[HN Gopher] "The Dead Silence of Goods": Annie Ernaux and the Su...
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"The Dead Silence of Goods": Annie Ernaux and the Superstore
Author : Amorymeltzer
Score : 19 points
Date : 2023-05-01 15:29 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theparisreview.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theparisreview.org)
| drewcoo wrote:
| Good grief, people! This is not an article from The Economist.
| Don't expect that.
|
| It's Adrienne Raphel, who visited Iowa City's Wal-Mart during her
| time at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, getting her MFA:
|
| https://www.adrienneraphel.com/about-adrienne-raphel.html
|
| Here's Goodreads on the book she mentioned her parents published:
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/723969.The_Case_Against_...
|
| If any of those things seem like scare words to you, you probably
| won't enjoy the article.
| tomcam wrote:
| > I hadn't stepped in a Walmart for nearly a decade, and it had
| acquired this transgressive power--the very act of crossing the
| threshold was as shameful as it was thrilling.
|
| I managed to choke down the whole article. Hard pass for me,
| thanks.
| splitstud wrote:
| [dead]
| sdwr wrote:
| Sure, the article is overwrought, up its own butt, but I also
| find Walmart unsettling.
|
| The unruly, flea-market setup in the aisles vs the prison-like,
| industrial checkouts. Harsh lighting. Overly ordered + overly
| chaotic at the same time. It doesn't feel like a place for
| people.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| It's straight-up depressing. Lotto machines staring you in the
| face when you go in (admittedly, I've only seen this in some).
| The weirdly _sick_ lighting and color choices--I don 't think
| they used to be like this, and IDK when they changed, or why,
| but I don't know of any other chains with this problem. The
| too-narrow-everything. The dirtiness of the floor and shelves.
| The disorder and clutter. The slow-moving beaten-looking
| workers. The patrons who, to a degree far greater than anywhere
| else, seem not to know how to _exist_ in a public space without
| constantly being in the way.
|
| I'd shop there often, because the prices are great, but I
| _hate_ being in Wal Mart so much that I rarely go. (I 've tried
| the pick-up order service, twice--nearly an hour to get my damn
| "ready" order, both times, never again)
| dbtc wrote:
| Theory: the store makes people vaguely sick, but they don't
| know why. Something is wrong. But there are also a great
| variety of things that offer some kind of pleasure, and you
| can buy them, and they're cheap.
|
| The designers did not intend this, but the data suggests it
| is good for business.
| m463 wrote:
| You're not the target market. People who want (require) the
| absolute lowest prices don't mind. Meanwhile you probably are
| the "Target" market, which seems to be a slightly more
| curated container-from-china with more upscale lighting,
| colors and maintenance.
|
| I think costco is the "gated community" version of these
| stores, requiring a membership to enter. A price-barrier to
| entry, or a commitment.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| As far as I am aware that is what low prices get you.
|
| "prison lighting" is the lowest maintenance, lowest cost
| option. Too-narrow everything saves on floor space, which has
| real costs in air-con and lighting. Clean and tidy is a cost
| with a negligible benefit. Happy employees require money and
| R&R, not something you have a lot of at their margins.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| So much hate for this article almost makes me have higher
| expectations than usual. There's a certain type of internet
| commenter who just don't seem to "get" any analysis that goes
| beyond the surface level, no matter what about. What's so wrong
| with writing a few paragraphs about how being in a Walmart
| actually makes you feel? By what exact mechanism does this cause
| offense and invite low-effort ridicule? Is it the perceived idea
| that the reader should now feel the same way as the author? (in
| that case you can easily get more enjoyment out of the article by
| letting that assumption go..). Is it simply the ostensible
| inflation of something simple by using an over-complicated style?
| (I find TFA no more grating than your average Paul Graham or
| Scott Alexander essay). Is it simply that the author signals in
| so many ways that they are on the other side of some big cultural
| divide? (sad, but possible..)
| howlin wrote:
| It's very hard to take this essay seriously. Mostly because it so
| completely dances around the obvious purpose of a "superstore"
| that it is hard to connect this described experience much at all
| to what people actually do in such a store.
|
| This essay kind of describes this sort of store as one would
| describe a walk through the woods. But the purpose of a walk in
| the woods is so distinct from the purpose of shopping that no
| comparison can be made.
| tomcam wrote:
| Except it's you know, transgressive. Says so right there in the
| article.
|
| Next time I want some thing that masturbatory I'll go straight
| to a porn site.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Two different posts have called out that specific part, and I
| don't get why. It fits just fine, in context. The overall
| tone of the article, I get criticizing, but that part seems
| entirely fine to me.
|
| (the context is that the author's parents seem to have
| disliked the store, and ran a press that published a book
| that was sharply critical of Wal Mart, with the result that
| the author went many years without visiting one--this context
| is presented _right before_ that entirely reasonable and
| appropriate use of "transgressive")
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| It's a continental philosophy thing. The moment I saw Paris
| Review in the title I knew there would be "transgressive", a
| few shots at capitalism, and inevitable dog-whistles to race
| and gender.
|
| And sure enough, coulda won bingo with those assumptions.
|
| Usually some sort of tie back to "the Real", in either the
| Lacan / Zizek sense, or the Baudrillard sense. Didn't get any
| of those, though; kinda disappointed.
| tomcam wrote:
| > The moment I saw Paris Review in the title I knew there
| would be "transgressive", a few shots at capitalism, and
| inevitable dog-whistles to race and gender.
|
| Lol. Boy Howdy, you nailed it and I love your Bingo card.
| In my weak defense, I hoped that, since it had been vetted
| by the good denizens of Hacker News, it would've been a bit
| better than average.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| Being able to pick up on these memes would've saved me a
| lot of time in my early adulthood.
| PreachSoup wrote:
| Thanks for the tldr. This summary is hilarious and spot on
| tomcam wrote:
| > It's a continental philosophy thing.
|
| That's going into the history books.
| noduerme wrote:
| To be fair, even the most remote Carrefour in rural France
| would be considered an opulent food palace for the top 5%
| in the United States. Some forms of capitalism seem to
| produce more aesthetically pleasing results than others.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I think they're giving us the benefit of the doubt that we know
| what a store is for and have already sufficiently considered
| what can be accomplished in one.
| dbtc wrote:
| The essay is not about the purpose, it's about the effect.
|
| I see where you're coming from, living in a big busy city and
| shopping regularly in such stores you get desensitized, but
| your comparison to a walk in the woods is perfect.
|
| A walk in the forest can teach you a different way to see, and
| so can reading a book. A more systems-minded person might see
| an entirely different world of hidden machinations than Annie
| Ernaux if they walk their local megamart like they would in the
| woods, but it would be equally fascinating to read.
|
| It has the same essence as the hacker's posture of curiosity
| and play.
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(page generated 2023-05-01 23:01 UTC)