book data
2157 ratings, 3.95 average rating, 214 reviews
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published
January 2002
(first published 1984)
by Tusquets
binding
Paperback, 150 pages
setting
Unknown
isbn
847223164X
(isbn13: 9788472231641)
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avg 3.95
So I have a problem with fiction. A problem with voices, really--I don't like a lot of them. The result is that I tend to read the same novels over and over. Well, honestly, I tend to read Jane Austen novels over and over. But this has me going. A brilliantly perverse description of a young girl's outfit (just before her first seduction) opens the novella, and. . . well. . . take it from there. . . so far, delicious.
I finished this and turned it over and read the first few pages again. One o...more
I finished this and turned it over and read the first few pages again. One o...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to John by:
dresden, jess
testing.
I don't review books. Whatever gets written here will not be a review.
(1) The episode "I told you about" - when older brother fells all the woods and gambles away the profits in one night - is somehow also Faulkner. Completely Duras, obviously, but also Absalom, Absalom! (No less wildcat for becoming-baboon, Deleuze would say, and this apparently decadent cross-reference is in fact surprisingly imbricated with what you will trip over said of doubl...more
I don't review books. Whatever gets written here will not be a review.
(1) The episode "I told you about" - when older brother fells all the woods and gambles away the profits in one night - is somehow also Faulkner. Completely Duras, obviously, but also Absalom, Absalom! (No less wildcat for becoming-baboon, Deleuze would say, and this apparently decadent cross-reference is in fact surprisingly imbricated with what you will trip over said of doubl...more
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I first read this book in high school. Looking back, I would consider that too young for the subject matter, except that is how old Duras was when the events of the book took place. It's well established that the book is fairly autobiographical. In fact, when the film version made such a botch of the story, Duras wrote it again in The North China Lover. Unfortunately, the later book doesn't express the same spirit and sense of longing that was in the first. I think she had too much perspe...more
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Read in May, 2008
The tone of this book is emotionally flatlined. Terror, physical ecstasy, hatred and depression all file past in the same abstracted, languorous fashion: mentioned, but not really written. We know that the early part of this narrator's life was characterized by withdrawal and passive observation and that she has taken to drinking in her middle age (we also know this is a French novella from the end of the 20th century); but these facts don't entirely justify the loosely structured and vaguely ex...more
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Read in February, 2008
My friend Khira recommended this book to me, and that alone assured that it would be beautifully written--both frank and lyrical. It took me a moment to settle into Duras' writing (or the translator's interpretation) because it's very fragmented. Duras tells her story through many moments and thoughts built on one another, which can feel unbalanced, like a conversation with a drunkard who assumes you can follow her poetic thoughts from one to the next by sheer force of concentration. But once I ...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in April, 2008
recommended to Bighurt by:
Leah Probst
I finally finished Marguerite Duras' "The Lover." Why did it take me this long to read a 117-page novel? (I posted it on my currently-reading shelf on Feb. 25th). [HINT: It is not because I didn't want it to end.]
Was it the nature of the writing: random, unconnected musings by une femme d'un certain age of her colonial adolescence? Was it the frustrating way she shifted subjects, time, and place at will? Maybe it is the movie-lover in me (I don't want to reveal too ...more
Was it the nature of the writing: random, unconnected musings by une femme d'un certain age of her colonial adolescence? Was it the frustrating way she shifted subjects, time, and place at will? Maybe it is the movie-lover in me (I don't want to reveal too ...more
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Read in January, 2001
recommends it for:
Only my closest friends
This is my favorite book ever. I first came across the story when I was 13; baby-sitting one weekend at a neighbor's house. But I didn't actually read the book until I was 21 and it changed my life.
Marguerite Duras's prose is so powerful that I have full paragraphs memorized. Each sentence is pure poetry. Not everyone will get it, but it hit me like a ligthening bolt. I felt like someone reached inside & took a look at my soul & then wrote my innermost secrets down. I love Ma...more
Marguerite Duras's prose is so powerful that I have full paragraphs memorized. Each sentence is pure poetry. Not everyone will get it, but it hit me like a ligthening bolt. I felt like someone reached inside & took a look at my soul & then wrote my innermost secrets down. I love Ma...more
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I recently relistened to the recording of this novella by Margaret Baune originally aired on KP FA decades ago. This is one of several versions Duras wrote of her teenage affaire in Saigon with a Chinese banker, one of which was a major motion picture a few years ago. Duras is one of my favorite writers; she describes the often odd and desperate and usually isolated emotional lives of her characters with discipline, care, and without sentimentality. This novella evokes the feelings, or lack of f...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to Katherine by:
Maria Calandra
I learned that if you read 'The Lover' on the subway, men will look at you extra. Good to know.
