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Ilse's Reviews > The Lover
The Lover
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I think I'm beginning to see my life. I think I can already say, I have a vague desire to die. From now on I treat that word and my life as inseparable. I think I have a vague desire to be alone, just as I realize I've never been alone any more since I left childhood behind, and the family of the hunter. I'm going to write. That's what I see beyond the present moment, in the great desert in whose form my life stretches out before me.
***
And another time, on the same route, during the crossing of the same ocean, night had begun as before and in the lounge on the main deck there was a sudden burst of music, a Chopin waltz which she knew secretly, personally, because for months she had tried to learn it, though she never managed to play it properly, never, and that was why her mother agreed to let her give up the piano. Among all the other nights upon nights, the girl had spent that one on the boat, of that she was sure, and she'd been there when it happened, the burst of Chopin under a sky lit up with brilliancies. There wasn’t a breath of wind and the music spread all over the dark boat, like a heavenly injunction whose import was unknown, like an order from God whose meaning was inscrutable. And the girl started up as if to go and kill herself in turn, throw herself in turn into the sea, and afterwards she wept because she thought of the man from Cholon and suddenly she wasn’t sure she hadn’t loved him with a love she hadn’t seen because it had lost itself in the affair like water in sand and she rediscovered it only now, through this moment of music flung across the sea.
***
And another time, on the same route, during the crossing of the same ocean, night had begun as before and in the lounge on the main deck there was a sudden burst of music, a Chopin waltz which she knew secretly, personally, because for months she had tried to learn it, though she never managed to play it properly, never, and that was why her mother agreed to let her give up the piano. Among all the other nights upon nights, the girl had spent that one on the boat, of that she was sure, and she'd been there when it happened, the burst of Chopin under a sky lit up with brilliancies. There wasn’t a breath of wind and the music spread all over the dark boat, like a heavenly injunction whose import was unknown, like an order from God whose meaning was inscrutable. And the girl started up as if to go and kill herself in turn, throw herself in turn into the sea, and afterwards she wept because she thought of the man from Cholon and suddenly she wasn’t sure she hadn’t loved him with a love she hadn’t seen because it had lost itself in the affair like water in sand and she rediscovered it only now, through this moment of music flung across the sea.
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Reading Progress
January 12, 2017
– Shelved
June 1, 2024
–
Started Reading
June 1, 2024
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0.85%
"Very early in my life it was too late.
(Ach Marguerite, how from the first page can you catapult me back to how I felt when being fifteen just like you, when David Bowie was singing Station to Station in the life of Christiane F?)"
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1
(Ach Marguerite, how from the first page can you catapult me back to how I felt when being fifteen just like you, when David Bowie was singing Station to Station in the life of Christiane F?)"
June 4, 2024
–
5.13%
"The story of my life doesn’t exist. Does not exist. There’s never any centre to it. No path, no line. There are great spaces where you pretend there used to be someone, but it’s not true, there was no one."
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6
June 5, 2024
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42.74%
"We're united in a fundamental shame at having to live. It's here we are at the heart of our common fate, the fact that all three of us are our mother's children, the children of a candid creature murdered by society. We're on the side of the society which has reduced her to despair. Because of what's been done to our mother, so amiable, so trusting, we hate life, we hate ourselves."
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50
June 8, 2024
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51.28%
"We said nothing about all this outside, one of the first things we'd learned was to keep quiet about the ruling principle of our life, poverty. And then about everything else. Our first confidants, though the word seems excessive, are our lovers, the people we meet away from our various homes, first in the streets of Saigon and then on ocean liners and trains, and then all over the place."
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60
June 8, 2024
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68.38%
"I can't really remember the days. The light of the sun blurred and annihilated all color. But the nights, I remember them. The blue was more distant than the sky, beyond all depths, covering the bounds of the world. The sky, for me, was the stretch of pure brilliance crossing the blue, that cold coalescence beyond all color. I had that good fortune- those nights, that mother."
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80
June 10, 2024
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69.23%
"The light fell from the sky in cataracts of pure transparency, in torrents of silence and immobility. The air was blue, you could hold it in your hand. Blue. The sky was the continual throbbing of the brilliance of the light. The night lit up everything, all the country on either bank of the river as far as the eye could reach. Every night was different, each one had a name as long as it lasted."
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81
June 11, 2024
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Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-28 of 28 (28 new)
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Craig
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Jun 11, 2024 03:00AM
I’ve got a soft spot for this book. I had to translate part of it for the second language component of my PhD.
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Craig wrote: "I’ve got a soft spot for this book. I had to translate part of it for the second language component of my PhD."Craig, I imagine translating it as quite a challenge, with the unorthodox syntax of some sentences, the shifting narrative perspectives, the dreaminess? What made you pick it for that component of your PhD? I have been wanting to read it for a long time and I am totally under the spell of it - so far my favourite by Duras and quite an invitation to plunge into her work more deeply - and hunt for some second hand Duras copies next time we'll be in France :).
