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امیلی ال
"With a depth that shines through the minimalist surface of her story, Miss Duras raises probing questions about love, art, fear and haunting sadness." Herr
A French couple, sitting in a bar, observes a British yachtsman and his aging wife. They use their English counterparts to examine their own lives. In the process, they find themselves exploring the very nature of love, commitment, and truth itself.
A French couple, sitting in a bar, observes a British yachtsman and his aging wife. They use their English counterparts to examine their own lives. In the process, they find themselves exploring the very nature of love, commitment, and truth itself.
115 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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1,047 people want to read
About the author
Marguerite Duras
346books3,035followersMarguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu , known as Marguerite Duras, was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews
November 9, 2017
A very short novel by the prolific French author.
A British couple is stranded in a small French seaport waiting for their yacht to be repaired. They frequent the same bar every evening. The story is told from the point of view of a French couple who visit the same bar every night and see the British couple.
But the story is told through a smoky haze and an alcoholic fog: everything they “learn� about the British couple (they never actually talk with them) is partly glimpsed, half heard, probably misconstrued, perhaps mistaken. The French couple begins to invent a life story for the British couple from these bits and pieces they hear and from the gossip of the bar maid.
Little by little we realize they are projecting their own life story or their wanna-be life story onto the British couple.
Like other works of Duras (I read four of her works in the collection Four Novels � novellas, really), her writing style is very understated. It becomes like a dream in a French café.
Well-worth a quick read.
photo of fog from newtravelist/aquitaine.com
phot0 of the author (1914-1996) at age 36 from theredlist.com
A British couple is stranded in a small French seaport waiting for their yacht to be repaired. They frequent the same bar every evening. The story is told from the point of view of a French couple who visit the same bar every night and see the British couple.
But the story is told through a smoky haze and an alcoholic fog: everything they “learn� about the British couple (they never actually talk with them) is partly glimpsed, half heard, probably misconstrued, perhaps mistaken. The French couple begins to invent a life story for the British couple from these bits and pieces they hear and from the gossip of the bar maid.
Little by little we realize they are projecting their own life story or their wanna-be life story onto the British couple.
Like other works of Duras (I read four of her works in the collection Four Novels � novellas, really), her writing style is very understated. It becomes like a dream in a French café.
Well-worth a quick read.
photo of fog from newtravelist/aquitaine.com
phot0 of the author (1914-1996) at age 36 from theredlist.com
March 9, 2025
As I closed the book, I couldn't help but think that Marguerite Duras is one of my favorite authors. I find her style clear and attractive. She talks about everything and nothing, yet she pushes us to read the book to the end. She talks about things that make us think about our own lives.
In Emily L., sitting with her companion in a café in Quilleboeuf, overlooking the port of Le Havre, she tries to guess the story of a couple of English sailors sitting apart... The snippets of words emanating from the conversation are the common threads of this captivating little novel.
In Emily L., sitting with her companion in a café in Quilleboeuf, overlooking the port of Le Havre, she tries to guess the story of a couple of English sailors sitting apart... The snippets of words emanating from the conversation are the common threads of this captivating little novel.
June 2, 2024
Marguerite Duras é uma autora que se repete e reinventa constantemente. Quando leio as suas obras, sinto o desejo de explorar as suas histórias desde as suas origens. No entanto, muitas vezes, parece que continuo a não entender aquilo que desconhecia ou conhecia, apesar da persistência em reconhecer personagens e factos. Talvez Duras não tenha simples leitores mas leitores fãs de uma autora que parece escrever textos sem os «burilar nem lhe conferir sensatez, velocidade ou lentidão, deixar tudo no estado em que surgiu.». Há sempre algo que não pode ser compreendido e me ofusca e não consigo ver.
Aqui reconheci Yann Andréa de outros livros. Diz a crítica literária que esta obra talvez seja a melhor da Duras [a nível da qualidade da escrita, não duvido] mas continuo a preferir os seus ciclos da Índia e da Indochina que, como não podia deixar de ser, também se referem aqui.
Verão. Quillebeuf,um pequeno porto petroleiro do norte da França. O bar do hotel da Marina é o cenário para dois casais que bebem e conversam sobre suas vidas. Nesse ambiente, conhecemos duas histórias de amores em crise: a dos franceses Marguerite Duras e Yann Andréa, e a dos ingleses Emily L. e o marido Captain. Os dois homens sentem ciúmes, inveja ou desconfiança da literatura das suas mulheres, que descrevem um mundo que eles não habitam.
«Ambos estavam persuadidos de que o Captain decidira andar às voltas pelos mares da Malásia porque a reputação dos poemas [de Emily L.] ainda não tinha decerto, aí chegado.»
Entre mágoas, alcoolismo e triângulos amorosos, o romance desenrola-se em histórias que nunca se confessam nem ficam completamente escritas ou explicadas. E sempre o fio condutor: o que acontece na juventude decide o curso das vidas, as expectativas, a dor da memória, a bebida, a morte.
Emily L é uma personagem complexa (talvez um alter-ego da Duras):
«- Parecem-se ambas. Ela, consigo quero eu dizer - estão sempre a olhar para o rio, nunca riem. São sempre tocantes as parecenças entre as mulheres que não se parecem umas com as outras.»
