The Lover
by Marguerite Duras
On This Page
Description
An international best-seller with more than one million copies in print and a winner of France's Prix Goncourt, The Lover has been acclaimed by critics all over the world since its first publication in 1984. Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras's childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France's colonial empire, show more and its representation in the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts. Long unavailable in hardcover, this edition of The Lover includes a new introduction by Maxine Hong Kingston that looks back at Duras's world from an intriguing new perspective?that of a visitor to Vietnam today. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
JuliaMaria dieselbe Geschichte noch einmal erzählt
SCPeterson From the nymphet's perspective
Cecilturtle une éducation semblable bien que les choix soient différents
Member Reviews
O que mais me comoveu neste livro de Marguerite Duras foi tudo o que escreveu sobre a mãe e o seu desespero diário e brutal: "na minha infância a desgraça da minha mãe ocupou o lugar do sonho". Mas também o que escreveu sobre a família, em que as pessoas não se falavam e só se olhavam através das fotografias; o quarto a que chegou como a desgraça que lhe era anunciada desde de sempre; a tristeza à qual diz que poderia quase dar-lhe o seu nome; a morte do irmão a trazer-lhe uma dor que a fazia sentir que tudo devia morrer, incluindo ela. E comoveu-me também quando afirmou que escrever livros era a única coisa que conseguia ver para além do instante.
I didn't love The Lover, but as a fan of all things Vietnamese I'm glad I read this semi-autobiographical story of Duras growing up in French Indochina. The loose, episodic narrative--about a teenage girl, her unstable family, and her older Chinese lover--requires some comfort with ambiguity as well as patience to put the pieces of the plot together. The narrator somehow manages to be emotionally overwrought and indifferent at the same time; an American reader is likely to find her exceptionally French. But to Duras' credit, The Lover is knowingly brief and often poetic; it feels something like an experimental but successful prose poem.
Marguerite Duras' style hasn't sat well with me in the past (I couldn't fathom "Hiroshima Mon Amour"), but it's eerily effective here at transmitting the pain of memories too delicate to examine closely, too powerful to be ignored. It's a short work but not easily penetrated; my way was greatly eased for having seen the movie adaptation.
French-occupied southeast Asia, pre-WWII: a young French girl enters a liaison with a wealthy Chinese man. I thought I knew this story, but the novel goes considerably more in-depth with the girl's family. As semi-autobiography, it felt like the author was recalling scattered images in hopes of piecing together a whole picture that explained how she survived such a chaotic life. Some memories seem almost show more incidental, e.g. running from the madwoman - unless taken symbolically. She flees the madwoman at age eight as she would flee the threat of descending into madness herself almost ten years later. Her own mother is mentally unwell, there is little about her family that is normal, and she has nothing to cling to and no one to rely on. Her lover offers some respite, though he is hardly a refuge. She revels in their shared moments together, but perceives his weakness and feels no protection.
The movie led me to believe this was a story primarily about mistaking love's identity, not recognizing it until too late. The novel is something more complex, portraying the basking in another's proffered love as grasping at a tenuous lifeline, a means of survival. show less
French-occupied southeast Asia, pre-WWII: a young French girl enters a liaison with a wealthy Chinese man. I thought I knew this story, but the novel goes considerably more in-depth with the girl's family. As semi-autobiography, it felt like the author was recalling scattered images in hopes of piecing together a whole picture that explained how she survived such a chaotic life. Some memories seem almost show more incidental, e.g. running from the madwoman - unless taken symbolically. She flees the madwoman at age eight as she would flee the threat of descending into madness herself almost ten years later. Her own mother is mentally unwell, there is little about her family that is normal, and she has nothing to cling to and no one to rely on. Her lover offers some respite, though he is hardly a refuge. She revels in their shared moments together, but perceives his weakness and feels no protection.
The movie led me to believe this was a story primarily about mistaking love's identity, not recognizing it until too late. The novel is something more complex, portraying the basking in another's proffered love as grasping at a tenuous lifeline, a means of survival. show less
Fascinating work. It's like being in a dream (not reading about someone else's dream, but actually being in it). There were a few times when I wasn't sure what exactly was going on, but in the end it didn't matter as the fabulous, hallucinatory writing more than made up for it.
