive consumption.
Beyond her personal encounters, Ernaux highlights the detrimental impacts of consumerism through accounts of tragic incidents in developing countries, revealing the human and environmental costs of mass production and consumption.
Despite her critical view, Ernaux does not aim to condemn outright. She acknowledges the complex role big-box stores play in a flawed social structure, simultaneously recognizing the sense of community they provide amidst a larger feeling of powerlessness and injustice.
Through Look at the Lights, My Love, Ernaux prompts readers to ponder the destructive influences of late-stage capitalism, emphasizing the need for collective action against a system driven by desires but lacking in meaningful change.
