| Title | : | The Malady of Death |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0802130364 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780802130365 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 60 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1982 |
The Malady of Death Reviews
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A novella, really a short story. A man hires a woman to spend several weeks with him by the sea. He “can’t love” but wants to lean how. Although he hires her, she tells him she’s not a prostitute. Death in this story refers to his inability to love.
Here’s a passage that gives you a good idea of the writing style that uses extremely short sentences almost exclusively :
“The tears wake her. She looks at you. She looks at the room. And again at you. She strokes your hand. Asks: Why are you crying? You say it’s for her to say, she’s the one who ought to know.
She answers softly, gently: Because you don’t love. You say that’s it.
She asks you to say it clearly.
You say: I don’t love.
She says: Never?
You say: Never.
She says: The wish to be about to kill a lover, to keep him for yourself, yourself alone, to take him, steal him in defiance of every law, every moral authority – you don’t know what that is, you’ve never experienced it?
You say: Never.
She looks at you, repeats: A dead man’s a strange thing.”
Here’s the blurb from GR and on the book jacket:
The woman is no one in particular, a "she," a warm, moist body with a beating heart-the enigma of Other. Skilled in the mechanics of sex, he desires through her to penetrate a different mystery: he wants to learn love. It isn't a matter of will, she tells him. Still, he wants to learn to try . . .This beautifully wrought erotic novel is an extended haiku on the meaning of love, "perhaps a sudden lapse in the logic of the universe," and of its absence, "the malady of death." "The whole tragedy of the inability to love is in this work, thanks to Duras' unparalleled art of reinventing the most familiar words, of weighing their meaning." - Le Monde; "Deceptively simple and Racinian in its purity, condensed to the essential." - Translation Review.
At the end the author gives a few pages of instructions about staging this story for the theatre or making a film of it. Written in 1982, it was staged as a play in 2018. Wikipedia tells us that during the time when Duras wrote this story, she was drinking 6 to 7 liters of wine a day and was in and out of the hospital, sometimes so incapacitated that she could not write. She dictated this story to her nurse.
The story did not appeal to me. Perhaps if I was into poetry and treated is as a haiku it would be more appealing. So unless you are into poetry, I don’t really recommend it.
Top photo of a French beach in Basque country from nyt.com
Middle photo from meredithcorp.io
The author from groveatlantic.com -
Rating: 4* of five
2022 UPDATE
$2.99 on Kindle!
I discovered the joys of reading Marguerite Duras after I began working for John Calder at Riverrun Press in New York. It was a fabulous fringe benefit indeed.
Women are the bitterest, cruelest, most reductive misogynists known to Humankind.You say she mustn't speak, like the women of her ancestors, must yield completely to you and to your will, be entirely submissive like peasant women in the barns after the harvest when they're exhausted and let the men come to them while they're asleep. So that you may gradually get used to that shape molding itself to yours, at your mercy as nuns are at God's. And also so that little by little, as day dawns, you may be less afraid of not knowing where to put your body or at what emptiness to aim your love.
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You say you can't know why, that you don't understand the malady you suffer from.
She smiles, says this is the first time, that until she met you, she didn't know death could be lived.
Your death has already begun.
Ένα μεγάλο ευχαριστώ στην Ιωάννα για την πρόταση της.
Το μόνο που μου έρχεται να πω είναι ένα quote του Oscar:
"Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark. and has the nature of infinity"
Και κλείνω πάλι με quote από το βιβλίο.