“We go back to the apartment. We are lovers. We can’t stop loving each other.” This line was embedded in the middle of Marcuerite Duras’s novel, “The Lover.” Based on the direct connotation of this statement, I conclude that these lovers must be incredibly in love and that the love must be something beautiful. But in fact it is quite the opposite and for lack of a better term “different.”
One of the reason I’d say so is due to the fact that this passionate affair is between a fifteen year old unnamed white girl and a twenty-eight year old Chinese business man. Their exquisite relationship allows readers to identify the young girl’s development in becoming an experienced woman.
The novel consists of several detailed show more sex scenes between the two characters. From the way the man rips off her dress to how he touches her body, it seriously sends shivers down my spine just reading the many visual descriptions scripted in the novel. As a coming of age piece of literature, the audience may infer that a young girl will soon develop into a mature woman; however, it is irony to realize that it seems as if there’s a woman stuck in a girl’s body.
She is very knowledgeable with the affair that she has with this foreigner. During the time period that this novel is written, sex is not something that can be discussed in public and especially if that person is a woman. There seems to be restrictions in the role of a female and based on societal norms, it is expected that the woman should possess the role of a passive and soft-spoken persona. However, this main protagonist proves to be a very dominant and confident woman. When the two are making love, he constantly tells her how much he loves her but she refuse to look at his face. “He often weeps because he can’t find the strength to love beyond fear.” The Chinese man knows that his father will disapprove of his action due to all the circumstances with the child. He keeps in mind that his father is essentially the source of money and money is extremely important. With that in mind, the Chinese man continues to love the girl and yet he’s scared to express anything beyond that for society will turn him into a laughing stock. During situations like these, one would think that the girl should be the one crying in despair; however, the girl is very knowledgeable about her current state and gives off this careless attitude. It’s quite puzzling to know that there almost seems to be a role-reversal between the two. The girl possesses identifiable traits of a grown up man while the man lacks the masculinity strength of the girl’s. The ironic characterization is something that seems uncommon at the time but looking at society today, this type of paring is in fact very familiar to a lot of us.
One of the things the Chinese man is aware is his wealth; while the girl has always been reminded of her lack of fortune. When these completely different type of people clash together, it follows the cliché saying of “opposite attracts.” In this case, there’s not only attraction but magnetism. He continues to tell her “he wants to run away” and yet she responds by simply laughing it off. Through their interaction, I am swayed that she is using him for the money he owns but at the same time their future together is not something that’s going to happen. This brings up the question of: If there’s no positive outcome to the relationship, why are they both so passionate?
It’s quite clear that there’s a strong line between their motives for each other but this almost unrequited-type love still continues to captivate my interest. Each time a page is flipped, I ponder at the thought of the girl and whether or not she’ll have a change of heart and perhaps realizes that he’ll always be that “love” in her life.
Overall, Duras’s autobiographical novel allows me to step into the mind and world of a fifteen year old girl and the steamy affair that has affected her life. Their characters keep the readers on their toes and asking themselves “So what’s next?” show less
One of the reason I’d say so is due to the fact that this passionate affair is between a fifteen year old unnamed white girl and a twenty-eight year old Chinese business man. Their exquisite relationship allows readers to identify the young girl’s development in becoming an experienced woman.
The novel consists of several detailed show more sex scenes between the two characters. From the way the man rips off her dress to how he touches her body, it seriously sends shivers down my spine just reading the many visual descriptions scripted in the novel. As a coming of age piece of literature, the audience may infer that a young girl will soon develop into a mature woman; however, it is irony to realize that it seems as if there’s a woman stuck in a girl’s body.
