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A review by xtianincapeside
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
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.