Even so you have managed to live that love in the only way possible for you. Losing it before it happened. -
Daleko je ovo od njenih najboljih romana, ali je na ovih četrdeset strana upakovano sve što je esencija Dirasove u njenoj poslednjoj i najproduktivnijoj fazi. Delom novela, delom skica za pozorišni komad, delom pesma u prozi, a opet, svojim minimalističkim pripovedanjem, izbeljenim i anemičnim, podseća i na pokušaj da se prepriča neki od filmova koje je režirala. Najviše podseća na film
„Agata i neograničena čitanja” jer u oba imamo nemoguće ljubavnike u centru, u prostoru i vremenu ispražnjenom od značenja. U filmu su nemogući ljubavnici brat i sestra Agata – referenca na incestuozne ljubavnike iz Muzilovog „Čoveka bez osobina” - i prisutni su na filmskoj traci glasom, koji pripada drugačijem dijagetičkom nivou nego događaji koji su ispripovedani putem slika. U „Bolesti smrti” imamo to slično, ali drugačije izvedeno. Imamo pripovedača koji sa posebnog nivoa pripoveda u drugom licu uputstva šta nemogući ljubavnik treba da radi i da kaže ljubavnici, što u praksi zvuči kao da čitate transkript režiserovih instrukcija glumcu pri pripremanju pozorišne predstave. O paru ne znamo mnogo, osim da je on, verovatno, homoseksualac koji je došao kod nepoznate žene, da proba da voli žensko telo, a ona pristaje da mu pruži ljubav uz novčanu nadoknadu, iako tvrdi da nije prostitutka. I to je sve od zapleta, ostalo je pillow talk, doduše vrlo čudan jer ga izgovara pripovedač u vidu instrukcija – tako da dobijajamo iluziju, ništa manje čudnog, ljubavnog trougla.
Iako je knjiga kratka, ima u njoj svega što poseduju Dirasine knjige iz osamdesetih: minimalistički stil, poigravanje dijagetičkim nivoima, likovima je prerano postalo suviše kasno, amnezije, vinjak atmosfere, izbeljenosti, otvorene i skrivene autobiografije, svest o razlici između označenog i označitelja, manirizma, psiholoških uvida (koji su se od intuitivnih lakan-kan pretvorili u lakan-valcere) i druge raznolike francuzštine – od Ružmonove ideje da je dominantan mit ljubavi na Zapadu mit o nemogućoj ljubavi, Batajeve fantazmagorije o ljubavnom činu kao ritualu žrtvovanja i uništenja, pa do činjenice da ljubavnica u ovoj noveli obično spava, što je očigledna referenca na Albertinu koja u „Traganju za izgubljenim vremenom” neočekivano često drema, jer je Marsel najsrećniji dok je ona u snu. Diras je meni uvek dirljiva na neki poseban način, gotovo kao postkoitalna melanholija, koja naposletku jeste egocentrična tuga, ili kako bi pripovedač uputio imperativ glavnom junaku: „Kad ste plakali, bilo je to zbog vas samog, a ne zbog divne mogućnosti da je dosegnete kroz različitost koja vas razdvaja”. -
An old philosophy of things says that everything is learned, that nothing is doomed to the impossible . Duras' theme in this mini-novel is impossible love, and the absence of desire.
We have a gay writer here, as a main character, and a prostitute. In fact, a prostitute is improperly said, because that woman, without a " face " - only plays the role of a prostitute, even if she is paid to help this man to be able to love.
She obeys blindly, lets herself be explored, waiting for nothing more than for things to happen.
The Malady of Death is an intimate text, taking the form of a confession by the author that delivers a message that would seem outdated today : According to her, homosexuals cannot be attached to anyone, they are doomed to move from one relationship to another, without the satisfaction of a true partener.
It is a deeply rooted idea in Duras, which he calls " the malady of death " - the inability to love, actually. In Duras, death can be " lived " many times, it is a state of fact, a temporary condition of the human being, an absence of love and serious gaps in daily life, which causes a social-death, a death of feeling.
The style of the novel approaches by construction that of a theatrical one. However, the absurdity of the search for a love that cannot exist - penetrates me only from the literary angle , I couldn't fit that note of fatality in the form of the author's idea.
Often, we get caught up in the game of the absence of love, and we play this game of suffering of our own choosing. There is no incapacity such as the absence of love, but the inability to perceive its presence, even if this inability is only a perception, not a reality.
