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Manny's Reviews > L'Amant
L'Amant
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Manny's review
bookshelves: too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, french, story-review, older-men-younger-women
Jan 13, 2009
bookshelves: too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, french, story-review, older-men-younger-women
L'Amant looks simple on the surface. Marguerite Duras, about 70 when she wrote it, tells you about her first affair, with a rich Chinese man. She was a fifteen year old girl in colonial-era Vietnam, he was a dozen years older. Her family was desperately poor. Her mentally ill mother tacitly condoned the relationship; Marguerite's lover was generous, and they needed the money. Then she screamed at her daughter and beat her. The language is plain, unadorned and impersonal, stripped to its bare essentials. Sometimes I almost felt I was reading a math text. The author is not trying to tell you a love story or complain about how fate, her lover or her family mistreated her. She just wants to write down what happened and make peace with it. The result is a beautiful and deeply affecting book.
I wish I could write something like this. I thought back to things that had happened to me when I was a teenager and I tried to write about them the way Duras did, and I couldn't do it. I can't detach enough. I can't be sufficiently objective. I can't stop myself from judging or interpreting.
Here's a fragment, one piece I can see clearly. I hadn't seen my lover for some weeks; she had been sent overseas by her parents. Maybe it was because they disapproved of our relationship. I went to visit her. She came to meet me at the station. We went to a cheap hotel. We took our clothes off and got into bed. I held her, and she told me she had been unfaithful. There was a boy who was so stricken with her; she'd been unable to refuse him. I said it didn't matter. Then she said that there was a second man, older, a martial arts instructor. She was sleeping with him regularly. She said it was different from other relationships she'd had; the sex was different. I asked how. Sometimes, she said, he just entered her, no foreplay, nothing, and that was somehow special. I said it was good to hold her. I could feel her body telling me that she still loved me. She said that she wasn't telling me anything. We pulled apart and got dressed, and we never slept together again.
Some day, I might be able to tell the whole story and explain how it wasn't her fault, or mine. It just came out that way.
I wish I could write something like this. I thought back to things that had happened to me when I was a teenager and I tried to write about them the way Duras did, and I couldn't do it. I can't detach enough. I can't be sufficiently objective. I can't stop myself from judging or interpreting.
Here's a fragment, one piece I can see clearly. I hadn't seen my lover for some weeks; she had been sent overseas by her parents. Maybe it was because they disapproved of our relationship. I went to visit her. She came to meet me at the station. We went to a cheap hotel. We took our clothes off and got into bed. I held her, and she told me she had been unfaithful. There was a boy who was so stricken with her; she'd been unable to refuse him. I said it didn't matter. Then she said that there was a second man, older, a martial arts instructor. She was sleeping with him regularly. She said it was different from other relationships she'd had; the sex was different. I asked how. Sometimes, she said, he just entered her, no foreplay, nothing, and that was somehow special. I said it was good to hold her. I could feel her body telling me that she still loved me. She said that she wasn't telling me anything. We pulled apart and got dressed, and we never slept together again.
Some day, I might be able to tell the whole story and explain how it wasn't her fault, or mine. It just came out that way.
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Reading Progress
January 13, 2009
– Shelved
December 7, 2009
–
35.21%
"Elle lui dit: je pr茅f茅rerais que vous ne m'aimiez pas. M锚me si vous m'aimez je voudrais que vous fassiez comme d'habitude avec les femmes"
page
50
Started Reading
December 11, 2009
– Shelved as:
too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts
December 11, 2009
– Shelved as:
french
December 11, 2009
–
Finished Reading
May 16, 2010
– Shelved as:
story-review
October 6, 2010
– Shelved as:
older-men-younger-women
Comments Showing 1-22 of 22 (22 new)
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Laura
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rated it 4 stars
Dec 11, 2009 11:58PM
quite touching novel, ne c' est pas?
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Did you read it in French? Nice!
Elizabeth, thank you for the encouragement! I tried to write a longer piece - I didn't like the rest of it, so I threw it away. But I will see if I can find the right angle...Moira, I read it in English about 15 years ago and wasn't that impressed, but now I thought the original French version was terrific. My feeling is that it's hard to translate her style.
Manny wrote: "Moira, I read it in English about 15 years ago and wasn't that impressed, but now I thought the original French version was terrific. My feeling is that it's hard to translate her style."Yeah, I'd love to read her in the original -- I bet she's hard to translate!