Aqui reconheci Yann Andréa de outros livros. Diz a crítica literária que esta obra talvez seja a melhor da Duras [a nível da qualidade da escrita, não duvido] mas continuo a preferir os seus ciclos da Índia e da Indochina que, como não podia deixar de ser, também se referem aqui.
Verão. Quillebeuf,um pequeno porto petroleiro do norte da França. O bar do hotel da Marina é o cenário para dois casais que bebem e conversam sobre suas vidas. Nesse ambiente, conhecemos duas histórias de amores em crise: a dos franceses Marguerite Duras e Yann Andréa, e a dos ingleses Emily L. e o marido Captain. Os dois homens sentem ciúmes, inveja ou desconfiança da literatura das suas mulheres, que descrevem um mundo que eles não habitam.
«Ambos estavam persuadidos de que o Captain decidira andar às voltas pelos mares da Malásia porque a reputação dos poemas [de Emily L.] ainda não tinha decerto, aí chegado.»
Entre mágoas, alcoolismo e triângulos amorosos, o romance desenrola-se em histórias que nunca se confessam nem ficam completamente escritas ou explicadas. E sempre o fio condutor: o que acontece na juventude decide o curso das vidas, as expectativas, a dor da memória, a bebida, a morte.
Emily L é uma personagem complexa (talvez um alter-ego da Duras):
«- Parecem-se ambas. Ela, consigo quero eu dizer - estão sempre a olhar para o rio, nunca riem. São sempre tocantes as parecenças entre as mulheres que não se parecem umas com as outras.»
October 26, 2023
Ever wondered while sat in a bar what sort of life the aging couple sat close by are leading or have led? Would you start to imagine their life histories whilst also reflecting on your own? That's kind of what Duras explores in this short novel told in her familiar spare style with lots of really short sentences. This must have been something like my tenth Duras novel, and I'd put it somewhere in the middle. It's one her most experimental and original works I'd say, and is a story within a story. One real. One not. It's clever, and despite being told in a rather simple manner, like some of her other books, she rarely ever lacks wisdom, depth or complexity, and has a knack of including a startling or strange beauty that slowly builds, which we also get here. I suppose it could be seen as a kind of autobiographical memoir too, which is both meandering and cerebral, about her own intimate feelings and thoughts, perceptions and memories, while she simply relaxes at a table in a familiar cafe with her companion. I really liked it. A beautiful and thoughtful book.
June 23, 2019
Emily L., Marguerite Duras
A French couple, sitting in a bar, observes a British yachtsman and his aging wife. They use their English counterparts to examine their own lives. In the process, they find themselves exploring the very nature of love, commitment, and truth itself.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 1992 میلادی
عنوان: امیلی ال؛ نویسنده: مارگریت دوراس؛ مترجم: شیرین بنی احمد؛ تهران، نشر چکامه، 1370؛ در 115 ص؛ چاپ دیگر: تهران، نیلوفر، 1394، در 117 ص؛ شابک: 9789644485852؛ چاپ سوم 1396؛ این کتاب با ترجمه همین نویسنده با عنوان امیلی در 115 ص نیز چاپ شده است؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسوی؛ سده 20 م
نقل از پشت جلد: «نوشتن یک کتاب، مثل بچه به دنیا آوردن است، چیزی است که از وجود شما زاده میشو�. در آرزوی بچه� دار شدن، که بعضی اوقات میتوان� زنی را به مرز جنون برساند، نیازی مبرم به فراتر رفتن از زندگی وجود دارد؛ نیاز به داشتن بچه� ای از خود و از مردی که دوست میداری�. ولی در نوشتن یک کتاب تنها هستیم، تنهای تنها. سرنوشت کتاب هم با سرنوشت یک کودک متفاوت است. من در زمان جنگ، نوزادی را از دست دادم، دکتر به علت نبودن بنزین نتوانست خودش را به من برساند. خاطر� ی وحشتناکی است. حتی به دنیا آمدن فرزند بعدی� ام هم نتوانست خاطره� آن درد و رنجی را که ماهه� به درازا کشید، از بین ببرد. چنین بلایی بر سر یکی از کتابهای� هم آمد، بر سر «امیلی ال». به محض انتشار، بعضی از منتقدان به شدت به آن حمله کردند، آن را کشتند! «امیلی ال» بیش� یکی از کتابهای� است که من آنرا در نهایت هیجان و اضطراب نوشته� ام و در شوقی که مرا میترسانید� از این که موفق میشد� آن چیزها را درباره� «امیلی ال» بنویسم. در آن دوران، خیلی بد میخوابیدم� تقریبا غذا نمیخورد�. فقط یکی از دوستان هر روز به من سر میزد� و دستنوشته� را میگرفت� و روز بعد تایپ شده تحویلم میدا�. در آن تابستان، گویی من و آن دوست و کتابی که در حال شکل گرفتن بود، در این دنیا تنها بودیم.». پایان نقل. ا. شربیانی