Love is a reality, its absence is just a mental virus that can be cured by giving up feeding it. I know, it's easy to say.. This illusory incapacity is an acquired one, we have just learned that we cannot, or that we are not able of love. But this love does not die by a natural death, she dies due to blindness, indifference, forgetfulness, she dies for that she was not taken care of. -
You ask how loving can happen-the emotion of loving. She answers: Perhaps a sudden lapse in the logic of universe. She says: Through a mistake for instance. She says: Never through an act of will. You ask: Could the emotion of loving come from other things too? You beg her to say. She says: It can come from the flight of a night bird, from a sleep, from a dream of sleep, from the approach of death, from a word, from a crime, of itself, from oneself, often without knowing how.
Πράξη μέσα από την απραξία, ένα διαλογικό κείμενο που θα μπορούσε να είναι μονόλογος, δύο φωνές του ίδιου υποκειμένου, ο θάνατος κι η ζωή προσωποποιημένοι. Απαισιόδοξη, ερωτική γραφή, όμοια με όνειρο, μια ιστορία στατική δοσμένη με κινηματογραφική δομή.
Η Marguerite Duras γράφει:If I ever filmed this text I'd want the weeping by the sea to be shot in such a way that the white turmoil of the waves is seen almost simultaneously with the man's face. There should be a correlation between the white of the sheets and the white of the sea. The sheets should be a prior image of the sea. All this by way of general suggestion.
προσθέτοντας και τονίζοντας αλλού την απουσία μουσικής αλλά και ομοψυχίας, μέσα από την απομάκρυνση των δυο πρωταγωνιστών επί σκηνής, δημιουργώντας ταυτόχρονα ένα συγκεκριμένο τέμπο, δίνοντας τη μελαγχολική ατμόσφαιρα που κυριεύει το κείμενο και που συνυπάρχει με τη διάχυτη και προγραμματική σεξουαλικότητα. -
This is a kind of pure concentrate of late Duras, the brief scenario focused into a streamlined intensity of plot and signifiers. A repeated series of nights, an (absent) love, an absence, tears=waves, and night, always night, only night. She also takes the form to its furthest extent -- unstable tenses unsettle and amplify the salience of the "story", these are words carving out meaning from the very point of their conveyance, the signs are the signified, rather than an attempt to convey a narrative truth that exists untouched outside them. It's great. I feel that I should re-read this already, even.
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« صورت در خواب مانده
صورت لال است
صورت مثل دستها میخوابد»
از دوبارهخوانی دوراس؛ در متن بلانشو.
و موخرهی دوراس بر کتاب:
«اگر قرار باشد از این متن فیلم بسازم، میخواهم که اشکهای روی دریا طوری باشد که درهم شکستن موجهای دریا و صورت مرد تقریبن همزمان دیده شود. که رابطها�� بین سفیدیی ملحفهها و سفیدیی دریا وجود داشته باشد که ملحفهها تصویری از دریا باشد.» -
I read this in about an hour. Barely a novella, this surreal, erotic story packs a punch. There are notes at the end from Duras that indicate staging, which to me means she wrote this to be staged or filmed. There is an omniscient narrator above the He/She actors playing out the age old struggle between male and female, yin and yang. The only elements are white sheets and a black roiling sea that continually roars in the background. Some great observations on love and the lack of it.
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I liked this one but I also didnt like it. The writing was beautiful and it had some very beautifully written passages but it also made me feel so uncomfortable at times eh (which is probably on me, not the book). Still, I feel like I didnt really get the story, like I missed a few pages. I’m sure there is a deeper meaning to this book than what I gathered from it.
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I adore short, abstract fictions like this one. I think no American literary movement has come close to affecting me like the French Nouveau Roman of the 1950-60s. Of these authors I so admire, however, Duras's work is, for me, a tad up and down. But I found this one very fine. Stark. Erotic, but not sexy. Existential, if you will. A paid relationship pared down to poetic lines, as if metered. Generalizations so full of meaning they became weightless and therefore profound-sounding, ridiculous if you want them to be, almost meaningless in their stark beauty. They strike you--funny or heavy, take it as you will; I find such writing worth the risk of laughter, of ridicule.
