Robin's Reviews > The Lover
The Lover (The Lover #1)
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Robin's review
bookshelves: translation, 2017, literary-fiction, novella, semi-autobiographical, french, 1001-before-you-die
Nov 11, 2016
bookshelves: translation, 2017, literary-fiction, novella, semi-autobiographical, french, 1001-before-you-die
This is a thin novella, but do not expect an easy read. Though translated from the original French, you will experience an almost immediate halt, like you are reading something in a different language. And you are. It is the language of dreams. It is also the language of recollection. It does not flow in a typical fashion: it dips you in a moment then pulls you out just as you are getting used to the temperature of the water. It plunges you into another time and place, emoting a feeling out of context and once again as you are getting your bearings, the scene changes again.
Marguerite Duras wrote this as an older woman, and it's clear that this is heavily autobiographical. These are remembrances of herself at 15 and a half years young, and her erotic love affair with a 27 year old wealthy Chinese man. Again, the reader halts. 15? 27? Ick? A different time? Can we peer in on their affair without feeling uncomfortable? I'm not altogether sure. Yes, she's mature beyond her years. Yes, she seems to be the one in charge. For me though, it treads the razor's edge of true-life Lolita, with his uncontrollable love for this girl, with his tearful, sexual obsession.
There's a blurry child prostitute image I keep seeing, a child with gold lamé heels and a pinkish brown fedora. A girl being dropped off at school in her lover's limousine. An unphotographed, lonely and serious girl, whose family life has sucked the childhood out of her. Her father has died, her mother is mentally ill and is barely keeping the family afloat in manageable poverty, her older brother beats her. She looks back at this time with her Chinese lover as the pivotal time in her life. She tells him she will never love him. She tells him she is with him because of his money.
She believes it, when she says it. She takes the money. Her family devours the meals he pays for, wordlessly. She is unprepared for the shifting clouds, the imperceptible variations of the heart, carried on the notes of a Chopin waltz, that there was love, that love "was lost in the affair like water in sand". This love defines her, even into old age.
A poetic, powerful, dreamy glance back at a love affair, painful in its secrecy, in its illicitness, in its doomed fate.
3.5 stars
Marguerite Duras wrote this as an older woman, and it's clear that this is heavily autobiographical. These are remembrances of herself at 15 and a half years young, and her erotic love affair with a 27 year old wealthy Chinese man. Again, the reader halts. 15? 27? Ick? A different time? Can we peer in on their affair without feeling uncomfortable? I'm not altogether sure. Yes, she's mature beyond her years. Yes, she seems to be the one in charge. For me though, it treads the razor's edge of true-life Lolita, with his uncontrollable love for this girl, with his tearful, sexual obsession.
There's a blurry child prostitute image I keep seeing, a child with gold lamé heels and a pinkish brown fedora. A girl being dropped off at school in her lover's limousine. An unphotographed, lonely and serious girl, whose family life has sucked the childhood out of her. Her father has died, her mother is mentally ill and is barely keeping the family afloat in manageable poverty, her older brother beats her. She looks back at this time with her Chinese lover as the pivotal time in her life. She tells him she will never love him. She tells him she is with him because of his money.
She believes it, when she says it. She takes the money. Her family devours the meals he pays for, wordlessly. She is unprepared for the shifting clouds, the imperceptible variations of the heart, carried on the notes of a Chopin waltz, that there was love, that love "was lost in the affair like water in sand". This love defines her, even into old age.
A poetic, powerful, dreamy glance back at a love affair, painful in its secrecy, in its illicitness, in its doomed fate.
3.5 stars
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Reading Progress
November 11, 2016
– Shelved
June 3, 2017
–
Started Reading
June 3, 2017
–
60.0%
"I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door."
June 3, 2017
–
60.0%
"I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door."
June 3, 2017
–
Finished Reading
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Julie
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rated it 4 stars
Jun 04, 2017 04:25PM
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Thank you, dear Julie! :)
I haven't seen the movie - I'm glad that I went into this book with very little background. But I can imagine it would be uncomfortable to watch.
I love Lolita, despite the subject matter. One difference I noticed between the two books is that Nabokov fully discloses the inappropriateness of the child/man relationship. It isn't that way with Duras' work.
Thank you, Steven. It was likely your excellent review that put this book on my radar!
Thank you, Cecily! The writing was quite lovely, but the subject matter? Totally disturbing. It was hard to know how to feel about this book.
Very true. I feel that Lolita was more successful, somehow. It's been a long while since I read it, and might be quite interesting to see how I feel on a re-read.
No, I didn't! Not sure I want to, but who knows, I like to snicker...
Did she? I know precious little about her, aside from what I gleaned in this book. What a fascinating life!
Thank you, Maria, and I'm so glad you felt that way about it. You're right, it's masterfully written.