A French couple, sitting in a bar, observes a British yachtsman and his aging wife. They use their English counterparts to examine their own lives. In the process, they find themselves exploring the very nature of love, commitment, and truth itself.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 1992 میلادی
عنوان: امیلی ال؛ نویسنده: مارگریت دوراس؛ مترجم: شیرین بنی احمد؛ تهران، نشر چکامه، 1370؛ در 115 ص؛ چاپ دیگر: تهران، نیلوفر، 1394، در 117 ص؛ شابک: 9789644485852؛ چاپ سوم 1396؛ این کتاب با ترجمه همین نویسنده با عنوان امیلی در 115 ص نیز چاپ شده است؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسوی؛ سده 20 م
نقل از پشت جلد: «نوشتن یک کتاب، مثل بچه به دنیا آوردن است، چیزی است که از وجود شما زاده میشو�. در آرزوی بچه� دار شدن، که بعضی اوقات میتوان� زنی را به مرز جنون برساند، نیازی مبرم به فراتر رفتن از زندگی وجود دارد؛ نیاز به داشتن بچه� ای از خود و از مردی که دوست میداری�. ولی در نوشتن یک کتاب تنها هستیم، تنهای تنها. سرنوشت کتاب هم با سرنوشت یک کودک متفاوت است. من در زمان جنگ، نوزادی را از دست دادم، دکتر به علت نبودن بنزین نتوانست خودش را به من برساند. خاطر� ی وحشتناکی است. حتی به دنیا آمدن فرزند بعدی� ام هم نتوانست خاطره� آن درد و رنجی را که ماهه� به درازا کشید، از بین ببرد. چنین بلایی بر سر یکی از کتابهای� هم آمد، بر سر «امیلی ال». به محض انتشار، بعضی از منتقدان به شدت به آن حمله کردند، آن را کشتند! «امیلی ال» بیش� یکی از کتابهای� است که من آنرا در نهایت هیجان و اضطراب نوشته� ام و در شوقی که مرا میترسانید� از این که موفق میشد� آن چیزها را درباره� «امیلی ال» بنویسم. در آن دوران، خیلی بد میخوابیدم� تقریبا غذا نمیخورد�. فقط یکی از دوستان هر روز به من سر میزد� و دستنوشته� را میگرفت� و روز بعد تایپ شده تحویلم میدا�. در آن تابستان، گویی من و آن دوست و کتابی که در حال شکل گرفتن بود، در این دنیا تنها بودیم.». پایان نقل. ا. شربیانی
July 18, 2008
Contains my favourite letter in literature:
I've forgotten the words with which to tell you. I knew them once, but I've forgotten them, and now I'm talking to you without them. Unlikely as it may seem, I'm not the sort of woman who gives herself up body and soul to the love of one person, even the person who's dearest to her in the whole world. I am someone who's unfaithful. I wish I could find the words I laid aside to tell you that. And now some of them are coming back to me. I wanted to tell you what I think, which is that one always ought to keep oneself a place, yes, that's the word, a private place, where one can be alone and love. To love one knows not what, nor whom, nor how, nor for how long. To love ... now all the words are suddenly coming back ... To set aside a place inside oneself to wait, you never know, to wait for a love, perhaps for a love without a person attached to it yet, but for that and only that. For love. I wanted to tell you you were what I had waited for. You alone became the outer surface of my life. the side I never see, and you will be that, the unknown part of me until I die. Don't ever answer this. And please don't hope to see me.
*sighs*
I've forgotten the words with which to tell you. I knew them once, but I've forgotten them, and now I'm talking to you without them. Unlikely as it may seem, I'm not the sort of woman who gives herself up body and soul to the love of one person, even the person who's dearest to her in the whole world. I am someone who's unfaithful. I wish I could find the words I laid aside to tell you that. And now some of them are coming back to me. I wanted to tell you what I think, which is that one always ought to keep oneself a place, yes, that's the word, a private place, where one can be alone and love. To love one knows not what, nor whom, nor how, nor for how long. To love ... now all the words are suddenly coming back ... To set aside a place inside oneself to wait, you never know, to wait for a love, perhaps for a love without a person attached to it yet, but for that and only that. For love. I wanted to tell you you were what I had waited for. You alone became the outer surface of my life. the side I never see, and you will be that, the unknown part of me until I die. Don't ever answer this. And please don't hope to see me.
*sighs*
October 23, 2020
Sanki o limanda gezinen turistlerden biriymişim gibi hissederek okudum, tatlı bence.
Read
August 13, 2020آدم نمیداند چطور با این همه کنار بیاید. با این خستگی رو به زوال که همواره از متلاشی شدن احتراز دارد و این معجزه لحظه به لحظه. نمیدانیم چرا باز هم این قدر مشتاق دیدن آنها هستیم و چطور آنها را در ذهن خود نگه داریم؛اصلن نمیتوان گفت در وجودشان چه نهفته است؛ بر آنچه در آنهاست؛ بر آنچه فراتر از زمان رفته است؛ نامی نمیتوان نهاد.