This one has been on my radar for a long time. Time to find a copy, Ilse!
she only knows in retrospect, an anti-casandra!lovely quotes.
Nice to read along Ilse. Duras is one of those always enigmatic and ever fascinating authors I want to read more of. I have fond memories of L’Amour (which I read during the first days of the COVID lockdown) and of Le ravissement de Lol v Stein (which I read ages ago).
I have wanted to read Duras ever since I read Chinatown by Thuan. You have put her back in my sights, Ilse.
David wrote: "This one has been on my radar for a long time. Time to find a copy, Ilse!"David, if you wish to read more European women writers, this is an excellent choice :). It was on my list for a long time as well, and I am glad I finally managed to read it - so far perhaps my favourite of hers, particularly because of her luscious prose.
Jan-Maat wrote: "she only knows in retrospect, an anti-casandra!lovely quotes."
Glad you liked the quotes! An anti-cassandra, it is indeed striking that she only acknowledges having had feelings afterwards and not recognizes/admits them at the moment they are there - those afterthoughts maybe connected to the undesirability of this liaison, about which she wrote at least three books - twisting the identity of the man and the financial motives from her family's side?
Ilse wrote: "Jan-Maat wrote: "she only knows in retrospect, an anti-casandra!lovely quotes."
Glad you liked the quotes! An anti-cassandra, it is indeed striking that she only acknowledges having had feelings a..."
I don't know, it is normal in a way. "First known when lost" as the poet wrote. It can be difficult to understand our feelings in the midst of events and our daily actions, and this kind of reappraisal of a personal history after time is a classic theme in literature ("a month in the country", "the go between", most autobiographies I guess...)
Any similarities to Lolita here Ilse? I re-read the opening quotation in your review several times - it is so impactful and resonates with me. I love your reading choices, they always make me click back and forth and think. Thanks again - great review 🤗🎈
Death as a preoccupation featured in both of these emotive quotes. She sounds like a tortured lover, Ilse.
Jeroen wrote: "Nice to read along Ilse. Duras is one of those always enigmatic and ever fascinating authors I want to read more of. I have fond memories of L’Amour (which I read during the first days of the COVID Lockdown) and of Le ravissement de Lol v Stein "Thank you very much, Jeroen :) - While I had the intention to stick to books that have been piling up at home for all too long, reading this was such an overwhelming experience that I am again tempted to add another author to the list of authors I hope to read anything from that I can lay my hands on - since our local library barely has any book of hers, luring me to the bookshop around the corner at work which has L'amour and Le ravissement and many more of her books on their shelves - and her Un barrage contre le Pacifique about which I am reading now in Laure Adler's biography Marguerite Duras. You couldn't be more right, she is precisely the kind of enigmatic and fascinating author that a reader might get obsessed with :D. I was considering reading more of her chronologically - my latest obsession - but of course the titles you mention seem to shine even brighter with your endorsement attached to them! Since reading this, I try to remember when and where in France I was seduced to buy and read her Dix heures et demie du soir en été - the first I read by her (more than ten years ago) - it reminded me of the song 'Une belle histoire'. A couple of years ago I read Moderato cantabile - I need to re-read it, but I almost sure you would enjoy it as well :).
Hi Ilse, the Muntpunt library in the centre has quite a nice collection. From the place where you work it should be 20 minutes. Go for it! Muntpunt is my absolute favourite place in Brussels. Such a nice, well-stocked, open and friendly library where you get the see the whole city; old & young, fat & skinny and all the colours of the 🌈!
Daniel wrote: "I have wanted to read Duras ever since I read Chinatown by Thuan. You have put her back in my sights, Ilse."Daniel, oddly enough the last little push I needed to finally read this was another book that in hindsight - now I read 'The lover' - seems to owe a lot to Duras and also refers to her work a couple of times: Corps flottants by Jane Sautière - both relating experiences of French adolescent girls in Vietnam and Cambodia (Duras in the eary 1930s- and Sautière in 1967-1970). Thank you very much for reminding me of Chinatown - I put it on my list after your stellar review and it seems the perfect counterpart to read after 'L'amant' - moving in the opposite direction from Vietnam to Paris!
