You Don't Love Yourself by Nathalie Sarraute

You Don't Love Yourself Reviews

• 
  Fionnuala

  How to get in, that's the problem, it looks impenetrable...
  We could split up and you try this side, me that side, and her...
  Ah, I hear our name being called from inside—she has already found a way in!
  What would we do without our fearless one!
  
  Well, we're in now so all's well.
  Hmm, but what do we make of it?
  I'd say it's definitely less complex than the last one we entered.
  Yes, it feels very intimate, closer to the heart of the creator.
  
  It's actually comfortable enough for us to settle in for the long term.
  Hmm, I'm not so sure, but the space does contain themes we might all relate to.
  Yes, themes about people's psyches, and developed just the way we like.
  Sensitively, delicately, even hesitantly, so as not to shock some of us.
  
  How often have we also meditated on what makes other people tick?
  And wondered what makes some hugely confident, others not at all.
  Which has often caused us to look at ourselves in turn.
  Hmm, yes, to notice especially how others impact us.
  
  Don't you find the space itself is calming in spite of the things it makes us confront?
  Yes, there are no harsh lines, it's more a curved kind of space.
  Things aren't overly defined here, room is left for discovery.
  Yes, it feels classic as opposed to starkly modern.
  
  Before entering this space, had we acknowledged how multiple we are?
  Hmm, we knew about the fearless one, the cautious one, and me, the doubter.
  Yes, and now we know there may be many more of us, as we realise that we change with time and experience.
  It's as if we've gone into self-therapy, new awareness flooding in at every step.
  
  This notion of self love, for instance.
  It is described here as something that blinds rather than gives perceptivity.
  Something that leads to people being impervious to others' needs.
  To relationships built on power rather than true respect.
  
  Would we say we love ourselves?
  Not in that way, even our doubter is nodding agreement to that.
  Yes, here it means those who have fixed views about everything, even about their own fixed 'self'.
  Those who are so sure about the world that they can see exactly where good and evil reside, and are confident that those locations never change.
  
  We are unable to view the world in such clear terms so it's fair to say we don't love ourselves in the way that's implied here.
  Not in a way that negates others in any case.
  Yes. And as we leave this space, accepting who we are, have been, and will be in the future, let's salute its creator and all that she has achieved, in all of her spaces, in the area of the examination of oneself one's selves, and how others impact them.
  Take a bow, Nathalie Sarraute.
• 
  Pardis

  کسانی که خودشان را دوست دارند بخت بلندی دارند... اما آنها بهمان خواهند گفت این که بخت نیست. یک حالت طبیعی است، آنها حتی بدون آنکه فکر کنند خودشان را دوست دارند، همانطور که نفس می کشندخودشان را دوست دارند... وگرنه چه طور می شود زندگی کرد؟
• 
  Haman

  "عشقی که انسان به خودش دارد و به شدت هم دارد،هرچیزی که از آن ناشی می شود به دارایی تبدیل می کند ....بدون استثنا هرچیزی را ...کمترینش ،طرحها ، چرک نویس ها ، وراجی ها ، بدگویی ها ، نجوا ها،کارت تبریک ها، دفترهای حساب رسی و تاثیر سیگار روی عملکرد روده هاست ...
• 
  Poline

  Deuxième lecture de ce roman dont le titre m'avait marqué au premier coup d'œil. C'est un dialogue interne, constant, complexe, mais aussi fluide que le fil des pensées et réflexions de Nathalie Sarraute, mais également de celles qui nous hantent dans nos questionnements, nos doutes et nos craintes concernant l'amour de soi; est-il indispensable? Mieux que tout?
  
  Une œuvre stimulante que je recommande vivement!
• 
  مهرنوش

  طبیعی است کسی که خودش را دوست دارد و همیشه در فکر آن است که به خوبی از خودش مراقبت کند همیشه با تمام قوا به سمت خوشبختی کشیده شود...
• 
  Lee Foust

  Admittedly I bit off a bit more than I could comfortably chew, attempting to read this very abstract novel in my second language. Still, it's my favorite Sarraute so far since Tropisms, and I'm not sure if this one has ever been translated into English. I liked Tu non ti ami as much as Tropisms for exactly the same reasons that it was so difficult to read in Italian--Sarraute's approach to writing about people is wholly abstract and unspecific, impressionistic even. Vagueness is hard enough to stick with in one's first language, but, boy howdy, just try 200+ pages in a learned language and ADHD takes on whole new meanings.
  