June 12, 2020
Quillebeuf, Kuzey Fransa’da Seine Nehri’nin kıyısında yer alan bir eski bir liman bölgesi. Kitabın şiir tadındaki hikâyesi bu limandaki Marine Hotel’in araba vapuruna bakan kahvesinde geçiyor. Bulutlu bir aşkın mağduru Fransız çift sık sık yürüyüşe çıkıp bu otelin kahvesinde sohbet ediyor. Her akşam otelin kahvesinde ve barında rastladıkları İngiliz çiftin konuşmalarından duyabildikleri cümlelerle bir hikâye düşlüyorlar. Kulak misafiri olduklarıyla, kadın ve adamın yüzünde gezinen duygu kırıntılarıyla şekillenen, değişen canlı bir hikâye. Bu melankolik aşk hikayesi İngiltere’nin güneydoğusunda küçük bir adada başlıyor. Adam bir kaptan kadınsa adanın soylu ailelerinden birinin kızı. Fransız çift bu ikiliye hüzünlü bir aşk hikâyesi yakıştırıyor. Kendi ilişkilerinin çıkmazları da paralel bir sorgulamayla kurgunun içinde ikinci bir hikâye olarak yer alıyor. Yanyanayken bile birbirine uzak insanların hikâyesi.
ٱ𱹲ı:
ٱ𱹲ı:
March 30, 2015
Reading Marguerite Duras is to enter a world where everything is already over, but the last days must be lived out in slow-motion, as if to honour these moments in time. The pages act as an elegy, gleaning from life all possible meaning, from experiences all possible beauty, and halting at moments of extreme poignancy again and again, until darkness comes. To read Duras is to experience the sharpness of the possibility of love already passed, to saturate oneself with it and finally to bury it. Duras does nostalgia at it's most painful and beautiful - telling tales of love and sorrow via colours and light, seasons and times of day. Duras's characters live by the moon and turning of the tide, revealing themselves through tales of exile and coming home, through stories of losing, finding, and losing again. Emily L., in classic Duras style, brings us to the moment of death, simultaneously as it brings us to the brink of a perfect summer. One is left with the certainty that the pattern of love and loss will continue, across times and continents - far beyond the close of the book.
May 16, 2019
نویسنده� داستانِ کافهه�.
October 14, 2021
باورکردنی نیست که داستانی تا این حد اللهبختکی� مضحک، تقلبی و بیمنط� کار مارگارت دوراس باشه. هست و خوندنش تا آخر، کاری که متاسفانه انجام دادم، شرمآور�.
September 22, 2024
«کلماتان� که ترس برمیانگیزن�.»
3.5
3.5
December 20, 2023
امتیاز من به این کتاب سه و نیم ستاره هست.
نقل قول:
آدم باید همیشه در وجود خود یک جور جای خصوصی را برای خود محفوظ نگه دارد. جایی برای تنها بودن. برای دوست داشتن...باید جایی در وجود خویش نگه داشت، جایی برای انتظار یک عشق، شاید عشقی هنوز بدون عاشق، تنها برای عشق.فقط همین، عشق برای عشق.
نقل قول:
آدم باید همیشه در وجود خود یک جور جای خصوصی را برای خود محفوظ نگه دارد. جایی برای تنها بودن. برای دوست داشتن...باید جایی در وجود خویش نگه داشت، جایی برای انتظار یک عشق، شاید عشقی هنوز بدون عاشق، تنها برای عشق.فقط همین، عشق برای عشق.
January 26, 2015
Emily L is essentially a book about writing, about the fears and dangers of writing as well as its ability to circulate beyond the writer's control. This comes through most strongly through the poems of the character Emily, especially the one poem that is destroyed. This poem, which is really a poem by another famous poet (though this is not disclosed within the novel, and I don't want to disclose here in the interest of preventing the pleasure of discovering it on one's own), ties this character to the historical figure of the one who wrote the poem. It also demonstrates a connection that this character has to the unnamed character, presumed to be Duras herself. At this level, it also shows how the English couple functions as a kind of mirror for the French couple (Duras and her campanion, Yann Andrea). In this sense, the French couple use the English couple as a kind of proxy to work out issues or questions about their own relationship, including tricky questions around writing.
If you enjoy Duras's style, you will probably enjoy this book. It has her signature techniques of experimental memoir, meditations about writing, a contemplative tone that seems to resonate with the waves of the sea in the distance, and a few (not entirely unproblematic) references to her childhood in French Indochina (such as her references to the Koreans, which reads as slightly racist even if it serves, in typical Durasian fashion, to highlight gender differences over racial ones).
(SPOILER ALERT ---> plot details disclosed in this paragraph) I particularly enjoy this novel (which I just read for the second time), because of the way it invokes the questions of a community of women writers who do not know each other and yet are transformed through the encounter with writing. The inclusion of the poem by Emily Dickinson, along with the title of the novel and the character's name, secures this novel as an important link in an elaborate chain of writing that invokes and/or re-writes Dickinson as part of an imaginative exercise of thinking about the fate of women writers and their work. Above all, this constellation of writers seems to ask--in a Dickinsonian kind of way--about the internal difference between how women's writing is read by women or by men. This isn't to reduce the novel to this question, but rather to suggest that the question of internal difference is the one that the book (and the poem) continuously open onto.
If you enjoy Duras's style, you will probably enjoy this book. It has her signature techniques of experimental memoir, meditations about writing, a contemplative tone that seems to resonate with the waves of the sea in the distance, and a few (not entirely unproblematic) references to her childhood in French Indochina (such as her references to the Koreans, which reads as slightly racist even if it serves, in typical Durasian fashion, to highlight gender differences over racial ones).