Ah yes, I read this in English and didn't like it much at all. I did think it would be better in French, though. I'll have to try it.
I thought that the problem was similar to the one with translating Proust. In French, Proust's style is somehow quite simple and unpretentious, but it's almost impossible to keep it that way when it's turned into English. Of course, her style is in many ways the opposite of Proust's, but the basic issue seems related.
Yes, that could make sense - I've only read Proust in French, and not much of it at that, but it didn't seem to live up to its pretentious reputation.Being considerably more multilingual than me, maybe you can shed some light on my questions about translation. Do you think it's possible that there are features of some or all languages which make their translation into another language have a certain flavour? I've noticed this quite often with translated literature, but quite possibly I'm making sweeping generalisations based on the very limited number of books I've read that have been translated from those languages.
Manny wrote: "I thought that the problem was similar to the one with translating Proust. In French, Proust's style is somehow quite simple and unpretentious, but it's almost impossible to keep it that way when i..."I think Updike mentions in one of his reviews that Proust sounds much more 'Proustian' in English (esp in the Moncrieff translation) than in French.
Yes, I would agree with you on that. Unless the translator is quite extraordinary, and is also willing to take great liberties, the translated text almost always carries the hallmark of the original language. Given that the choice is thus between a non-literal translation and a stilted translation, I think it is best to read the original if at all possible...
Choupette wrote: "Ah yes, I read this in English and didn't like it much at all. I did think it would be better in French, though. I'll have to try it."You live in the right city to have seen The Stork's production of it maybe the year before last? Stunning and as they tend to bring back the literature they present you may yet get a chance.
I didn't see it then, but I'd be tempted if it came around again. I'll keep an eye out.
Choupette wrote: "I didn't see it then, but I'd be tempted if it came around again. I'll keep an eye out." I will warn you. In fact Stork does splendid renditions of a variety of classical literature. Camus, the ancients....
Manny wrote: "Yes, I would agree with you on that. Unless the translator is quite extraordinary, and is also willing to take great liberties, the translated text almost always carries the hallmark of the original..."Good question, Choupette, and good answer, Manny. You鈥檝e both put into words ideas that have been hovering around at the sub-verbal level of my brain for a while now.
I鈥檝e been reading鈥攐r flattering myself that I鈥檝e been reading鈥擵irgil鈥檚 Georgics in Latin (la-di-freakin鈥�-da, right?) In my search for a good crib, I鈥檝e sampled four or five different translations, nearly all of which are atrocious. Like Proust, Virgil seems to tempt translators into verbosity: where Virgil is simple, clear and鈥攁s they used to say鈥攎anly, most English translations fall into this horrible, pseudo-Augustan sprawl, with poetic clich茅s sticking out all over the place. And the versions that aim for simplicity end up being dull. So until a classically-educated genius comes along to do Virgil justice, we鈥檙e stuck with all this unreadable lumber. In other words, we鈥檙e likely stuck with all this unreadable lumber FOREVER. Sad. Not genocide sad, but still sad.
Buck wrote: "Like Proust, Virgil seems to tempt translators into verbosity"I think that's true of Latin in general -- what (very little) I remember of it was quite pithy. Altho ancient Greek frequently wasn't as pithy, and it still got translated horribly as well (looking at you, Jowett).
Your maths textbooks must have been far more interesting and beautiful and disturbing than mine! I suppose if I was going for a maths analogy, it would something to do with fitting broken pieces together, so some sort of geometry.
To me, good mathematics is about describing patterns in the simplest possible way - and that can indeed be beautiful and disturbing.
Ah, but that's because you took maths way beyond school. I have to find my disturbing beauty in arts, especially books.
But mathematics is an art.
Oh, I know. My kid tells me so (but that's from their perspective of 3 different maths A levels, plus a masters degree in the extreme mathsy edge of physics. But it's not an art as taught in (my) school.
The average maths teacher is so uninspiring - I was lucky. I wonder if there's an initiative somewhere on the web to connect people who have a more interesting take on the subject with aspiring young mathematicians?
Mine had excellent and inspirational teachers at school, but more mixed at uni. A few summers ago, they were slightly involved in an outreach scheme for potential physics students in deprived and underperforming schools, to provide extension materials to get them up to Oxbridge standards. I would hope there are also schemes like the sort you envisage.
Your reviews are as exquisite as the book which earn your reviews..