Jan-Maat wrote: "I don't know, it is normal in a way. "First known when lost" as the poet wrote. It can be difficult to understand our feelings in the midst of events and our daily actions, and this kind of reappraisal of a personal history after time is a classic theme in literature ("a month in the country", "the go between", most autobiographies I guess...)Yes to that, and in song terms 'You don't miss your water til your river runs dry'. From reading her biography, it struck me how many times she went over that same period fictionalising it differently, scrutinising it over and over again (which is for instance also what Patrick Modiano does in his autofictional(?) novels). On the other hand, I also was struck by this thought:
discovering the meaning of words, being able to name what you feel: for Marguerite, it took a long time for the words and things to coincide. Out of this discrepancy and the eternal fog she was surrounded with as a teenager, writing also emerges as a way of clarifying things. Understanding, certainly, but nothing too much, and never ever
Mark wrote: "Any similarities to Lolita here Ilse? I re-read the opening quotation in your review several times - it is so impactful and resonates with me. I love your reading choices, they always make me click..."Good point, Mark - teenage girl, older man (in his thirties ;) � there might be some parallels, but this book focusses on the perspective of the girl instead of that of the man, and more than on the relationship with the lover as such, the book conveys how that relationship in several respects is metaphorical for colonialism in French Indochina, and focusses on the family dynamics with the siblings and the mother-daughter relationship � the mother was Duras� obsession in her work. I first want to re-read this in French before attempting to jot together a review but added these quotes as a placeholder, I am glad that the first one piqued your interest and chimed with you - it would be great to read your thoughts on 'The lover', it is short so it wouldn't take much of your time ;)
I’m so glad to see your 5 stars, Ilse, as this is one of my all-time favorite novels! What better way to express it than with her poetic quotes. She begins with one of my favorite paragraphs, where that man approached her and says he prefers her face as it is now—ravaged. I haven’t read your discussion here yet, I may return� :D
OK, so I’m looking forward to reading your fleshed out review once you’ve read the French version, Ilse. And I had the same experience with Duras after reading this of wanting to devour all her work. Although none of her others resonated for me as much, I always enjoy her efficient writing with so much sorrow and tragedy between the lines.
Laysee wrote: "Death as a preoccupation featured in both of these emotive quotes. She sounds like a tortured lover, Ilse."Laysee, eros and thanathos are equally present and strong in this novel - she evokes the exploration and discovery of lust - with the lover, and in the context of the boarding school with another girl - and of death - of her father and later her youngest brother. Looking back at her youth when writing this at the age of seventy, I imagine death was on her mind more than when she would have written it at a younger age...
Jeroen wrote: "Hi Ilse, the Muntpunt library in the centre has quite a nice collection. From the place where you work it should be 20 minutes. Go for it! Muntpunt is my absolute favourite place in Brussels. Such a nice, well-stocked, open and friendly library where you get the see the whole city; old & young, fat & skinny and all the colours of the 🌈!."Hey Jeroen, thank you very much for the tip! It sounds pure delight - and apart from the of course huge range of books, also somewhat like the audience you can see in our small town library, also my favourite place in town:)). Can you imagine, long ago I even had a member card of the Muntpunt library - back in 1997 it had another name but the location was the same :). I ashamed to admit it but since working in Brussels, I haven't seen much of the city (though we've been to the surrealism exhibition in Bozar - and the bookshop around the corner - twice :D) - working from home four days a week and that one day in Brussels just running to and from the workplace to the train to get back home to resume working as soon as I can..here's plenty of room for improvement in the future ;-) ps yesterday I bought a copy of 'Lol Stein' on holiday - I'll be on the look-out for 'L'amour' the coming days;-)
Mark wrote: "...... added, Ilse :))"Excellent decision, Mark! One of the books I read this year that will stay with me - and prompt me to read more by this Marguerite (distracting me from reading that other Marguerite - despized by Duras - Marguerite Yourcenar.)
I imagine that the mention of Chopin appeals to you, which reminds me of the documentary "chopin saved my life"
Jennifer wrote: "OK, so I’m looking forward to reading your fleshed out review once you’ve read the French version, Ilse. And I had the same experience with Duras after reading this of wanting to devour all her work."Jennifer, almost a year later and still haven't got back to the original, I curse my slowness of mind, for me it is really the kind of book one needs to read a couple of times to process. In the meantime some more of her books are waiting on the shelf, you know the feeling...and after reading the biography I want to watch a couple of her films too!
Jan-Maat wrote: "I imagine that the mention of Chopin appeals to you, which reminds me of the documentary "chopin saved my life""Absolutely, you intuited correctly, it is also why I wanted to share that particular quote :-) Mentioning Chopin easily touches a chord with me and immediately bathes a text in a certain atmosphere or mood. Duras in this passage, like the piano players in that moving documentary, evokes brilliantly how significant the music of Chopin can be in one's life, whether one is able to play it oneself, or not.
Chopin speaks to many people, I remember readingvthe on his own lifetime his music was criticised for being insufficiently masculine, and queer.
Jan-Maat wrote: "Chopin speaks to many people, I remember readingvthe on his own lifetime his music was criticised for being insufficiently masculine, and queer."True, Chopin seems to have turned into an everone's friend - almost too popular for his own good :) Yes, his music by some was branded as 'salon music' as in contrast to music for concert halls, respectively the space goverend by women and by men and also shortly after his death, his music was devaluated as 'nostalgic' and 'sentimental' and so 'effiminate'. Apparently, the fear of being found insufficiently manly is not only something we see these days...
Ilse wrote: "Jan-Maat wrote: "Chopin speaks to many people, I remember reading that in his own lifetime his music was criticised for being insufficiently masculine, and queer."True, Chopin seems to have turned ..."
the long term reception and appreciation of arists is interesting or crazy maybe, I guess those qualities that made him suspect to some in his own lifetime are the basis of his long term success!