(SPOILER ALERT ---> plot details disclosed in this paragraph) I particularly enjoy this novel (which I just read for the second time), because of the way it invokes the questions of a community of women writers who do not know each other and yet are transformed through the encounter with writing. The inclusion of the poem by Emily Dickinson, along with the title of the novel and the character's name, secures this novel as an important link in an elaborate chain of writing that invokes and/or re-writes Dickinson as part of an imaginative exercise of thinking about the fate of women writers and their work. Above all, this constellation of writers seems to ask--in a Dickinsonian kind of way--about the internal difference between how women's writing is read by women or by men. This isn't to reduce the novel to this question, but rather to suggest that the question of internal difference is the one that the book (and the poem) continuously open onto.
December 25, 2018
نگاهتا� میکن�. نگاهتا� به اطراف است، به گرما، به آبِ بیموج� رودخانه، به تابستان و نیز به دوردسته�. با دستهای� به زیرِ چانه، دستهای� سفید و بسیار زیبا، نگاه میکنی� بیآنک� ببینید. بیآنک� کوچکتری� حرکتی بکنید، از من میپرسی� چه شده. من مثل همیشه میگوی� که هیچ؛ که نگاهتا� میکن�.
نخست حرکتی نمیکنی� و من، از همانج� که نشستهام� لبخندی در چشمانتا� میبین�. میگویی�:
ــ شما از این محل خوشتا� میآی�. روزی در کتابی خواهد آمد؛ این میدانگاه� این گرما، این رودخانه.
به گفتهتا� پاسخی نمیده�. نمیدان�. به شما میگوی� که سر درنمیآورم� آن هم بیمقدّم�. کم پیش میآی� که این چیزها را بدانم.
نخست حرکتی نمیکنی� و من، از همانج� که نشستهام� لبخندی در چشمانتا� میبین�. میگویی�:
ــ شما از این محل خوشتا� میآی�. روزی در کتابی خواهد آمد؛ این میدانگاه� این گرما، این رودخانه.
به گفتهتا� پاسخی نمیده�. نمیدان�. به شما میگوی� که سر درنمیآورم� آن هم بیمقدّم�. کم پیش میآی� که این چیزها را بدانم.
January 17, 2021
2,5 falan.
October 6, 2018
3.5 stars
I have found reading this short novel arguably interesting due to its eighteen three-dot intermissions (. . .) between traditional paragraphs of narratives with generous uses of the pronouns, we, you and I that obviously suggest her writing style. However, it's a bit perplexing when there are two tenses in each paragraph using the same pronoun as we can see from the following:
IT BEGAN WITH THE FEAR.
We'd driven to Quillebeuf, as we often did that summer.
We got there at the usual time, late afternoon. As usual we went for a stroll beside the white rail that runs along the quayside from the church at the entrance to the harbor to the disused path that leads out of it, probably to the forest of Brotonne.
We look at the tanker port on the other side of the river, and at the tall cliffs of LeHavre in the distance, and at the sky. . . . (p. 3)
These two paragraphs have posed a problem related to the sense of time, in other words, she has narrated in the past, past perfect and present tenses in the first paragraph. Then, out of the blue, she starts her second paragraph with the present tense that has since made me keep asking myself why.
And another vividly tense-related problematic paragraph:
We were a long way past the plateau now. Instead of taking the expressway at Pont-Audemer, we'd turned off towards Foulbec and Berville -- we wanted to go past the bay. At Berville we made for what used to be the harbor of Rouen. You come upon the bay quite suddenly. After a lot of little clumps of trees you emerge on what we call the German factory, a huge empty hulk with shattered windows. Tonight the wind isn't whistling through it. We stop. (p. 106)
We understand that the first and the second sentences using 'We' and 'we' that seemingly include the narrator and her companion. But for the following sentence with 'You', I wonder if she means her reader or her companion and why she has switched to the present tense. For immediacy or what?
This was one of the reasons that I couldn't help reading this novel on and off due to her magically veering of alternate tenses at will. However, there're some interesting points worth mentioning as we can see in these three extracts as follows:
Before the succession of ordinary factory shoes they'd found in the shops during the last ten years, she'd had some made to measure in Southampton . . . (p. 76)
Clothes were another thing , but in the long run it all boiled down to the same -- nothing fitted her anymore, and she positively refused to go into a shop. So? So what? So nothing. That's how it was now. . . . (p. 76)
"I don't know if love's a feeling. Sometimes I think it's a matter of seeing. Seeing you." (p. 101)
When I read the first, it reminded me of what I've seen before, that is, made to order so 'made to measure' is another viable usage. While the second suggests a three-word cluster highly conversational, monolog-like; presumably said to herself out of irritation. As for the third, it again reminded me of a song entitled To See You Is To Love You (1952) (). I think the speaker might have heard of the song before; therefore, she tacitly rephrased as if to say, "Seeing you is loving you."
To continue . . .
I have found reading this short novel arguably interesting due to its eighteen three-dot intermissions (. . .) between traditional paragraphs of narratives with generous uses of the pronouns, we, you and I that obviously suggest her writing style. However, it's a bit perplexing when there are two tenses in each paragraph using the same pronoun as we can see from the following:
IT BEGAN WITH THE FEAR.
We'd driven to Quillebeuf, as we often did that summer.
