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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
“Very early in my life, it was too late.”
The Lover (L'Amant) by Marguerite Duras is a semi-autobiographical novel first published in 1984. Set in colonial French Indochina, it tells the story of a passionate but doomed love affair between a 15-year-old French girl and a wealthy Chinese man in the 1920s.
The novel blends memory and fiction as the unnamed narrator reflects on her past. Duras writes in a poetic, almost dreamlike way while exploring desire, power, social constraints, and loss. The girl gives such complex feelings. She can be hateful, cold-hearted, and lost all at once. But it’s also deeply sad. She is the only one holding her family together at such a young age, trying to fulfill what her mother lacks, yet never being appreciated enough. The mother seems to care only for the eldest son, who eventually leaves her for France.
Her love life isn’t much better. The relationship begins when she meets a man twice her age. From the start, it is impossible, whether because of racial and class divisions or something even more intangible. Neither of them really stands a chance. I can’t even tell if it’s love or just two lonely people trying to escape the burdens society places on them. One seeks freedom, while the other tries to flee the weight of family expectations.
The plot is fantastic, and I find it deeply absorbing, but it’s also one of those books that is hard to navigate. Still, it’s a good book, just not an easy one to fall in love with.
The Lover (L'Amant) by Marguerite Duras is a semi-autobiographical novel first published in 1984. Set in colonial French Indochina, it tells the story of a passionate but doomed love affair between a 15-year-old French girl and a wealthy Chinese man in the 1920s.
The novel blends memory and fiction as the unnamed narrator reflects on her past. Duras writes in a poetic, almost dreamlike way while exploring desire, power, social constraints, and loss. The girl gives such complex feelings. She can be hateful, cold-hearted, and lost all at once. But it’s also deeply sad. She is the only one holding her family together at such a young age, trying to fulfill what her mother lacks, yet never being appreciated enough. The mother seems to care only for the eldest son, who eventually leaves her for France.
Her love life isn’t much better. The relationship begins when she meets a man twice her age. From the start, it is impossible, whether because of racial and class divisions or something even more intangible. Neither of them really stands a chance. I can’t even tell if it’s love or just two lonely people trying to escape the burdens society places on them. One seeks freedom, while the other tries to flee the weight of family expectations.
The plot is fantastic, and I find it deeply absorbing, but it’s also one of those books that is hard to navigate. Still, it’s a good book, just not an easy one to fall in love with.
dark
sad
Er zit veel verborgen tussen de woorden en de zinnen vloeien prachtig, maar inhoudelijk weet ik niet zo goed wat ik ervan vind.
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I first heard of this book decades ago, but initially resisted reading it.
As a youngster, I was indignant that the world's best-known novel about Vietnam was written not by a Vietnamese person, but by a French person. I was indignant that the love affair it describes is between a French woman and a Chinese man, rather than between two Vietnamese people. Picture me at the age of eleven or twelve: a sensitive bookish Vietnamese-American girl, eagerly looking forward to reading this world-famous romance novel that takes place in Vietnam, and to my bewilderment it turns out that none of the main characters are actual Vietnamese people! What a hurtful blow!
Throughout its history, Vietnam has been subjugated and ravaged by many foreign military powers, China and France being principal among them. To my immature preteen mind, the very existence of this book therefore felt like a personal affront.
It took me years to overcome these not-so-rational prejudices, and to deign to give this book a try.
The fact that I had read, and loved, Jean Rhys's tour-de-force novel Wide Sargasso Sea the preceding year helped make me more receptive to The Lover. The Lover and Wide Sargasso Sea have a lot in common. Like The Lover, Wide Sargasso Sea takes place amid the corruption and sordidness of a soon-to-be-postcolonial landscape. Wide Sargasso Sea takes place in the British-occupied Jamaica of the 1830s; The Lover unfolds in the French-occupied Vietnam of the 1920s. Both books use the intimate voice of a female first-person narrator to chronicle the sexual coming-of-age of a fatherless young woman who is descended from a Caucasian imperialist family. In both books, the protagonist struggles to define herself against an erratic and emotionally distant mother while also navigating the racial tensions of her rapidly changing country.
The Lover doesn't quite have the broad moral scope that Wide Sargasso Sea does: this is likely because it is such a narrowly autobiographical book that one is not sure whether to call it a novel or a memoir. If it is a memoir, it is one of the best memoirs I have ever read, though. Duras is able to bring an amazing degree of insight to her descriptions of her messy childhood and messed-up family. Within the space of scarcely a hundred pages, she is able to bring all these complex characters to life: her tyrannical and mentally unstable mother; her elder brother, a sociopath, and her younger brother, a timid weakling; her schoolmate (and the object of her lesbian crush), the stupid but voluptuous Helene Lagonelle; and, of course, the Chinese-born millionaire lover of the title.
