The Sailor from Gibraltar

In this contemporary novel written in 1952, the narrator, after many boring, unhappy years in a minor clerical position at the French Colonial Ministry, and an unfulfilling two-year affair with a coworker, decides to throw away his unsatisfying life and start anew. While on vacation in Italy with his mistress, he hears about the wealthy Anna, who sails the world in her yacht searching for her former lover, the sailor from Gibraltar. He finds Anna, leaves his mistress and, with only the clothes on his back, joins the crew in the search for the sailor.

The Sailor from Gibraltar feels very, very French--a lot of conversation over drinks, while all of the real story is happening in the pauses. Duras' lovely prose, in this well-written show more translation by Barbara Bray, explores perennial themes in a way that manages to seem fresh and new. show less

I confess that in spite of having studied French I had never read Marguerite Duras until picking up The Sailor From Gibraltar. It is a stunning gem of a book. I found myself wanting to put it down not because it wasn’t good but because it was too effective. The kind of malaise, boredom, and drunken, sun-addled stupor in which the characters are adrift comes off the page and settles on the reader.

The plot is deceptively simple; it starts with the narrator, who is on vacation from a Bartleby-like job in the Foreign Service, where he copies birth and death certificates. He is oppressed by the heat, often drunken and annoyed with his mistress who insists on playing the tourist and has expectations of marriage. Feeling trapped, the show more narrator abandons her and his job in a little Italian coastal village in favor of Anna, a mysterious widow who searches the ocean in her yacht for the sailor from Gibraltar, a fugitive murderer with whom she had an affair as a young woman.

The real story takes place in the subtle nuances of the narrator’s growing relationship with Anna, the crew of the yacht and the influence of the unseen sailor from Gibraltar. The characters are selfish, indulgent, and often ridiculous and yet it is compelling to watch them in their lazy and never ending quest for the sailor. Even these vapid individuals become existential fodder for Duras.

Indeed, seems to come out of the same world from which Albert Camus wrote The Stranger. In this world, the heat of the sun could make you quit your job, abandon your mistress and travel around the world or murder a man.

It is no surprise that The Sailor from Gibraltar was adapted for film. Duras conjures intense, haunting imagery. I can almost see the camera angles and the shimmer of sunlight reflecting off sand and water.

This is the second imprint from Open Letter Books that I have read and if their choices for works in translation continue to be this good, I will start to seek out more works from their catalog. Kudos to Barbara Bray for a dazzling translation. Please note: this review refers to an early reviewer copy. show less

I haven't thought about Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises since I read it in college. Before reading Marguerite Duras’ The Sailor from Gibraltar, I had no desire to return to this Hemingway classic, but now … I’m at least mildly interested in re-reading some passages from it. The Sailor from Gibraltar, translated by Barbara Bray and issued by Open Letter, follows the emotional breakdown of its narrator, a French civil servant who decides during a vacation to Florence to send his girlfriend, and traveling companion, back to France so he can join an American named Anna as she drifts from port to port on her yacht searching for a lost love, the sailor from Gibraltar. In spite of being written 30 years and a world war apart, The Sun show more Also Rises reads like a brother to The Sailor from Gibraltar. Or perhaps in a nod to Hemingway we should set the two books up in a ring and let them fight it out: Hemingway vs. Duras on the young, the lonely and the sexually restless.

Both writers have a penchant for alcohol-laden scenes and ping-ponging dialogue that is eerily similar. Here’s Hemingway:

“I say. We have had a day.”
“You don’t remember anything about a date with me at the Crillon?”
“No. Did we have one? I must have been blind.”
“You were quite drunk, my dear,” said the count.
“Wasn’t I, though? And the count’s been a brick, absolutely.”
“You’ve got hell’s own draw with the concierge now.”
“I ought to have. Gave her two hundred francs.”
“Don’t be a damned fool.”