We got there at the usual time, late afternoon. As usual we went for a stroll beside the white rail that runs along the quayside from the church at the entrance to the harbor to the disused path that leads out of it, probably to the forest of Brotonne.
We look at the tanker port on the other side of the river, and at the tall cliffs of LeHavre in the distance, and at the sky. . . . (p. 3)
These two paragraphs have posed a problem related to the sense of time, in other words, she has narrated in the past, past perfect and present tenses in the first paragraph. Then, out of the blue, she starts her second paragraph with the present tense that has since made me keep asking myself why.
And another vividly tense-related problematic paragraph:
We were a long way past the plateau now. Instead of taking the expressway at Pont-Audemer, we'd turned off towards Foulbec and Berville -- we wanted to go past the bay. At Berville we made for what used to be the harbor of Rouen. You come upon the bay quite suddenly. After a lot of little clumps of trees you emerge on what we call the German factory, a huge empty hulk with shattered windows. Tonight the wind isn't whistling through it. We stop. (p. 106)
We understand that the first and the second sentences using 'We' and 'we' that seemingly include the narrator and her companion. But for the following sentence with 'You', I wonder if she means her reader or her companion and why she has switched to the present tense. For immediacy or what?
This was one of the reasons that I couldn't help reading this novel on and off due to her magically veering of alternate tenses at will. However, there're some interesting points worth mentioning as we can see in these three extracts as follows:
Before the succession of ordinary factory shoes they'd found in the shops during the last ten years, she'd had some made to measure in Southampton . . . (p. 76)
Clothes were another thing , but in the long run it all boiled down to the same -- nothing fitted her anymore, and she positively refused to go into a shop. So? So what? So nothing. That's how it was now. . . . (p. 76)
"I don't know if love's a feeling. Sometimes I think it's a matter of seeing. Seeing you." (p. 101)
When I read the first, it reminded me of what I've seen before, that is, made to order so 'made to measure' is another viable usage. While the second suggests a three-word cluster highly conversational, monolog-like; presumably said to herself out of irritation. As for the third, it again reminded me of a song entitled To See You Is To Love You (1952) (). I think the speaker might have heard of the song before; therefore, she tacitly rephrased as if to say, "Seeing you is loving you."
To continue . . .
March 8, 2016
I've forgotten the words with which to tell you. I knew them once, but I've forgotten them, and now I'm talking to you without them. [...] I wish I could find the words I laid aside, to tell you that. And now some of them are coming back to me. I wanted to tell you what I think, which is that one always ought to keep oneself a place, yes, that's the word, a private place, where one can be alone and love. To love one knows not what, nor whom, nor how, nor for how long. To love... now all the words are suddenly coming back... To set aside a place inside oneself to wait, you never know, to wait for a love, perhaps for a love without a person attached to it yet, but for that and only that. For love. I wanted to tell you you were what I had waited for. You alone became the outer surface of my life, the side I never see, and you will be that, the unknown part of me, until I die.
April 23, 2017
Opinião publicada em:
Verão em Quillebeuf, localidade contígua ao rio Sena e quase perto da sua foz. Com vista para este cenário um pretenso casal, possivelmente de escritores, encontra-se num bar onde, na sua troca de divagações surgem acusações veladas - "Por vezes, quando falamos os dois, isso é tão difícil como morrer" - e uma procura de sentido sobre aquilo que os une, ou desune.
Ao engano vamos se julgamos que encontraremos a história da narradora e do seu incógnito companheiro com que a narrativa se inicia. Até ao fim há um desconhecimento das circunstâncias da sua ligação, dando azo a especular se não seria a voz de Marguerite Duras a acompanhar-nos. Será antes dado destaque ao amor de um casal de ingleses, Captain e a sua mulher poeta, Emily L. A sua vida será recriada pelo casal de observadores e nela se fala de infidelidade, abdicação e fuga. A fuga necessária para preservar um amor conservado em álcool e marcado pela diferença entre classes sociais e entendimentos.
Dividida em pequenas partes ao invés de capítulos, é uma leitura que flui sem entraves, porém paragens para reflexão exigem-se. A história adquire importância relativa pelas suas indefinições: um relato que não explora os pormenores em demasia, dando primazia aos sentimentos e emoções das personagens.
Surgem apontamentos sobre a criação literária que reflectem a visão da narradora e, quem sabe, a da própria autora: "Que alguém tenha dito isso naquele dia é o que fará com que este livro se escreva. O livro será sincero. Que o tenhamos dito nós, ou o tenhamos ouvido através da parede, dito por outro qualquer a uma outra qualquer, é indiferente para o livro, uma vez que o ouviu ao mesmo tempo que eu ouvi, num mesmo lugar. Num mesmo susto".
Uma falha que aponto é a ausência de tradução das frases em inglês. Quem desconheça a língua terá certamente de recorrer a um dicionário variadas vezes.
Este livro é um exercício que nos leva a questionar as problemáticas da capacidade criativa dos escritores e, tema intemporal, o papel do amor nas nossas vidas.
4,0/5*
Verão em Quillebeuf, localidade contígua ao rio Sena e quase perto da sua foz. Com vista para este cenário um pretenso casal, possivelmente de escritores, encontra-se num bar onde, na sua troca de divagações surgem acusações veladas - "Por vezes, quando falamos os dois, isso é tão difícil como morrer" - e uma procura de sentido sobre aquilo que os une, ou desune.