She is very knowledgeable with the affair that she has with this foreigner. During the time period that this novel is written, sex is not something that can be discussed in public and especially if that person is a woman. There seems to be restrictions in the role of a female and based on societal norms, it is expected that the woman should possess the role of a passive and soft-spoken persona. However, this main protagonist proves to be a very dominant and confident woman. When the two are making love, he constantly tells her how much he loves her but she refuse to look at his face. “He often weeps because he can’t find the strength to love beyond fear.” The Chinese man knows that his father will disapprove of his action due to all the circumstances with the child. He keeps in mind that his father is essentially the source of money and money is extremely important. With that in mind, the Chinese man continues to love the girl and yet he’s scared to express anything beyond that for society will turn him into a laughing stock. During situations like these, one would think that the girl should be the one crying in despair; however, the girl is very knowledgeable about her current state and gives off this careless attitude. It’s quite puzzling to know that there almost seems to be a role-reversal between the two. The girl possesses identifiable traits of a grown up man while the man lacks the masculinity strength of the girl’s. The ironic characterization is something that seems uncommon at the time but looking at society today, this type of paring is in fact very familiar to a lot of us.
One of the things the Chinese man is aware is his wealth; while the girl has always been reminded of her lack of fortune. When these completely different type of people clash together, it follows the cliché saying of “opposite attracts.” In this case, there’s not only attraction but magnetism. He continues to tell her “he wants to run away” and yet she responds by simply laughing it off. Through their interaction, I am swayed that she is using him for the money he owns but at the same time their future together is not something that’s going to happen. This brings up the question of: If there’s no positive outcome to the relationship, why are they both so passionate?
It’s quite clear that there’s a strong line between their motives for each other but this almost unrequited-type love still continues to captivate my interest. Each time a page is flipped, I ponder at the thought of the girl and whether or not she’ll have a change of heart and perhaps realizes that he’ll always be that “love” in her life.
Overall, Duras’s autobiographical novel allows me to step into the mind and world of a fifteen year old girl and the steamy affair that has affected her life. Their characters keep the readers on their toes and asking themselves “So what’s next?” show less
The Lover is a novel rooted in time and place. The time is the era between the two World Wars, and the place is French Indochina. The lovers are a fifteen year old French girl and a twenty-eight year old Chinese man. The affair is known to both families and to the girl's school.
No one made an effort to stop it. The Chinese lover did attempt to legalize things by marrying the girl, but was repeatedly refused permission by his millionaire father, as adamantly opposed to what was considered a mixed marriage as was the French ruling class.
It is the girl who narrates the story years later. Although young when it all happened, she seemed to have the knowledge of the ages when it came to men and women, to have been born with it. She tell us
The girl was alone in Saigon, attending French high school and staying at a boarding school. She had met the young man on a ferry crossing the Mekong. Emerging from his limousine, he approached the waif/seductress .
This sense of inevitability, of doom, of loss, pervades the novel. Even the river on which they are travelling signals this.
The girl's mother will first lose her house across the river in Cambodia, and years later will lose her final home in France to pay the gambling debts of her older son who has lost the family's money. The girl's younger brother will lose his life to pneumonia during the Japanese occupation. Even colour is lost, annihilated by the strength of the sun.
The connections between the lover and the girl is fragile. It only exists in the room to which he takes her each day after school. It cannot survive outside the room. When the girl has him take her and her brothers on expensive outings, they barely communicate until they are safe once more in their room.
Although the man believes he is desperately in love with the girl, she has no such illusions about him. This gives the reader a somewhat queasy feeling, as the fifteen year old rationalizes her relationship with the wealthy young man, fully believing that in just such ways will she continue to survive in the future. There is no compassion for the young man; perhaps a certain sense of comfort, even comraderie, but none of the passion he feels as he constantly weeps over her. Later, she speaks of the relationship as incestuous, with herself as the child and the lover as the father. There are other hints at incest. Her older brother is always spoken of as the murderer of her mother and younger brother. While not directly the case, he does exert a sinister control over them, which the girl says she has escaped.
The girl is capable of love and passion though. One of the few named people in the novel is her seventeen year old schoolmate Hélène Lagonelle. The girl obsessed over Hélène "...the most beautiful of all things given by God... I am worn out with desire for Hélène Lagonelle" However, Hélène was a simple soul, incapable of learning past primary school, unaware of the desire she aroused. One day the girl returned to school to find that she had lost Hélène too, the one person she cared about.
Eventually the girl was taken out of school to be sent to France. The affair ended, a new life began; a life related in the impersonal third person.
