Even today (especially today), SE Asia is a sometimes unfathomable mix of territory disputes, rebelling ethnic groups, human and drug trafficking, and shipping. Duras changed that.Ĭolonialism in South East Asia is possibly the most complicated version of Western colonialism: the Dutch in Indonesia, the British in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc., and the French in Indochina.
Before Duras' work I could ramble about unemployment, politics, immigration, current events, etc., but the concept of love and loss in the language of love and loss had evaded me. Reading in other languages really is such a different experience, and that first moment when you go a whole page without looking up a single word is triumphant. Because my French is a work in progress, I read L'Amant de la Chine du Nord (The North China Lover) in short bursts over the summer when I was in the mood, but in the last few days I decided to devote a few hours to it every day, and I don't regret it at all. Reading in other languages really is such a different experience, and that first moment when you go a who Marguerite Duras must have led an extraordinary, emotionally complex, devastating childhood if any of the scenes of this work are real. Marguerite Duras must have led an extraordinary, emotionally complex, devastating childhood if any of the scenes of this work are real.
Melodrama and exoticism replace detachment and critique. The sensationalism of the novel overwhelms the meager attempts the author makes at formal experimentation and social analysis. In this recounting of her adolescence on the outskirts of Saigon, Duras strings together lush descriptions, self-reflexively framed as directions for the film adaptation of The Lover, with stretches of suggestive dialogue. Much of what made the original so fascinating has vanished, from the novel's fragmented structure to its astute representation of the power dynamics between the French protagonist and her Chinese lover. In this recounting of her adolescence on the outskirts of Saigon, Duras strings together lush descriptions, self-reflexively framed as direc Initially conceived of as notes toward a screenplay for The Lover, The North China Lover instead became a more conventional retelling of the original novel. Initially conceived of as notes toward a screenplay for The Lover, The North China Lover instead became a more conventional retelling of the original novel.
Hailed by the French critics as a return to “the Duras of the great books and the great days,” it is a mature and complex rendering of a formative period in the author’s life. lingers like a strong perfume” ( Publishers Weekly).
Initially conceived as notes toward a screenplay for The Lover, this later novel, written toward the end of her life, emphasizes the tougher aspects of her youth in Indochina, and possesses the feel of an intimate documentary.īoth shocking and enthralling, the story Duras tells is “so powerfully imagined (or remembered) that it. Initially conceived as notes toward a screenplay for The Lover, this later novel, written toward the end of her life, emphasizes the tougher aspects of her youth in Indochina, and po Far more daring and truthful than any of her other novels, The North China Lover is a fascinating retelling of the dramatic experiences of Duras’s adolescence that shaped her most famous work. Far more daring and truthful than any of her other novels, The North China Lover is a fascinating retelling of the dramatic experiences of Duras’s adolescence that shaped her most famous work.
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