Ao engano vamos se julgamos que encontraremos a história da narradora e do seu incógnito companheiro com que a narrativa se inicia. Até ao fim há um desconhecimento das circunstâncias da sua ligação, dando azo a especular se não seria a voz de Marguerite Duras a acompanhar-nos. Será antes dado destaque ao amor de um casal de ingleses, Captain e a sua mulher poeta, Emily L. A sua vida será recriada pelo casal de observadores e nela se fala de infidelidade, abdicação e fuga. A fuga necessária para preservar um amor conservado em álcool e marcado pela diferença entre classes sociais e entendimentos.
Dividida em pequenas partes ao invés de capítulos, é uma leitura que flui sem entraves, porém paragens para reflexão exigem-se. A história adquire importância relativa pelas suas indefinições: um relato que não explora os pormenores em demasia, dando primazia aos sentimentos e emoções das personagens.
Surgem apontamentos sobre a criação literária que reflectem a visão da narradora e, quem sabe, a da própria autora: "Que alguém tenha dito isso naquele dia é o que fará com que este livro se escreva. O livro será sincero. Que o tenhamos dito nós, ou o tenhamos ouvido através da parede, dito por outro qualquer a uma outra qualquer, é indiferente para o livro, uma vez que o ouviu ao mesmo tempo que eu ouvi, num mesmo lugar. Num mesmo susto".
Uma falha que aponto é a ausência de tradução das frases em inglês. Quem desconheça a língua terá certamente de recorrer a um dicionário variadas vezes.
Este livro é um exercício que nos leva a questionar as problemáticas da capacidade criativa dos escritores e, tema intemporal, o papel do amor nas nossas vidas.
4,0/5*
September 26, 2023
Num bar de um porto marítimo, um casal observa o ambiente e conversa. Ao balcão do bar, um outro casal bebe. É um casal curioso, de viajantes, e desperta o seu interesse. À medida que vão descobrindo a história desse casal estranho e desconhecido, vão também abrindo caminho para temas sobre si próprios e sobre a sua própria relação. Numa escrita nada convencional, Marguerite Duras conta-nos aqui histórias de amor, loucura, obsessão, sonhos perdidos e morte. Uma narrativa que senti como etérea, meio sonhada e imaginada, que apesar do cheiro a sol e maresia deixou um travo amargo de dor.
ENG:
In a bar in a seaport, a couple observes the surroundings and talks. At the bar counter, another couple drinks. It is a curious couple, of travelers, and it arouses their interest. As they discover the story of this strange and unknown couple, they also open the way to themes about themselves and their own relationship. In a writing that is anything but conventional, Marguerite Duras tells us stories of love, madness, obsession, lost dreams and death. A narrative that I felt as ethereal, half-dreamed and imagined, that despite the smell of sun and sea spray left a bitter taste of pain.
ENG:
In a bar in a seaport, a couple observes the surroundings and talks. At the bar counter, another couple drinks. It is a curious couple, of travelers, and it arouses their interest. As they discover the story of this strange and unknown couple, they also open the way to themes about themselves and their own relationship. In a writing that is anything but conventional, Marguerite Duras tells us stories of love, madness, obsession, lost dreams and death. A narrative that I felt as ethereal, half-dreamed and imagined, that despite the smell of sun and sea spray left a bitter taste of pain.
January 21, 2014
در باب آنچه ميخواست� برايتان بگويم كلماتر� از ياد بردهام� بهيا� داشتم، اما فراموششان كردهام� و حالا در عين فراموشي آن كلمات، برايتان مينويس�. برخلاف تمام ظواهر، من زني نيستم كه جسم و روحم را تنها در گرو عشق يك آدم بگذارم، حتي اگر آن آدم برايم عزيزترين موجود دنيا باشد. من آدم بيوفاي� هستم. دلم ميخواس� كلماتي را كه به همين منظور به ذهن سپرده بوده بهيا� ميآورد�. از آنهم� فقط همين چند كلمه بهياد� مانده است. ميخواست� هرچه را كه فكر ميكن� برايتان بگويم، مثلاً بگويم كه آدم بايد هميشه در وجود خود جايي را-بله، يكجو� جاي خصوصي را براي خود محفوظ نگه دارد. بله، لغتش همين است، جايي براي تنها بودن، براي دوست داشتن. اينكه چهچي� يا چه كسي را چطور و چگونه و براي چه مدت بايد دوست داشت اصلاً نميدان�. حالا تمام كلمات يكباره به ذهنم ميآين�... دوست داشتن... بايد جايي در وجود خويش نگه داشت، جايي براي انتظار-كسي چه ميدان�-براي انتظار يك عشق، شايد عشقي هنوز بدون عاشق، تنها براي عشق. فقط همين، عشق براي عشق. ميخواست� همان وقت برايتان بگويم كه شما آن انتظار بودهاي�. حالا شما به تنهايي منظر بيروني زندگيا� شدهاي�. منظري كه هيچوق� نميبينمش� و شما همچنان به صورت آن منظر ناشناخته وجود من باقي خواهيد ماند، تا هنگام مرگ. جواب نامها� را ندهيد، هيچوق�. هيچ اميدي هم به ديدار من نداشته باشيد، تمنا ميكن�. اميلي ال
ص101
***
هميشه زودتر از من به خواب مي رفتيد، راحت مي خوابيديد، و اين هميشه مايه دلگرمي ام بود، چون خواب، ذهن شمارا از آرزوي ترك زندگي با من ، خالي مي كرد
ص114
ص101
***
هميشه زودتر از من به خواب مي رفتيد، راحت مي خوابيديد، و اين هميشه مايه دلگرمي ام بود، چون خواب، ذهن شمارا از آرزوي ترك زندگي با من ، خالي مي كرد
ص114
February 15, 2019
Prancuzu rasytojos Marguerite Duras, "Meiluzio" autores, kita nuostabi knyga -"Emily L.".