Update: Having finished the book, what I admire most about it is Duras' combination of verge-of-lurid subject matter with an utterly deadpan tone of voice. The latter makes the former possible, and the combination creates an impression of a very complicated character, a bad-ass woman who probably carries more pain and other difficult feelings than we'll ever know. The tone here is like 'a tell-all ...more
Update: Having finished the book, what I admire most about it is Duras' combination of verge-of-lurid subject matter with an utterly deadpan tone of voice. The latter makes the former possible, and the combination creates an impression of a very complicated character, a bad-ass woman who probably carries more pain and other difficult feelings than we'll ever know. The tone here is like 'a tell-all ...more
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Read in June, 1985
recommends it for:
Those looking for a Quick Sexy Read plus a little more.
I read this book when I was very young, probably too young as it sent me in a day from tomboy to well... not a tomboy. Steeped in sensuality, laced with menace and thwarted childhood, this spoke to me about the realities of how complex the movement from girlhood to womanhood is. Plus, it was just so damned erotic. I actually prefer this older version to the later version Duras brought out, which made more explicit the sexual danger in her own home. While it may explain her early sexualizati...more
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Novel berjudul asli L'Amant yang meraih Prix Goncourt ini memaparkan
percintaan seorang gadis remaja berkebangsaan Eropa dengan seorang
lelaki keturunan Cina yang berusia jauh di atasnya. Pertemuan mereka
terjadi begitu saja tatkala gadis itu hendak berangkat ke sekolah.
Kendati kedudukan si lelaki cukup terhormat dan berasal dari kalangan
menengah ke atas, ia tidak dipandang sebelah mata oleh keluarga
kekasihnya. Bahkan ibu, kakak dan adik si gadis menikmati makan malam
mewah yang ditang...more
percintaan seorang gadis remaja berkebangsaan Eropa dengan seorang
lelaki keturunan Cina yang berusia jauh di atasnya. Pertemuan mereka
terjadi begitu saja tatkala gadis itu hendak berangkat ke sekolah.
Kendati kedudukan si lelaki cukup terhormat dan berasal dari kalangan
menengah ke atas, ia tidak dipandang sebelah mata oleh keluarga
kekasihnya. Bahkan ibu, kakak dan adik si gadis menikmati makan malam
mewah yang ditang...more
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Read in December, 2008
I picked up Melissa Buzzeo's book What Began Us at Myopic the other day. It's published by Leon Works, who put out one of my favorite books of late, and so I figured I'd give it a shot. Buzzeo opens up with a quote from The Lover, a book I've been meaning to read for ages, so I put her down and read Duras first. The Lover is primarily a (pretty brilliant) treatise on memory, in...more
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Read in January, 1989
I don't speak French, and this is a translated work, but the prose and imagery reflect the period of English and French Colonialism in Southeast Asia during the early to mid 20th Century. Very erotic, and given the age of the author, a bit disturbing.
There was an excellent film version done years ago which i would recommend. It is graphic however, and was quite controversial at the time due to the young age of the actor playing the author.
There was an excellent film version done years ago which i would recommend. It is graphic however, and was quite controversial at the time due to the young age of the actor playing the author.
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Read in January, 1986
recommended to Antoine by:
Jim Watras
Easily the dirtiest, most explicit book I ever read for class as a high school student, this was also one of the best written. The dreamlike, non-linear narration is completely enfolding. Incredible. If I could capture my life in writing in the way that Duras captures hers, I would want for nothing. I am afraid that my raw material is considerably less exotic, however; even if I had Duras' skill, I simply would not have her story.
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recommends it for:
romantics
I read this book WAY back in high school, so I don't remember much, but I do remember it was possibly one of the first books to move me to tears. A young French girl has an affair with an older Chinese man (as in older than she is, since she's a teenager) in pre-war Vietnam. Beautiful story of a forbidden relationship in terms of class, race, family, etc. Gorgeous, gorgeous!
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Read in December, 2007
I just reread this book and it really is an equisite piece of writing. There is a kind of luminosity and transparency to her words that makes me shudder and ache, aesthetically speaking of course. Reading this book has both times been a profound experience for me, continuing to haunt me long after I have put it down.
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Read in September, 1999
Become a Durassian disciple and watch the film, The Lover, as well as this author's films. You may want to even check out the second version of this book; she wrote it to express her dissatisfaction of the film. Another complement may be the film Indochine. Happy reading and viewing.
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My favorite book ever. It's written in photographs, visual postcards that she sends through time. The moments gather themselves into a slow fog that encapsulates this woman's formative years. Nothing is better than a tragic romance, and this one is the best I've read.
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Another French stunner by a one of France's greatest writers. Unforgettable, really. The last sentence is haunting, and concludes in a powerful way this intense, erotic, troubling story based on Duras' own life. This is a book that has been analyzed to death by French critics and whose huge success has somehow shadowed its qualities. The writer's style (very personal and unlike any other) has been imitated and mocked, a movie has been made that doesn't quite capture the author's world, Duras he...more
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This book is so beautifully written. I have only read the French, but I can't imagine the language not translating well here.
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