Here’s Duras:

“I’m going back,” I said.
“I’ll have dinner with you,” she said calmly.
I didn’t answer.
“Perhaps Eolo will be shocked. Are you sure you still want to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you often have changes of mood like this?”
“Yes, often,” I said. “But today it isn’t that I’ve had a change of mood.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know exactly. Perhaps too many things have happened to me in two days. Shall we have a drink then?”
“Nothing easier. There’s everything we want in the bar.”

However, Duras packs more punch than Hemingway, because, for one, she has more change-ups when it comes to artful use of the written word – subtlety and humor to name but two. Perhaps this is also a case where a Frenchwoman can write about affairs of the heart much more authentically than this particular American man. While my days with Hemingway are over, after reading The Sailor from Gibraltar, I’m looking forward to a long reading future with Duras. show less

A languid, tropical meditation on boredom, desire and an obsessive quest.

Cigarettes, whiskey and the ironic conversation of a broad cast of interesting characters carries what is, essentially, a travel novel that journeys across Italy, through the Mediterranean, Tangier and the north coast of Africa, south to the tropics, leaving the sea and ending in the dense humidity of the Congo.

The book is narrated by a man vacationing in Italy shortly after the war, bored and uninterested in anything to do with this holiday. He decides to leave his painfully optimistic girlfriend and the dull job that awaits his return at the French Colonial Ministry (where he has copied out birth and death certificates for eight years). He joins the crew of the show more Gibraltar, a yacht owned by Anna, a beautiful American searching the Seven Seas for an old lover, a man known only as the “Sailor from Gibraltar” – a desperate murderer that may be anywhere in the world. The narrator accepts that he is perhaps only a temporary lover, one of many, taken on during this never-ending quest.

Ennui, boredom and dissatisfaction are curiously melded with eternal passivity. The book finally collapse into an overextended drunken dialog about kudus, saurians and the Ice Age in the heart of Africa, before returning to the coast, and the continuing journey. show less

Bored with his job, tired of his fiance, a civil servant walks away from it all. He joins a mysterious, ridiculously wealthy woman sailing the Mediterranean and the African coast in search of her lover (the sailor in the title).

During the course of the voyage, she tells him the story of her life. Former crew members contact her with reports of "sightings" of the sailor. These take them on onshore adventures.

But mostly they talk - and drink. She has nothing in life to do except look for the sailor and tell her story. He has nothing to do but go along on the search and listen.

The theme is loneliness, boredom, ennui. "Darkness covered the deck and the sea. It spread over me too, and ate at my heart."

Are they looking for the sailor? Or for show more happiness? Or for the elusive "meaning of life"?

It's quite a trip and I'm glad I went along. show less

This is the first of Marguerite Duras' works that I have read, so I went into it without expectations. It is a book that I need to return to when my life is a bit less chaotic, as I didn't feel I was able to give it full justice on my first reading. It is a vivid depiction of ennui - the prose is phenomenal, and you feel like you are right there with the main character, sweating in a cafe in Italy. It is very much a character study, and well worth reading. As a bonus, the Open Letter reprint is a beautiful edition.

This book is a translation.
The book was a little difficult for me to get into but I have a baby with a lot of distractions. This book takes time to think about and get involved with.
The beginning felt slow, but that's because Duras has a tendency to describe things so dispassionately that it feels dull. Later in the novel, all those descriptions had laid a necessary foundation for events and conversations that would have seemed completely disjointed without a solid background. The plot sounds like a soap opera: man on vacation decides to leave boring girlfriend and dull job meets a rich widow sailing around the world in search of long lost lover. However, and thank goodness, it's not that simple, and not nearly that sappy. Both man and show more woman aggressively resist falling in love. Neither of them want to, but they do, but they don't.... Plus, there are a handful of colorful characters they meet and travel with along the way.

It's a character-intense novel that uses a simple plot as a basis to develop complicated personalities and relationships.
I recommend this for folks who like to analyze and then re-analyze followed by over-analyze life's happenings and participants. Be prepared to not want to put it down towards the end! show less