As in my last review, pretentious is the word that comes to mind. Only I can only use this word as a compliment for I think that's what art pretty much always does--it takes a small portion of the meaninglessness of the world and blows it up into a self-important work, an object, a thing to be admired. An aesthetic object is fraught with undue significance. This, to me, is how the human brain works as well. This habit of mind is the place from whence mythology, painting, religion, music, politics, and literature all emerge. Big crybabies screaming for some thwarted desire. Look at me! Look at my suffering! Love me! I enjoyed the reversal here, the self-important john, buying a woman to test his own heartlessness--as if the act of purchasing a human being had not already proved that he was living death. The woman struck me as bemused. -
"Porque logo que falou comigo vi que sofria da doença da morte. (...) Pergunta-lhe como é que ela sabe. Ela diz simplesmente que sabe. Diz que é possível sabê-lo sem saber como é que se sabe."
Muito teatral na mise-en-scène e nas falas, este pequeno texto que, de facto, Marguerite Duras achou que poderia ser encenado. Mesmo sabendo que Duras é sobretudo linguagem e imagem, este é o texto mais estranho, abstracto e desconexo que já li dela; e não tenho como não acreditar que para isso contribuíram os seis litros de vinho que a autora bebia todos os dias, na fase em que o escreveu.
"Há em si um pranto cuja razão desconhece. Um pranto que fica retido em si, que não chega a poder unir-se-lhe de forma a conseguir chorá-lo. Diante do mar sombrio, encostado à parede do quarto onde ela dorme, chora por si como o faria um desconhecido." -
"If I ever filmed this text I'd want the weeping by the sea to be shot in such a way that the white turmoil of the waves is seen almost simultaneously with the man's face. There should be a correlation between the white of the sheets and the white of the sea...
All this by way of general suggestion." -
You ask: Why is the malady of death fatal? She answers: Because whoever has it doesn't know he's a carrier, of death. And also because he's like to die without any life to die to, and without even knowing that's what he's doing...The fact that you ask the question proves you can't understand.
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Great piece of art.
I am sorry, i have to add something here. This book was "given" to me by a person who i love deeply. Thank you, my dear, for this beautiful gift, and also, thank you, for everything. -
You go out again onto the terrace facing the black sea. Inside you there are sobs you can't explain. They linger on the brink of you as if they were outside, they can't reach you and be wept. Facing the black sea, leaning against the wall of the room where she's sleeping, you weep for yourself as a stranger might.
[...]
You can't understand how it's possible for her not to know of your tears, for her to be protected from you by herself, for her to be so completely unaware of how she fills the whole world.You lie down beside her. And, still for yourself, you weep. -
اولین چیزی که بعد از خوندن این کتاب به ذهنم رسید این جمله از پائولو کوئلیو بود:
بیایید از یاد نبریم: عشق لطافت است. یک روح سخت، اجازه نمی دهد دست خداوند آنرا مطابق میل خود شکل بخشد
مطمئنا شده که همه آدما یه ملال کشنده ای رو تو زندگی احساس کنن که اگه با شهامت جلوش نمونن، تهش میشن یه مُرده ای مثل همین کاراکتر مرد داستان
