Helpful Score: 3
Finished reading this one this morning on the Metro rail on way to work. Well, I didn't hate it but I did find it to be somewhat meandering and confusing. The story seemed to randomly jump from first person to third person narrations and from one point in the narrator's life to another in both time and location. I guess you could consider this to be an artistic style but it didn't work real well for me. The story itself was very simple about a young French girl's affair with an older Asian man in pre-war IndoChina and the taboos against such a relationship at the time and the tragedy of lost love. I did see the movie version of this a few years ago and I thought that the movie seemed to flow a lot better than the novel.
Helpful Score: 2
This is one of the few instances where I enjoyed the movie much more than the book.
Helpful Score: 1
I was hooked on this book emotionally and taken to another place and time. Well written characters.
Helpful Score: 1
I think Duras is a remarkably talented writer, and this book was very thoughtful and rich in language.
A beautiful read. Stream of consciousness that made it difficult to keep up with the sequence of events but lovely prose.
Beautiful use of words but not writing. Too contrived, as though author was trying to attain a goal. Story did not flow.
the classic interional best-selling story that begins with a 15-year-old girl and her wealthy Chinese lover.
nice read but I think it loses in translation
An international best-seller with more than one million copies in print and a winner of France's Prix Goncourt, The Lover has been acclaimed by critics all over the world since its first publication in 1984.
Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras's childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France's colonial empire, and its representation in the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts.
Set in the prewar Indochina of Marguerite Duras's childhood, this is the haunting tale of a tumultuous affair between an adolescent French girl and her Chinese lover. In spare yet luminous prose, Duras evokes life on the margins of Saigon in the waning days of France's colonial empire, and its representation in the passionate relationship between two unforgettable outcasts.
This was the second book I have read by Duras, the first being The North China Lover, and I don't think I will be seeking out any more of this author's work. Good thing the book was short or I wouldn't have planned on finishing it! The movie was MUCH better. :)
I thought this book was too vague and I was very detached from the story through most of it.
I was more interested in reading about the narrator's relationship with her mother than in the actual affair with the Chinaman himself. I was very disappointed in how the author just seemed to "skip" over the Girl and the Chinaman's budding relationship after they met. I didn't like how the story went straight from their car ride together leaving the ferry to in his bedroom. It was too abrupt for me.
I also enjoyed reading about how the Girl became the slut of the village. Call me twisted, but for some reason it entertained me.
I thought this book was too vague and I was very detached from the story through most of it.
I was more interested in reading about the narrator's relationship with her mother than in the actual affair with the Chinaman himself. I was very disappointed in how the author just seemed to "skip" over the Girl and the Chinaman's budding relationship after they met. I didn't like how the story went straight from their car ride together leaving the ferry to in his bedroom. It was too abrupt for me.
I also enjoyed reading about how the Girl became the slut of the village. Call me twisted, but for some reason it entertained me.