There is a dream like feeling throughout this highly autobiographical novel, a feeling of alternately floating and being submerged, which I suspect is even more powerful in the original French. Marguerite Duras was born in Indochina and did have an affair with a Chinese man. She moved to France as a young woman. She revisited and rewrote this affair many times throughout her life, publishing this version from the perspective of an older woman when she was seventy. It won the Prix Goncourt. show less
No one made an effort to stop it. The Chinese lover did attempt to legalize things by marrying the girl, but was repeatedly refused permission by his millionaire father, as adamantly opposed to what was considered a mixed marriage as was the French ruling class.
It is the girl who narrates the story years later. Although young when it all happened, she seemed to have the knowledge of the ages when it came to men and women, to have been born with it. She tell us
Atshow more
the age of fifteen I had the face of pleasure and yet I had no knowledge of pleasure. There was no mistaking that face. My mother must have seen it. My brothers did. That was how everything started for me -- with that flagrant, exhausted face, those rings around the eyes, in advance of time and experience.
The girl was alone in Saigon, attending French high school and staying at a boarding school. She had met the young man on a ferry crossing the Mekong. Emerging from his limousine, he approached the waif/seductress .
From the first moment she knows more or less, knows he's at her mercy. And therefore that others besides him may be at her mercy too if the occasion arises. She knows something else too, that the time has now probably come when she can no longer escape certain duties toward herself. And that her mother will know nothing of this nor her brothers. She knows this now too. As soon as she got into the black car she knew: she's excluded from the family for the first time and forever. From now on they will no longer know what becomes of her. Whether she's taken away from them, carried off, wounded, spoiled, they will no longer know. Neither her mother nor her brothers. That is their fate henceforth. It's already enough to make you weep, here in the black limousine.
Now the child will have to reckon only with this man, the first, the one who introduced himself on the ferry.
This sense of inevitability, of doom, of loss, pervades the novel. Even the river on which they are travelling signals this.
The river has picked up all it's met since Tonle Sap and the Cambodian forest.... no time for anything to sink, all is swept along by the deep and headlong storm of the inner current, suspended on the surface of the river's strength.
The girl's mother will first lose her house across the river in Cambodia, and years later will lose her final home in France to pay the gambling debts of her older son who has lost the family's money. The girl's younger brother will lose his life to pneumonia during the Japanese occupation. Even colour is lost, annihilated by the strength of the sun.
The connections between the lover and the girl is fragile. It only exists in the room to which he takes her each day after school. It cannot survive outside the room. When the girl has him take her and her brothers on expensive outings, they barely communicate until they are safe once more in their room.
Although the man believes he is desperately in love with the girl, she has no such illusions about him. This gives the reader a somewhat queasy feeling, as the fifteen year old rationalizes her relationship with the wealthy young man, fully believing that in just such ways will she continue to survive in the future. There is no compassion for the young man; perhaps a certain sense of comfort, even comraderie, but none of the passion he feels as he constantly weeps over her. Later, she speaks of the relationship as incestuous, with herself as the child and the lover as the father. There are other hints at incest. Her older brother is always spoken of as the murderer of her mother and younger brother. While not directly the case, he does exert a sinister control over them, which the girl says she has escaped.
The girl is capable of love and passion though. One of the few named people in the novel is her seventeen year old schoolmate Hélène Lagonelle. The girl obsessed over Hélène "...the most beautiful of all things given by God... I am worn out with desire for Hélène Lagonelle" However, Hélène was a simple soul, incapable of learning past primary school, unaware of the desire she aroused. One day the girl returned to school to find that she had lost Hélène too, the one person she cared about.
Eventually the girl was taken out of school to be sent to France. The affair ended, a new life began; a life related in the impersonal third person.
There is a dream like feeling throughout this highly autobiographical novel, a feeling of alternately floating and being submerged, which I suspect is even more powerful in the original French. Marguerite Duras was born in Indochina and did have an affair with a Chinese man. She moved to France as a young woman. She revisited and rewrote this affair many times throughout her life, publishing this version from the perspective of an older woman when she was seventy. It won the Prix Goncourt. show less
I believe we all have memories like these – distant, random, mixed with pain, mixed with joy, a purposeful vagueness that is possibly self-induced. The thoughts are disclosed like word-puke, somewhat jumbled, non-linear, occasionally repetitive as though to reinforce the thought, colored with poetic prose, incomplete but the feeling is confirmed. This is what I felt reading Duras’ ‘The Lover’, an autobiographical novel of her youth in Saigon, particularly of her Lover.