تصمیم نداشتم این کتابو بخونم و خواندنش کاملا اتفاقی بود اما از اون حادثه های پرمعنی که گاهی که دقت کنیم، فقط گاهی رخ میدن! فکری که پشت این کتاب قرار داره خودش فلسفه ای هست کامل و مجزا
تا این شب، نفهمیده بودید چطور می شود نسبت به آنچه چشم می بیند، آنچه دست ها، آنچه بدن لمس می کند؛ جاهل بود. این جهالت را کشف می کنید
از او می پرسید: مرض مرگ به چه شکلی کشنده است؟ جواب می دهد: کسی که به آن مبتلاست نمی داند که حامل آن، حامل مرگ است. و نیز این طور، کسی که حامل مرض مرگ است می میرد بدون زندگی ای که پیش از آن بمیرد، بدون هیچگونه شناختی از مردن در هیچ زندگی ای
متوجه می شوید که این رنگ چشم نیست که تا ابد مرز غیرقابل عبور بین او و شما خواهد بود. نه، رنگ نیست، می دانید که بین سبز و خاکستری ست، نه، رنگ نیست، نه، نگاه است. نگاه
هق هق هایی در شماست که دلیلش را نمی دانید. در نزدیکی شما متوقف مانده اند، گویی بیرون از شما هستند، نمی توانند به شما برسند تا گریه شان کنید. روبروی دریای سیاه، پشت به دیوار اتاقی که او می خوابد، مثل یک غریبه روی خودتان گریه می کنید
درک نمی کنید که چطور ممکن است که او اشک های شما را نادیده بگیرد، که توسط خودش از شما محافظت شود، که نداند تا این اندازه تمام دنیا را به هم ریخته است
همچنان حوالی سپیده دم است. ساعت هایی ست که به وسعت فضاهای آسمان است. خیلی زیاد است، زمان نمی داند از کجا بگذرد. زمان دیگر نمی گذرد
دیگر نگاه نمی کنید. دیگر هیچ چیز را نگاه نمی کنید. چشم هایتان را می بندید تا خود را در تفاوت تان پیدا کنید، در مرگتان
می گوید: این خواست که در مرز کشتن معشوق باشید، او را برای خودتان تنها بخواهید ، بگیریدش، در مقابل تمامی قوانین، در مقابل تمام امپراطوری های اخلاق، بدزدیدش، این را نمی شناسید؟ هیچ وقت نشناختید؟
می گویید: هیچ وقت
نگاه تان می کند، تکرار می کند: مُرده چیز عجیبی ست
از او می پرسید که آیا فکر می کندمی توان شما را دوست داشت؟
می گوید که به هیچ وجه نمی توان. از او می پرسید: به خاطر مرگ؟ می گوید بله، بخاطر این بی مزه گی، این بی حرکت بودن حس تان، به دلیل این دروغ که دریا سیاه است
بصورتی نامحسوس به شما می گوید: شما از "مرگ" می میرید! مرگ تان آغاز شده است. گریه می کنید. به شما می گوید: گریه نکنید، احتیاجی نیست، از این عادت بر خود گریستن دست بکشید، احتیاجی نیست
تنها در دنیا، همانطوری که دلتان می خواهد، همانطوری که دلتان می خواهدبه حرف زدن ادامه می دهید. می گویید که به نظرتان عشق همیشه چیز عوضی ای بوده، که هیچوقت نفهمیده اید، که همیشه از دوست داشتن طفره رفته اید، که همیشه خواسته اید آزاد باشید که دوست نداشته باشید. می گویید که سردرگم شده اید. می گویید که نمی دانید بخاطر چی، در چی سردرگم شده اید
می گوید امیدوار است هیچ وقت آنطور که شما چیزی از دنیا نمی دانید، چیزی از دنیا نداند! می گوید: نمی خواهم به شکلی که شما می دانید، چیزی بدانم؛ با این یقینی که از مرگ ریشه می گیرد، این یکنواختی بی علاج، یکجور و یکنواخت، هر روز و هر شب زندگیتان، با این وظیفه ی کشنده ی عدم دوست داشتن! می گوید: روز شده، همه چیز آغاز می شود، جز شما. شما، هیچ وقت آغاز نمی شوید
می پرسید که حس دوست داشتن چطور پیش می آید؟ جواب می دهد: شاید از نقصی ناگهانی در منطق جهان. می گوید: مثلا از یک اشتباه. می گوید: هیچ وقت از یک خواست (درخواست؟). می پرسید: حس دوست داشتن می تواند از چیزهای دیگری ناشی شود؟ می گوید: از همه چیز، از پرواز پرنده ای در شب، از یک خواب، از رویای یک خواب، از نزدیکی مرگ، از یک کلمه، از یک جنایت، از خود، یکباره بدون اینکه دلیلش معلوم باشد
وقتی گریه کردید، روی خودتان تنها بود که گریه کردید و نه روی ناممکن بودن تحسین برانگیز رسیدن به او؛ از خلال تفاوتی که شما را از هم جدا می کند
خیلی زود دست می کشید، دیگر دنبالش نمی گردید، نه در شهر، نه در شب، نه در روز. اما به این صورت توانستید تنها شکل از این عشق را که برایتان مقدور بود، زندگی کنید، با از دست دادنش پیش از آنکه اتفاق بیفتد -
ترجمه و ویراستش افتضاح بود. از اونجایی که برای سوییچ کردن رو متن اصلی خیلی تنبلی کردم، باید دوباره بخونم.
