The Possession

This book is about a woman that is trying to move on from a relationship that she herself broke off, but once she learns that her ex has found a new lover, moving on was way harder than she could’ve imagined.  Instead of trying to move on, she is consumed by the thought of the “other woman” and wants to find out as much as she can about her.  It is normal for people to be jealous about your ex finding someone new to replace you quickly, or even feeling hurt because the person that you love seemed to move on without a care in the world.  It seemed at first that the woman was just a bit jealous of the other girl, but while reading on, I soon learned that it is something much more than just jealousy.  She had tried to find out exactly who this other woman was through her ex, but when he failed to provide her with the answers she was looking for, she turned to other resources.  She would use any bit of information she knew about the other woman and actually try to find out who she was through the Internet.  In a way she had become obsessed with this other woman as Ernaux explained, “The search for the name of the other woman became an obsession, a need to be satisfied by any means necessary” (23).   The woman had been so consumed with wanting to uncover the identity of the other woman.  Like the author explains, “I was being inhabited by a woman I had never seen” (15).  Toward the end of the book, the woman expresses that she wants to tell her ex about the feelings that she still has and that she wants him back, but of course never does so.  Eventually, it came to a point where she had to finally move on, and finding information about the other woman was no longer of any importance.  Breaking off a  relationship with someone that you dearly love is hard as it is, and finding out that your ex so quickly moved on can be even harder.