Reviews with content warning for Racism - L'Amant

i wouldn’t know how to rate this book. the writing is breathtaking and i love the way duras narrates her family dynamics. the least interesting thing about it is the older lover!

Content Warnings

flo_sg's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Content Warnings

stryfe's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door.

this is a tough read. it's autobiographical and the perspective of the protagonist has so many different layers to it—her position as a white colonizer of Vietnam and how that is acknowledged by her, her position as an abused child seeking solace for her mentally ill mother, the "relationship" with her "lover" who is a man of twice her age, making him also her rapist—that help to paint a vivid picture of moments in her life through her memory of them.

the narrative style accepts the fallibility of human memory and uses it as a tool, allowing the narrator to jump back and forth through the timeline of her own life when she recollects something she hadn't before. duras's view of the world at age 15 bleeds into her world at the time of writing and vice versa, almost creating a tapestry out of all the crossovers.

someone with more education on the subject has most definitely written a better analysis of the very serious themes of race in this novel, so i'm going to read those rather than try to describe them, but definitely mind the content warnings. this is a story about white french colonizers. the protagonist is one of them, she is 15 years old. she has an extended "relationship" with a 27 year-old man, he is a predator, and the story includes her family's and the general colonies's anti-Chinese prejudice impacting their interactions and the protagonist's way of thinking. this book is often called an erotic novel which strikes me as extremely strange; the novel discusses sex, yes, but sex between a child and an adult should never have been referred to as erotic, i know why it was before, but it definitely should not be in 2023.

Content Warnings