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Yazar vermek istediği mesajı öyle derinlere g��mmüş ki üstüne düşündükçe durmadan yeni bir şeyler kavrıyorum. Oldukça etkileyici ve yer yer zordu.
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ما الموت الذي تقصده دوراس؟ - ليس عدم القدرة على الحب، وليس الموت الذي هو انقطاع الحياة، وليس هو دموع فقد العزيز والحبيب.
الموت الذي تقصده دوراس هو موت انتشائي - أعتقد - هو موت اللحظة التي تلي انهاك الجسدين من شدة عنف ممارسة الحب بينهما. أن تكون ممددة بكامل جسدها فوق بطنها، غير قادرة على الحركة، وهو بجانبها - إنهما في هذه اللحظة يعيشان أجمل لحظات الموت. -
Crying while having sex, the novel
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Duras gives us a fading polaroid snapshot of an unusual relationship, presented through something midway between a novella and a theatre sketch. A man pays a woman to spend several days with him in a hotel by the sea. In doing this, he hopes to be able to experience love, as though it will sprout spontaneously from the soil of this paid liaison. The woman accepts his offer even though she is not a prostitute, but through these pages she remains instead a nameless other, intermittently sleeping and waking and mock-sleeping, draped in the white sheets, a voice telling him that he is in fact incapable of love because he is inflicted with la maladie de la mort. Duras paints this fleeting encounter in the second person, in her poetic prose, filled with repetitions like the white-foamed waves that sound outside the hotel room during the night. She is a writer of great sensuality. I only wish my French was a bit more competent so as to be able to more fully appreciate this.
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Edebiyat bölümlerinde bu kitap tartışılmalı. Ne anlattığını, alt mesajı tartışın. Çünkü görünenin, yazılanın dışında bir şeyler var ama yazar derine öyle bir gömmüş ki, ya da aslında yok, anladığınızın varlığı bir şüpheli. Puanlamak o yüzden zor oldu benim için. Bazı kısımlar çok güzel olsa da diğer kısımlar delüzyon gibiydi. Belki de buydu verilmek istenen. O yüzden üzerinde düşündükçe daha güzel geliyor
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A narrator tells the story of a man who pays a woman to stay with him for a period of time so that he can try 'loving'. (She is not a prostitute.) He's never loved a woman, never desired one, never even looked at one. But he knows how to give sexual pleasure. The woman sleeps most of the time. Occasionally they have sex. The man is trying. Some of the time they spend together seems intimate. But can there be intimacy without love? The man is a solitary individual—there is space all around him that no one else can enter. The woman sees him as living death, living a 'deadly routine of lovelessness'. She cannot fathom it but she sees it in him. Duras's control of language and of her material is masterful. The story forms a perfect arc and is exactly as long as it needs to be. It is flawless. -
من أقبح ما قرأت...