It’s 1929. The fifteen-and-a-half-year-old girl is in Saigon with her mom, a headmistress in a local school who is a manic-depressive widow, an elder brother who is violent, cruel, and a thief, and an elder brother who is referred to as ‘younger brother’ who show more is kind and gentle but lives in fear of the elder brother’s fist. They are broke and are known as the ‘layabouts’. On a ferry, the girl meets a 30-something wealthy Chinese-Vietnamese that evolves into a year and a half affair. Though wealthy, he is controlled by his father who owns the family’s money and forbids any consideration of their union. The affair ends when she leaves Saigon returning to France.
The emotions are complex as I am sure it was for Duras then and at the time of writing (published in 1984) and for the reader. Needless to say, there is an ickiness with the underage relationship. But it’s more than that with a certain amount of reciprocation and desire on her part – he was her temporary (hours at a time) escape from her reality. She is not seeking pity, yet her words draw you into her darkness. There is an economy of words in her lack of details, but there is also an excess of words to provide a certain dreaminess, that poetic feeling. But as the reader, we know there is nothing pleasant here and that just adds to the ickiness. The narrator speaks of “I”, but also regularly speaks of the protagonist in the third person – the girl, the white girl, the girl with a man’s hat, as though these memories are detachments and denials, not of hers, not of her fifteen to seventeen-year-old self. She also wrote of her lust for her beautiful classmate, her best friend, lusting of her body, of her breasts. She recognizes her own sexual ‘perverseness’ but ignores her sexual confusion.
Perhaps the above is what makes this an award-winning book – that a nearly seventy-year old self can converge her complex teenage years into a haunting tale. Alas, it is not for me. Lastly, I was annoyed with the stereotype description of the Chinese male, his lack of masculinity, his softness, his weeping. Even though I know it’s her truth and likely the truth of that time, it’s still rather off-putting.
Some quotes:
On Beauty – and it’s one heck of a pickup line for a mature lady:
“One day, when I was already old, in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me. He introduced himself and said, ‘I’ve known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you’re more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.”
On Desire:
“You didn’t have to attract desire. Either it was in the woman who aroused it or it didn’t exist. Either it was there at first glace or else it had never been. It was instant knowledge of sexual relationship or it was nothing. That too I knew before I experienced it.” show less
It’s 1929. The fifteen-and-a-half-year-old girl is in Saigon with her mom, a headmistress in a local school who is a manic-depressive widow, an elder brother who is violent, cruel, and a thief, and an elder brother who is referred to as ‘younger brother’ who show more is kind and gentle but lives in fear of the elder brother’s fist. They are broke and are known as the ‘layabouts’. On a ferry, the girl meets a 30-something wealthy Chinese-Vietnamese that evolves into a year and a half affair. Though wealthy, he is controlled by his father who owns the family’s money and forbids any consideration of their union. The affair ends when she leaves Saigon returning to France.
The emotions are complex as I am sure it was for Duras then and at the time of writing (published in 1984) and for the reader. Needless to say, there is an ickiness with the underage relationship. But it’s more than that with a certain amount of reciprocation and desire on her part – he was her temporary (hours at a time) escape from her reality. She is not seeking pity, yet her words draw you into her darkness. There is an economy of words in her lack of details, but there is also an excess of words to provide a certain dreaminess, that poetic feeling. But as the reader, we know there is nothing pleasant here and that just adds to the ickiness. The narrator speaks of “I”, but also regularly speaks of the protagonist in the third person – the girl, the white girl, the girl with a man’s hat, as though these memories are detachments and denials, not of hers, not of her fifteen to seventeen-year-old self. She also wrote of her lust for her beautiful classmate, her best friend, lusting of her body, of her breasts. She recognizes her own sexual ‘perverseness’ but ignores her sexual confusion.
Perhaps the above is what makes this an award-winning book – that a nearly seventy-year old self can converge her complex teenage years into a haunting tale. Alas, it is not for me. Lastly, I was annoyed with the stereotype description of the Chinese male, his lack of masculinity, his softness, his weeping. Even though I know it’s her truth and likely the truth of that time, it’s still rather off-putting.