  Still, the voices here--ostensibly that conversation we're all always having with ourselves in our heads--and their extended meditation on self-admiration in human interactions is so original, right on, and brilliant, that this is a minor masterpiece of novelistic experimentation. I love novels that stretch what a novel can do. Guarantee: you've never read anything like this.
• 
  Jack Rousseau

  Sometimes Happiness, trapped in a solid block in a book, hits a whole population... Modest, docile, peaceful people who up till then had managed by good-will to remain within the safety of recognized, intangible Happiness, one fine day received this parcel bomb...
  (pg. 66)

  
  In the beginning, it is established that that the narrative is a number of voices inside the mind of a fragmented personality. Perhaps the mind of someone like
  Billy Milligan, someone with multiple personality disorder.
  

  You said... it was crazy... "Listen, I wanted to ask you... Do you, inside yourself, well, in your inmost depths, do you have the impression... bu I really do mean: - in your innermost recesses, that you can manage to see yourself with some degree of clarity... do you have the impression that you know who you are..."

  
  

  Remember how his "frank," "open," "kindly," gaze... a look which had actually encouraged that kind of question... how it became even more open... "What did you say? Have I misunderstood you? You're asking me whether I know who I am? Must I tell you?" "Oh yes..." "Well, I'm a man of fifty, the father of a family, of Irish origin... My profession..." "No, not that, not that sort of thing, I too know that about myself... What I wanted to know was... it's hard to explain... whether you feel that you are a very compact and unified whole, endowed with such and such qualities and, of course, defects... but forming a whole... a clearly-defined whole that you can look at from outside... well, that you project in front of yourself..." "Ah, that, yet. And when I observe myself carefully, I always see in myself... you see, it's quite complicated... there are two men in me, sometimes I'm the one and sometimes the other, not both at the same time... I get that from my grandfather, he always used to say: 'There's a monk and a banker in me'... "That's right. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two contradictory beings..." "Yes, although I have to admit that as regards a Mr. Hyde in me... obviously nobody's perfect... but I don't believe..." "Oh, that wasn't what I meant, I just wanted to point out that there were two people in you... That's very few..."
  You remember his astonishment... "That's few? Are there more in you?"

  
  

  And you, shamefacedly... "Oh yes, there are as many... as there are stars in the sky... others are always appearing whose existence no one suspected... So you see, Iv'e given it up, I am the entire universe, all its virtualities, all its potentialities... the eye can't perceive it, it extends to infinity..."

  
  (pg. 9-10)

  
  Perhaps not. Perhaps the author is using the form to explore the nature of fiction. What is fiction, after all, but something that originates in the mind of the author and expands infinitely, creating a universe for the reader to inhabit? In any case, the suggestion is that the narrative is told by an "infinite" number of voices, all originating from the same source.
  

  But all that as if going without saying...

  
  

  As our existence goes without saying... When we're in good health, do we notice our breathing, the movement of our blood, the play of our muscles?

  
  

  Yet there were moments...

  
  

  Seen from outside, they would have seemed unimportant...

  
  

  When something... how to describe it?...

  
  

  Was it a colour, a line, a barely perceptible nuance, an intonation, a silence... but that can't let itself...

  
  

  That could never be captured by any word...

  
  (pg. 127)

  
  There are greater implications to this notion... There are transcendental implications that encapsulate all life. There are deterministic implications that take into consideration the infinite number of possible outcomes to every decision. Implications aside, the text still succeeds on the superficial level, as the story of an infinitely fragmented self, trying to come to terms with the titular question of self-love, and the suggestion that the failure to achieve self-love has resulted in the fragmentation of self.
  

  "What he said wounded me. Yes, I was upset. Why exactly? Oh, I don't really know. What's certain is that I found it unpleasant."

  
  

  Now there's a way of speaking that's instantly recognizable...

  
  

  That's the way someone who loves himself speaks to himself...

  
  

  Yes, we here, among ourselves... we don't use those words, "me," "I"...

  
  

  Or rather let's say we don't use them any longer... We still did, after that "You don't love yourself" hit us and caused such a great upheaval in us, when we realized more clearly than ever that we had broken into a multitude of disparate "I's"... whom could we love in all that? For a time, several "I's" "me's" "you's" were still questioning each other within us: "How could you have done that?"...

  
  

  And then these "I's," these "me's," these "you's" disappeared...

  
  (pg. 85-86)
  
  

  The person who loves himself splits himself in two... projects his double outside... places it at a certain distance from himself...

  
  

  So that it can fulfill certain functions...

  
  

  And this time, the double hasn't fulfilled its function...

  
  

  But what function was it, exactly?

  
  

  That of frontier guard... you remember how he was keeping watch, seeing them coming from a distance, the people who were getting ready to go beyond the limits...

  
  

  And now this ever-vigilant guard, she looks for him in vain... where has he gone?

  
  

  He's gone over to the other side, he's joined the vulgar...

  
  

  He, her double, has gone to demean himself, to mingle with his inferiors who are clumsy, ill-bred, incapable of controlling their movements, of using their ten fingers properly...

