The lover duras analysis full#

Some kill themselves.вЂќДЇrom the novel alone itвЂ™s hard to get a grip on how Duras feels about her own childhood is she furious for being allowed to enter into such a liaison at such a young age? Is she furious for how it ended? ThereвЂ™s perhaps an ambivalence that comes with any coming of age story. You can hear the word hit them, hear the sound of the blow. Some are deserted for a young maid who keeps her mouth shut.

The lover duras analysis full#

In the shade of their villas, they look at themselves for later on, they dream of romance, they already have huge wardrobes full of more dresses than they know what to do with, added together one by one like time, like the long days of waiting. They dress just for the sake of dressing. вЂњThey donвЂ™t do anything, just save themselves up, save themselves up for Europe, for lovers, holidays in Italy, the long six-monthsвЂ™ leaves every three years, when at last theyвЂ™ll be able to talk about what itвЂ™s like here, this peculiar colonial existence, the marvellous domestic service provided by the houseboys, the vegetation, the dances, the white villas, big enough to get lost in, occupied by officials in distant outposts.

In particular, she astutely observes the position of French women in then Cochin-China (southern Vietnam during the French colonial period). It has been unto death.вЂќДЄside from this being a study in love, sex and family, Duras, who won FranceвЂ™s Prix Goncourt for The Lover, writes perceptively of the social niceties of the era. And he did, did it in the unctuousness of blood. The sea, the immensity, gathering, receding, returning. I caress his body amid the sound, the passers-by. It sounds as if theyвЂ™re all going through the room. To the extent that the novel is true (and there are various interpretations of this), the affair obviously simmered beneath the surface of her entire life: вЂњThe sound of the cityвЂ™s so near, so close, you can hear it brushing against the wood of the shutters. While Duras is writing of a Saigon long-gone, she evokes an atmosphere that lingers still today: вЂњIвЂ™m fifteen and a half, there are no seasons in that part of the world, we have just the one season, hot, monotonous, weвЂ™re in the long hot girdle of the earth, with no spring, no renewal.вЂќДuras published the book in 1984, when she was 70. The backdrop is colonial Saigon, a teeming yet shadowy and sometimes oppressive city, seen from the perspective of a child who isnвЂ™t quite sure of her place in the world, but is certainly aware of its inequities and tragedies. Written in a kind of eddying, dreamy style, this is a complex reflection on mothers and daughters, adult responsibility, mental illness and addiction, set at a compellingly interesting juncture in history. Her father died of amoebic dysentery, but her mother chose to stay in Saigon to raise her three children. While this forms the nexus of the story, she also writes of her poverty-stricken family and their gradual, bitter estrangement.Дuras was born in Gia Dinh, a town north of Saigon, her father a teacher and her mother the head of a girlsвЂ™ school.

We do.ДЄt the centre of the book is DurasвЂ™ affair with the son of a wealthy Chinese businessman that began when she was a schoolgirl aged 15, and he was 27. If youвЂ™d like to read intelligent and thoughtful material about the region, please consider subscribing.