Some quotes:
On Beauty – and it’s one heck of a pickup line for a mature lady:
“One day, when I was already old, in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me. He introduced himself and said, ‘I’ve known you for years. Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you’re more beautiful now than then. Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now. Ravaged.”
On Desire:
“You didn’t have to attract desire. Either it was in the woman who aroused it or it didn’t exist. Either it was there at first glace or else it had never been. It was instant knowledge of sexual relationship or it was nothing. That too I knew before I experienced it.” show less
Members
- Recently Added By
Published Reviews
ThingScore 75
"L'Amant" de Marguerite Duras, publié en 1984, est un roman semi-autobiographique qui se déroule dans le Vietnam colonial français des années 1920. L'histoire suit la liaison illicite et passionnée entre une jeune fille française issue d'une famille en difficulté financière et un riche amant chinois plus âgé.
La protagoniste anonyme, appelée simplement "la fille", est issue d'une show more famille dysfonctionnelle, et sa relation avec l'amant est marquée par les tabous sociaux, les différences culturelles et les divisions brutales de la société coloniale. Le récit explore les thèmes de l'amour, du désir, de la dynamique du pouvoir et de l'impact des attentes de la société sur les relations personnelles.
Duras utilise un style d'écriture dépouillé et évocateur, qui permet de saisir les émotions intenses et les complexités des personnages. La structure non linéaire et la narration fragmentée du roman contribuent à son caractère onirique et poétique.
"L'Amant" est célèbre pour son exploration des lignes floues entre l'amour et l'exploitation, ainsi que pour sa description poignante de l'éveil sexuel d'une jeune femme et des dures réalités de la vie coloniale. Le roman a reçu le prestigieux prix Goncourt en France et est devenu l'une des œuvres les plus acclamées de Marguerite Duras. show less
La protagoniste anonyme, appelée simplement "la fille", est issue d'une show more famille dysfonctionnelle, et sa relation avec l'amant est marquée par les tabous sociaux, les différences culturelles et les divisions brutales de la société coloniale. Le récit explore les thèmes de l'amour, du désir, de la dynamique du pouvoir et de l'impact des attentes de la société sur les relations personnelles.
Duras utilise un style d'écriture dépouillé et évocateur, qui permet de saisir les émotions intenses et les complexités des personnages. La structure non linéaire et la narration fragmentée du roman contribuent à son caractère onirique et poétique.
"L'Amant" est célèbre pour son exploration des lignes floues entre l'amour et l'exploitation, ainsi que pour sa description poignante de l'éveil sexuel d'une jeune femme et des dures réalités de la vie coloniale. Le roman a reçu le prestigieux prix Goncourt en France et est devenu l'une des œuvres les plus acclamées de Marguerite Duras. show less
added by Peter_MacTroy
Lists
The Guardian's 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read
1,005 works; 546 members
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
1,448 works; 1,132 members
501 Must-Read Books
508 works; 72 members
Best Contemporary Literary Fiction (Around the Last 30 Years)
388 works; 123 members
Best of French Literature
138 works; 25 members
New York Public Library's Books of the Century
120 works; 20 members
Female Author
1,235 works; 67 members
Best Feminist Literature
188 works; 26 members
20th Century Literature
1,161 works; 54 members
New York Public Library's Books of the Century - All
170 works; 13 members
Harold Bloom - The Western Canon: D. The Chaotic Age
833 works; 24 members
Favourite Books
1,817 works; 316 members
Canon de la narrativa universal del siglo XX
254 works; 6 members
Favorite Literary Love Stories
182 works; 100 members
1980s
356 works; 23 members
500 Great Books by Women
507 works; 60 members
Short and Sweet
243 works; 23 members
EU Fiction: 1950-2022
223 works; 70 members
Lithub: The 50 Best Contemporary Novels Under 200 Pages
50 works; 4 members
1,001 BYMRBYD Concensus
723 works; 27 members
Elena Ferrante's 40 favourite books by female authors
40 works; 10 members
SHOULD Read Books!