  
  (pg. 144)

  
  At first the infinite number of voices appear to be represented by two voices conversing, but their true number is later implied...
  

  Yes, but if it were me, I wouldn't attache any importance to...

  
  

  If it were me, in spite of that I'd find room for...

  
  

  If it were me, I wouldn't hesitate to dismiss...

  
  

  If it were me, I'd hand out...

  
  

  If it were me, I'd keep...

  
  

  If it were me, I'd be on my guard...

  
  

  If it were me, I'd keep quiet...

  
  

  If it were me, I'd admit...

  
  

  If it were me, If it were me, If it were me...

  
  (pg. 150)

  
  The voices alternate between conversation and compilation (as if seeing the world from the same vantage point but from different angles, and therefore comparing notes), between clashing with each other and building upon each other...
  

  Delight... was that actually the word he used? it's hard to remember...

  
  

  Yes yes, it actually was delight. "A delight to see so much courage, independence..."

  
  

  That could only have been said in a tone vibrant with sincerity... a tone that ought to have made him feel that what we said "came from the heart"...

  
  

  Then all of a sudden that movement he made as if to protect himself... that cutting, glacial "Thank you very much" that he pressed on us...

  
  

  His look, which quickly rounded us up and compressed us into one... an then he eyes this "one" with scorn... What's that? Who is this individual who has dared to trespass... uninvited...

  
  (pg. 170)

  
  An interesting narrative, and a fascinating experiment by one of France's most renowned experiment novelists, Nathalie Sarraute - best known for her association with the
  Nouveau Roman. Inspiring to see the author, more than 30 years after the inception of the Nouveau Roman, 89 years old, still contributing to the innovation of the novel.
• 
  Chloe

  Nothing happens in this book, but you should still read it.
• 
  Friedfrost

  Ce livre mérite moins d'une étoile : verbiage plein d'imprécision ou on ne sait pas ce qu'on lit, ou on va, ou rien n'accroche, ou rien n'a d'enjeu ou d'importance : pas de personnage, pas d'intrigue, pas de style marquant, pas de construction. Une chose informe et désagréable, dont la lecture n'est pas plaisante, du début à la fin et qui même, à certains moment, endort ou rend furieux.
• 
  Tasnia Priota

  Though I had to push myself a lot in the beginning to continue reading this book, eventually it resonated so correctly with my own continuous conscious meaningless yet so meaningful thoughts and conversations with myself..
• 
  Josée

  Sur les mots, le langage, la parole qui ouvre à l'Être. Auteure fétiche pour les représentations de la conscience. Mon livre préféré de Sarraute, avec "Ouvrez".
• 
  Alex Aguilera

  Fueron dos factores los que me acercaron a esta novela al verla enterrada, hará ya unos meses, en una tiendecita de reliquias literarias: la autora y el título. La autora porque me la habían recomendado, y llevaba ya varios meses infructuosamente buscando su obra Tropismos. Y el título porque sí, porque suena bien, es un título dinámico, no sé. Al ojear sus páginas unos segundos, me decidí a comprarla, definitivamente, por su estructura y forma: un diálogo interior. Suena raro, sí. La novela está constituida, básicamente, por diversas conversaciones entre los diferentes yoes del protagonista.
  La razón por la cual no le he dado cinco estrellas es simple: se hace pesada. Es redundante, reiterativa. Repetitiva. Si bien las reflexiones que hilvana acerca de la Felicidad (así, en mayúsculas, muy adecuadamente retratada como un "lugar" en la novela) son interesantes, no deja de reutilizarlas una y otra vez.
  Aún así, está bien. Acaba resultando no más que un análisis sobre el amor propio, presentado como vehículo hacia la Felicidad y otros privilegios espirituales e, incluso, sociales. Sarraute merece más atención.
• 
  Matthewaqq

  That’s the whole point. What can we do to make an image of ourselves stick all over us, take shape, remain fixed long enough…
  Yes, for us to be able to contemplate it…
  A beautiful image…
  Oh, not even beautiful… an image of ourselves that we would love just as it is…
  That wouldn’t be transformed into an enormous shifting mass… Which contains everything… in which so many dissimilar things collide, destroy each other…
  
  
  But you must… now that you’ve come back to yourself, or rather, to us again, now that we’re here, among ourselves, in our innermost being, you must look again at what you showed them, that form you gave rise to in them, one of the ones that they are used to, of classic simplicity… it may prevent you from exposing yourself to them in the future… Try, make an effort…
  
  
  As for old people… well, they have often been so well trained throughout their long lives to feel “real,” that in the end they can’t manage to be anything other than that: really perfect models… some of them must think they deserve to be seen as “the very image of old age.”