The Lover by Marguerite Duras Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Lover
Book Review: Duras reveals her past
Summary: 3 Stars
This book of Duras, is very hard to read, especially when you don't read it in your native language, but in French. Duras is associated with the movement of the Nouveau Roman. This movement didn't want to write realistic novelles anymore. Duras even left the plot and the character out of her books. That's why, in this book, you have no idea, where the story is playing and and how the story is going to succeed. Just when you finally understood the Chinese-story, she starts writing about her life in Paris. For someone, who likes mystery this is a prefect book, but for someone like me, who likes it when the story points some sort of message, reading Duras is just a waste of time. I like realistic romans better. This book jumps around from story to story, using the same elements she uses in other books namely; Love (her younger brother) against Madness(her elder brother), Life and Death, Reality and Appearance, Word and Silence. In all her books Duras has constantly adapted her story, telling the same in other words. The result of this we see in C'est tout(That's all)her final work. What is left of a productional life, is left in this book. My final conclusion: If you're a good reader and you like to make out your own story, instead of reading it, you can read this book. In all other cases, you can better left this book in the library or at Amazon.comBook Review: Duras' transgressive body undermines the patriarchy.
Summary: 5 Stars
The present review discusses the French girl's transgressive body which deconstructs and undermines the patriarchal machination in Marguerite Duras¡¦ The Lover and The North China Lover. In these two complementary autobiographical novels, Marguerite Duras relates her first sexual experience when she was only fifteen years old. In the novels, the French girl expresses her so-called first erotic orgasm experience with a Chinese lover. Her sexual drive does not come from love but from a woman¡¦s awakening. In the patriarchal society, women¡¦s sexuality has always been well controlled by men; the French girl¡¦s eagerness to get excessive sexual jouissance poses a threat to the patriarchal machination. The patriarchal ideology is omnipresent. We can find this male-centered ideology exists in the education, principle, rules, works, media, arts, literature, activities, and religion. Not only men, but also women internalize the masculine opinion that women are inferior to men in the androcentric society and have become conspirators of the patriarchal structurality; however, women still live according to the patriarchal rules without doubt. So far as the European colonialist is concerned, the biblical theology and ethics which are developed under the conditions of patriarchy have been the products of males. Many people read the Bible, learn of the biblical miracles, and act according to biblical rules without questioning the adequacy of its content. In fact, if we analyze the Bible and compare and contrast the biblical stories and commandments, we will find that the Bible is not such a righteous Gospel as we think. Especially, there are too many conflicts, taboos, and unfair rules which have constrained women and caused a dilemma for females for the past two thousand years. In The Lover and The North China Lover, the French girl uses her sexuality to express and exalt her own transcendent power. Her transgressive body totally betrays a nostalgia for a female Eden and breaks the norms of the biblical sexual limits. We can say the French girl is an advocate avant garde of the modern feminists who defies this patriarchal machination successfully.Book Review: English verison of the French Novel L'Amant by Duras
Summary: 5 Stars
The novel, L'Amant, by Marguerite Duras written in the 50's was translated into English. The Lover, and became the basis for the movie The Lover starring Tony Leung. A great movie which stimulated me to read the book in English which then stimulated me to read the original. The English version is a literal translation of the French and possesses the flow and passion of the original. The movie is one of the best renditions of a book I have seen. In Netflix, the movie gets mixed reviews ranging from brilliant to those who get emotionally upset by the theme of the movie, which is an older (32 year old) Chinese man who has an affair with a very mature 15 year old French girl in Vietnam. But who is seducing or using who? Beautifully written (the books) and directed (movie).Book Review: Excellent writing, poor plot.
Summary: 2 Stars
I absolutely loved the style of Duras prose. It is top of the line, even translated. The plot however leaves much to be desired. Duras plays with events non-chronologically, telling you things early on which would best be saved for the end of the novel. If you're looking for something different, this book might be for you. If not, leave it alone. You'll be glad you did.Book Review: Experimental writing style that works to perfection
Summary: 4 Stars
Marguerite Duras has written, in retrospect, the hypnotic story of her odd relationship with the adult son of a Chinese millionnaire at least 15 yrs her senior. Written as a novel, there's no doubt it's Duras' own tale of her love affair when she was just a 15yo in Indochina in the 30s, one of three children of a disturbed and impoverished English widow who was trying to make ends meet as a teacher. Her daughter, Duras, was left mostly to fend for herself at a boarding school that was unusually permissive with the odd comings and goings of this precocious child-woman.Duras tells this story from the distance of years, through a technique of oblique references, forgettings, reiteration, repetition (the straw hat, the dress, the shoes...), fractured images, and readers get the sense of coming at what happened reluctantly, as tho the author is a little unwilling to share everything with us.
It's a mesmerizing, seductive, atmospheric, overlapping, strangely detached story - one that readers will not soon forget.