354 works; 9 members
Books Read in 2023
5,547 works; 144 members
Erotic Fiction
53 works; 5 members
Books Read in 2015
3,299 works; 126 members
My TBR
371 works; 3 members
Canon de la narrativa universal del s. XX (cicutadry)
499 works; 3 members
.
396 works; 1 member
el
1,139 works; 1 member
Our Favorite Comfort Reads
334 works; 200 members
Retrospective of 20th- and 21st-century literature
154 works; 1 member
Les 50 meilleurs livres de langue française de 1900 à aujourd’hui
69 works; 2 members
Stuff from Bard
70 works; 1 member
Books for Birute
39 works; 1 member
Great Short Books: A Year of Reading-Briefly
59 works; 4 members
Global Reads: Books Set in East Asia
139 works; 12 members
Favorite Romance Fiction
247 works; 115 members
Books You Can Read in a Weekend
7 works; 1 member
Books Read in 2012
815 works; 34 members
le donne raccontano
116 works; 1 member
Take Four Books
131 works; 1 member
Talk Discussions
Past Discussions
Duras: The Lover in Author Theme Reads (August 2013)
Author Information
224+ Works 18,767 Members
Marguerite Duras was born in Gia-Dinh, Indochina on April 4, 1914. After attending school in Saigon, she moved to Paris, France to study law and political science. After graduation, she worked as a secretary in the French Ministry of the Colonies until 1941. During World War II, she joined the Resistance and published her first books. After the show more liberation, she became a member of the French Communist Party, and though she later resigned, she always described herself as a Marxist. Her first book, Les Impudents, was published in 1943. During her lifetime, she wrote more than 70 novels, plays, screenplays and adaptations. Her novels include The Sea Wall, The Lover, The Lover from Northern China, The War, and That's All. In 1959, she wrote her first film scenario, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, and has since been involved in a number of other films, including India Song, Baxter, Vera Baxter, Le Camion (The Truck), and The Lover. She died on March 4, 1996 at the age of 81. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Awards
Distinctions
Notable Lists
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Is retold in
Has the adaptation
Is abridged in
Has as a reference guide/companion
Has as a commentary on the text
Has as a student's study guide
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Lover
- Original title
- L'amant
- Original publication date
- 1984 (original French) (original French)
- People/Characters*
- Marguerite Duras
- Important places
- Saigon, Vietnam
- Related movies
- L'amant (1992 | IMDb)
- Dedication
- For Bruno Nuytten
- First words
- Un jour, j'étais âgée déjà, dans le hall d'un lieu public, un homme est venu vers moi.
One day, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me. - Quotations
- I often think of the image only I can see now, and of which I've never spoken. It's always there, in the same silence, amazing. It's the only image of myself I like, the only one in which I recognize myself, in which I deligh... (show all)t.
Very early in my life it was too late. It was already too late when I was eighteen. Between eighteen and twenty-five my face took off in a new direction. I grew old at eighteen
I acquired that drinker's face before I drank. Drink only confirmed it. The space for it existed in me.
I had the luck to have a mother desperate with a despair so unalloyed that sometimes even life's happiness, at its most poignant, couldn't quite make her forget it.
You always went home with the feeling of having experienced a sort of empty nightmare, of having spent a few hours as the guest of strangers with other guests who were strangers too, of having lived through a space of time wi... (show all)thout any consequences and without any cause, human or other. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Il lui avait dit que c'était comme avant, qu'il l'aimait encore, qu'il ne pourrait jamais cesser de l'aimer, qu'il l'aimerait jusqu'à sa mort.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Told her that it was as before, that he still loved her, he could never stop loving her, that he'd love her until death. - Blurbers
- Rossner, Judith; Strouse, Jean; White, Edmund; Weldon, Fay
- Original language
- French
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 843.912
- Canonical LCC
- PQ2607.U8245 A62613
- Disambiguation notice
- This is the 1984 book L'Amant, not to be confused with the 1971 book L'Amour.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 6,100
- Popularity
- 2,052
- Reviews
- 167
- Rating
- (3.66)
- Languages
- 32 — Bosnian, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Galician, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Norwegian, Farsi/Persian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Croatian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese (Portugal)
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 182
- ASINs
- 44