Tai melodingas, melancholiskas pasakojimas apie meile, isipareigojimus ir apie kuryba, rasyma.
Prancuzu rasytoju pora bare stebi kita -britu sutuoktiniu pora, uzstrigusia siame mazame Prancuzijos uoste sugedus ju jahtai. Jie sedi prie to pacio staliuko diena is dienos. Kalbasi, nesikalba, geria, laukia....Skaitytojui si istorija yra pasakojama prancuzu poros, kuria jie rezga tik is nugirstu britu sutuoktiniu pokalbio fraziu, zodziu, is tylejimo...Va tokia originali konstrukcija.
Mane labai zavi Duras trumpuciai sakiniai. Kartais sakinys - tik vienas zodis. Tai puikiai padeda(manau) kurti nuotaika reikalinga tokiam graziam liudnumui. Man sis tekstas skambejo lyg koks bliuzas.
REKOMENDUOJU!
Tai melodingas, melancholiskas pasakojimas apie meile, isipareigojimus ir apie kuryba, rasyma.
Prancuzu rasytoju pora bare stebi kita -britu sutuoktiniu pora, uzstrigusia siame mazame Prancuzijos uoste sugedus ju jahtai. Jie sedi prie to pacio staliuko diena is dienos. Kalbasi, nesikalba, geria, laukia....Skaitytojui si istorija yra pasakojama prancuzu poros, kuria jie rezga tik is nugirstu britu sutuoktiniu pokalbio fraziu, zodziu, is tylejimo...Va tokia originali konstrukcija.
Mane labai zavi Duras trumpuciai sakiniai. Kartais sakinys - tik vienas zodis. Tai puikiai padeda(manau) kurti nuotaika reikalinga tokiam graziam liudnumui. Man sis tekstas skambejo lyg koks bliuzas.
REKOMENDUOJU!
June 22, 2015
Two writers in a cafe watch a second unknown couple, their own histories intertwining with the narratives they appear to build around their unwitting subjects. It's another one of Duras' late, resolute reductions of set and plot to an essential iterative dialogue, and it works much as elegantly as the others, becoming a conduit for raw. metaphysical desperation and despair. And the act of writing (here two-tiered) as an attempt to deal with such. Pure, hard, cataclysmic.
Read
June 13, 2022"You alone became the outer surface of my life, the side I never see, and you will be that, the unknown part of me until I die."
the unequivocal pleasure of reading duras lies in the familiarity of her themes and other repetitions; her novels blur together and form a distinctive body of work, interrogating desire, lost loves, memory, selfhood, writing and the dissolution of relationships to their very limits. it's hard to read emily l. without bringing duras and her personal life into the equation. the novel has a rich confessional quality that is utterly hypnotic. while the the lover is sometimes classified as an example of early autofiction, emily l., with its explicit, metafictive consideration of storytelling's tremendous potential and inadequacies when portraying reality's truths, this novel can be taken as duras's own meditations on her personal relations and relationship with writing � exposing the necessity and violence of it. sparse but revelatory, this is essential duras.
the unequivocal pleasure of reading duras lies in the familiarity of her themes and other repetitions; her novels blur together and form a distinctive body of work, interrogating desire, lost loves, memory, selfhood, writing and the dissolution of relationships to their very limits. it's hard to read emily l. without bringing duras and her personal life into the equation. the novel has a rich confessional quality that is utterly hypnotic. while the the lover is sometimes classified as an example of early autofiction, emily l., with its explicit, metafictive consideration of storytelling's tremendous potential and inadequacies when portraying reality's truths, this novel can be taken as duras's own meditations on her personal relations and relationship with writing � exposing the necessity and violence of it. sparse but revelatory, this is essential duras.
October 20, 2020
Kitabın farklı bir anlatımı var. Dingin ilerleyişini okuyucu uzaktan izliyor gibi sanki. Ancak çeviride açıklamasız kalan kısımların neden bırakıldığını anlayamadım. Paralel anlatımlarla yalın bir hikaye okumak isterseniz şans verebilirsiniz.
November 5, 2017
Çok güzeldi
November 15, 2023
PAIN
(lire cette review en français et en anglais, s'applique au livre dans les deux cas)
(lire cette review en français et en anglais, s'applique au livre dans les deux cas)
December 30, 2020
Inizialmente molto noioso e incomprensibile, ma quando si capisce qual è il punto centrale della storia diventa molto bello!
June 3, 2024
Bästa jag har läst av Duras! 3.5 men känner mig generös.
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