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littlizz's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
2.5
faintgirl's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not sure where I stand on this one, whether it's a three or a four. It's difficult to put together this collection of memories into a straight narrative. It's driven by fleeting emotions, memories from a past filled with pain and stolen moments of pleasure. The author, a french schoolgirl living in Indochina, has a somewhat illicit affair with a Chinese businessman. Her tumultuous relationship with her family at home intensify this relationship and she is sent away to boarding school, where she grows up way too fast.
Despite the fact that this novel is rife with emotional rollercoasters, it left me a little detached, whilst still being a page turner. I never really felt for the school girl or the grown woman she became, which leaves this book hovering somewhere around a 3.5.
Despite the fact that this novel is rife with emotional rollercoasters, it left me a little detached, whilst still being a page turner. I never really felt for the school girl or the grown woman she became, which leaves this book hovering somewhere around a 3.5.
clondestien's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
blairmahoney's review against another edition
5.0
Beautifully written and somewhat dreamlike in its exploration of memory and family dynamics. The shifting between first and third person worked particularly well. I know there's a film adaptation, but adapting this to film feels like it would be missing the point entirely, so I don't think I'll check it out.
stlake's review against another edition
fast-paced
3.75
This book is really challenging to rate.
There are sentences in this book that are so stunning, so profound— about death, about love, about the violent repression that holds White families together. I have to make sure to write down these portions of the text before I return it to the library. Everything “unto death”— probably never written better.
But— I have never winced more while reading something. The racism and colonialism in this book is extreme. On the one hand, one could hope to consider her as doing some critical whiteness— an honest characterization of French imperialism and fetishization of Others. But… I don’t think Duras is actually ‘in on it.’ It’s hard to take her as seriously as her writing is beautiful, because she herself allows for a lot of granted racism in her desire. She never once mentions her lover in another light than the racism that her family allows. She never once speaks of her self-conception as desirable apart from her whiteness and his being Chinese compared to her whiteness.
And— it is a genius way of writing an unbridled consciousness, emerging in the different tenses and associations of a traumatized woman. A woman writing from the fragmented memories of a young girl who knew before anything else that she was a sexual object, perhaps special only through her sexualization which depended upon her youth, her proximity to infancy, her whiteness, her willingness to kill over and over again her mother and brother who abused her. Ugh.
A really tough read. Some literary marvel.
There are sentences in this book that are so stunning, so profound— about death, about love, about the violent repression that holds White families together. I have to make sure to write down these portions of the text before I return it to the library. Everything “unto death”— probably never written better.
But— I have never winced more while reading something. The racism and colonialism in this book is extreme. On the one hand, one could hope to consider her as doing some critical whiteness— an honest characterization of French imperialism and fetishization of Others. But… I don’t think Duras is actually ‘in on it.’ It’s hard to take her as seriously as her writing is beautiful, because she herself allows for a lot of granted racism in her desire. She never once mentions her lover in another light than the racism that her family allows. She never once speaks of her self-conception as desirable apart from her whiteness and his being Chinese compared to her whiteness.
And— it is a genius way of writing an unbridled consciousness, emerging in the different tenses and associations of a traumatized woman. A woman writing from the fragmented memories of a young girl who knew before anything else that she was a sexual object, perhaps special only through her sexualization which depended upon her youth, her proximity to infancy, her whiteness, her willingness to kill over and over again her mother and brother who abused her. Ugh.
A really tough read. Some literary marvel.
jlmila's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
5.0
Couldn’t put it down
xtianincapeside's review against another edition
5.0
I'm going to start off by saying that this novella will not be for everyone. There is very little to no plot, the narrator is, at best, unreliable, and at worst, a liar, and there is no traceable timeline. None of this should scare away readers who, like me, will fall in love with the eloquent prose, brutal honesty, and adolescent clarify of Duras' narrator. Who needs plot when the narrator drops lines like this:
"Suddenly, all at once, she knows, knows that he doesn't understand her, that he never will, that he lacks the power to understand such perverseness. And that he can never move fast enough to catch her."
"The Lover" is often categorized as a love story, but it is so much deeper and richer than that. The novella centers around a nameless narrator who gives us bits and pieces of her life story, of herself. One can never be certain that anything she tells us is true, and even if it is, she never tells us the entire story. Instead, she presents us with conclusions, loaded details from her childhood, and leave it for us to fill in the gaps, to make sense of her life.
At the risk of sounding cliche, "The Lover" isn't easily described because it must be experienced. Some will love that experience, and come back to it from time to time with eager hearts, which the narrator is all too pleased to break. Others will hate it, write it off as naval gazing bs, but you won't know which one you are until you read it. Personally, I'll always have an eager, breakable heart for Duras.
"Suddenly, all at once, she knows, knows that he doesn't understand her, that he never will, that he lacks the power to understand such perverseness. And that he can never move fast enough to catch her."
"The Lover" is often categorized as a love story, but it is so much deeper and richer than that. The novella centers around a nameless narrator who gives us bits and pieces of her life story, of herself. One can never be certain that anything she tells us is true, and even if it is, she never tells us the entire story. Instead, she presents us with conclusions, loaded details from her childhood, and leave it for us to fill in the gaps, to make sense of her life.
At the risk of sounding cliche, "The Lover" isn't easily described because it must be experienced. Some will love that experience, and come back to it from time to time with eager hearts, which the narrator is all too pleased to break. Others will hate it, write it off as naval gazing bs, but you won't know which one you are until you read it. Personally, I'll always have an eager, breakable heart for Duras.
kirsten0929's review against another edition
4.0
[1985 - translation] Love her writing. Unusual use of punctuation makes for interesting flow (why use a period when a comma will do?). I'm not well versed on the history or geography of French Indochina so I didn't always follow the story as it moved between time and place but it didn't matter. For me the beauty was in her descriptions of the people, places and relationships. This story could have been creepy, given the subject matter, but the way she wrote it, it wasn't.