Duras's book also has similarities to another novel about a nubile French teen girl that I read recently: James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime. It is scarcely less well-written than Salter's, is perhaps even more absorbing. None of the characters are likable, exactly, a fact that would have bothered me if I had read this book as a child. I am glad that I waited so long to read it, as I can finally appreciate Duras's beautiful writing the way it deserves to be appreciated.
As a youngster, I was indignant that the world's best-known novel about Vietnam was written not by a Vietnamese person, but by a French person. I was indignant that the love affair it describes is between a French woman and a Chinese man, rather than between two Vietnamese people. Picture me at the age of eleven or twelve: a sensitive bookish Vietnamese-American girl, eagerly looking forward to reading this world-famous romance novel that takes place in Vietnam, and to my bewilderment it turns out that none of the main characters are actual Vietnamese people! What a hurtful blow!
Throughout its history, Vietnam has been subjugated and ravaged by many foreign military powers, China and France being principal among them. To my immature preteen mind, the very existence of this book therefore felt like a personal affront.
It took me years to overcome these not-so-rational prejudices, and to deign to give this book a try.
The fact that I had read, and loved, Jean Rhys's tour-de-force novel Wide Sargasso Sea the preceding year helped make me more receptive to The Lover. The Lover and Wide Sargasso Sea have a lot in common. Like The Lover, Wide Sargasso Sea takes place amid the corruption and sordidness of a soon-to-be-postcolonial landscape. Wide Sargasso Sea takes place in the British-occupied Jamaica of the 1830s; The Lover unfolds in the French-occupied Vietnam of the 1920s. Both books use the intimate voice of a female first-person narrator to chronicle the sexual coming-of-age of a fatherless young woman who is descended from a Caucasian imperialist family. In both books, the protagonist struggles to define herself against an erratic and emotionally distant mother while also navigating the racial tensions of her rapidly changing country.
The Lover doesn't quite have the broad moral scope that Wide Sargasso Sea does: this is likely because it is such a narrowly autobiographical book that one is not sure whether to call it a novel or a memoir. If it is a memoir, it is one of the best memoirs I have ever read, though. Duras is able to bring an amazing degree of insight to her descriptions of her messy childhood and messed-up family. Within the space of scarcely a hundred pages, she is able to bring all these complex characters to life: her tyrannical and mentally unstable mother; her elder brother, a sociopath, and her younger brother, a timid weakling; her schoolmate (and the object of her lesbian crush), the stupid but voluptuous Helene Lagonelle; and, of course, the Chinese-born millionaire lover of the title.
Duras's book also has similarities to another novel about a nubile French teen girl that I read recently: James Salter's A Sport and a Pastime. It is scarcely less well-written than Salter's, is perhaps even more absorbing. None of the characters are likable, exactly, a fact that would have bothered me if I had read this book as a child. I am glad that I waited so long to read it, as I can finally appreciate Duras's beautiful writing the way it deserves to be appreciated.
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Op de achterkant van dit boek staat een quote van Connie Palmen, waarin ze zegt "Er is geen boek waar ik vaker naar terugkeer dan De Minnaar." Ik begrijp dat dit een boek is om naar terug te keren, er zit iets in de zinnen, de manier waarop ze met elkaar verweven zijn, de wisseling van perspectieven en de zindering van Vietnam die fascineert.
Ergens begreep ik het boek ook niet zo goed; en als ik erg na ga denken over de thematiek, dan vind ik ook wel dingen erin terug die me storen. Zoals de vooroordelen en de stereotypering, en natuurlijk de nogal ongepaste relatie die in dit boek op de voorgrond staat.
Toch vind ik het ook weer fascinerend en heeft het me geboeid. Ik denk dat ik ook nog nooit zó lang over zo'n kort boek heb gedaan.
Ik begrijp waarom dit boek als een klassieker gezien word, maar ik weet ook niet zo goed wat ik, als persoon, er nu echt van vond.
Ergens begreep ik het boek ook niet zo goed; en als ik erg na ga denken over de thematiek, dan vind ik ook wel dingen erin terug die me storen. Zoals de vooroordelen en de stereotypering, en natuurlijk de nogal ongepaste relatie die in dit boek op de voorgrond staat.
Toch vind ik het ook weer fascinerend en heeft het me geboeid. Ik denk dat ik ook nog nooit zó lang over zo'n kort boek heb gedaan.
Ik begrijp waarom dit boek als een klassieker gezien word, maar ik weet ook niet zo goed wat ik, als persoon, er nu echt van vond.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No