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(2.5) I admire Duras's writing, I really do. There's just something about it that makes it teeter between great and bad. This book particularly shows when it tips towards the bad side. It's not that there's anything missing in it, it's just that it comes so close to being erotic fiction with no depth. But what it is is impenetrable (ha ha). Duras is trying to say something inexpressible, and it feels almost like it would make a better short film than a novel. But then you watch
Hiroshima mon amour and realize that Duras is a better novelist than screenwriter. This dilemma is present in all of her fiction, but I think it's most apparent here. So I'd say unless you're a hardcore Duras fan you can skip this and read
Moderato Cantabile or
The Lover instead. -
a short review for a short story.
The Malady of Death left me with a mayhem of questions about myself. Unaware, She, the author, stripped me naked. -
Marguerite Duras rocks my WORLD!! I literally read this entire thing in Myopic Books in half an hour and it’s so so incredibly gorgeous. There’s a loose story about a doomed affair between two unnamed characters, a man paying a woman to spend two weeks together to see if he can experience love for the first time, but really it reads less as a narrative and more as fluid, dreamy, deeply sad poetry. Everything I have ever read by her is perfect and beautiful and heartbreaking! I just bought an earlier novel of hers in the same Myopic visit (L’Amante Anglaise) and I’m very very thrilled to read it.
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I was turned onto Marguerite Duras’ work by a comment made in
an interview of
Camilla Monk, wherein Ms. Monk credited Ms. Duras as one of her influences in romance. I’ve spent the last couple days scrounging up books and watching the phenomenal Hiroshima Mon Amour. I’m a bit exhausted. But still going, adding
The Lover and
The Ravishing of Lol Stein to my TBR. [Pretty sure “Lol” isn’t really “LOL”.]
Just had to add that aside; I need a bit of lightness after a few days of Ms. Duras. Not that Malady was oppressively dark, but it wasn’t easy. The plot upshot: A man hires a woman [not a prostitute, though] to have an extended fling with him over the course of several days. Over those days, it's determined that he is incapable of love, due to his "malady".
I’m not entirely sure where to start in my assessment of it, or where that assessment will take me. So I will start with a line that haunts me; the line that became the crux of all my questions: She’s more mysterious than any other external thing you’ve ever known.
It’s so complicated – on the surface, it’s a romantic statement about the mysteries of a woman and how they can tangle a man. But the “external” bit adds the complexity: Is the protagonist even more of a mystery to himself than this woman, a virtual stranger? That’s not good. That disturbs. Intrigues.
Further complicating the statement is the use of second person. And I’ll have to digress into two problems I have with the narration. First of all, there are no quotation marks to delineate dialogue, so this monstrous little gem leapt out at me [emphasis mine]:
And then you do it. I couldn't say why. I see you do it without knowing why. You could go out of the room and leave the body, the sleeping form. But no, you do it, apparently as another would, but with the complete difference that separates you from her. You do it, you go back towards the body.
It’s not dialogue – I’m quite certain of it, but if anyone reading this disagrees, please provide evidence. If I’m correct, where did “I” come from? And going back to that “external”, is it the POV of the protagonist “I” or the narrator’s assessment of the protagonist “you”? And where does that leave the rest of the tale?
The conundrum worsens [and strengthens my opinion about that "I"] when viewed in light of Ms. Duras’ afterword with staging notes, wherein it’s stated that the narrator is not the “you”, but literally the narrator:
The man the story is about would never appear. Even when he speaks to the young woman he does so only through the man who reads his story. [. . .] The man reading the text should seem to be suffering from a fundamental and fatal weakness—the same as that of the other, the man we don't see.
I know I’m not likely to solve all of my problems with this novella, but it hardly matters. It has made me think of so many new things. About writing and style and love and death and how thoughts can cling like leeches and it’s not a problem. I love works like this. So fraught with subtext that there can be no escape for me. I’m on the fence about the actual writing [granted, it’s in translation], but for how the work is in my head now, five many-pointed stars. -
Ah Marguerite!
