Yann Andrea Steiner

by Marguerite Duras, Mark Polizzotti (Translator)

Dedicated to Duras’ companion with whom she spent her last decade of life, Yann Andréa Steiner is a haunting dance between two parallel stories of love and the love between Duras and the young Yann Andréa and a seaside romance observed – or imagined – by the narrator between a camp counselor and an orphaned camper, a Holocaust survivor who witnessed his sister’s murder at the hands of a German soldier. Memory blurs into desire as the summer of 1980 flows into 1944. An enigmatic elegy of history, creation, and raw emotion.

Genres: Fiction, France, French Literature, Poetry, Literature, European Literature, Romance

109 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Marguerite 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.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

She told him she’d rather it remain this way between them. That she’d rather their story not move from this place, […]; that it remain in this desire, even if that meant she put herself to death. Not a real death, mind you, but a dead death, where you don’t hurt, where you’re never sad, you’re never punished, nothing.

[W.B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marguerite Duras is one of my favorite writers of all time, but this one is probably only for the hardcore stans.

The book's title is the name of the author's one-time companion. The handful of reviews I read seem entirely puzzled by this book. I hadn't seen reviews where anyone seemed to have any insight into the purpose of the book. Most of the reviews pretty much said, in one way or another, "This is just more Duras being Duras." In a way, they're right, I suppose. It is written in the poetic style of druggy repetition for which she is famous.

But I do think she had a purpose in writing this weird book which has within it several different parallel stories occurring at once. I believe this is actually Duras trying to explain her relationship with Yann Steiner to Yann Steiner, telling him what she can and cannot give him. She tells him this in a fictional tale of Holocaust survivors nested within the apparently true account of her meeting Steiner later in life while he was still a young man. He seems to have somewhat barged into her life and taken it over to some degree. Duras survives him, of course, as she survives everything. But their story becomes the story of a young woman looking after a young Holocaust survivor whom Duras spies on the beach in her seaside town. (Yes, time is fluid and whirs in eddies in this book rather than remaining the straight arrow physics tells us it must be.)

The voice speaking in this book is the alcohol-besieged older Duras trying to be kind to the young gay (or bisexual) man who entered her life like a demanding groupie but who ended up being an important care giver and friend. She is kind. She is kind enough to imagine him into her universe and to allow him to become the vibrating energy of this prose. While it doesn't make for a great book, it does make for an interesting one. This tale is friable; it crumbles everywhere. Stories are begun and abandoned, both in imagined history and in real life. Duras knows she is wading into death at this point but she still feels life dragging sensuously around her the way water drags around a body entering the ocean.

I think this is a complicated memoir about friendship and the strange ways people can couple and cohabit without being physically intimate. Duras does include one brief account about bodily intimacy with Steiner, but even there she presents herself as disembodied, distant and not wholly available. It comes across more as strange mothering. I found the prose of this book interesting because it was about so many different types of vulnerability. The thing to remember about Duras is that absolutely nothing does not turn into gorgeous prose for her. She was a born transmuter and that's why I'll read anything she wrote. I won't always agree or love it, but I'll almost always find something of interest in her words as I did here.

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel by Marguerite Duras, published in 1993, "Yann Andréa Steiner" is primarily an autobiographical story, beginning with her encounter with Yann, her last lover, whom she accompanied for 16 years until his death.
The letters they exchanged are included in the book. They serve as material for the creation of the fantasy character of Yann Levée, who became Yann Andréa, henceforth a literary hero: Yann Andréa Steiner.
Their story is unusual. They are 38 years apart in age, and Yann is gay, but at no point is there any doubt about their passionate relationship.
It occurred in the summer of 1980, and as a result of their encounter, writing became the subject of the novel. Moreover, the book draws its inspiration from texts dating from the time of their meeting, notably those from "Summer of 80," a collection of daily chronicles that Marguerite Duras published during that summer in the newspaper Libération. There's the gray-eyed child at summer camp, the beach at Trouville, the counselor who tells stories. We also encounter the war and the deportation of Jews, a theme that profoundly influenced Duras.
These various interwoven stories may be disturbing to the reader, but they remain consistent with her entire body of work.

[Telma Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Ela também diz que se não houvesse o mar nem o amor ninguém escrevia livros."

O marulhar das ondas, acompanhado da chuva estival morna, vai matizar a narrativa com aquela névoa tão característica de Duras.
Povoado de vozes, nossas conhecidas de outros seus escritos, mistura ficção com realidade. O próprio título é uma dessas mesclas.
A história de amor de uma criança de seis anos pela monitora da colónia de férias, para mim, foi vista como uma alegoria ao amor de Duras e Yann.
A arte desta narrativa fragmentada, por vezes nada linear, raiando o incomunicável, obriga o leitor a interpretar o dito e o não dito, sempre num exercício de busca por uma resposta, muitas vezes difícil a olho nu. Aí temos de esmiuçar cada frase, cada palavra...e deparamo-nos com esta mestria singular de escrita.
Duras leva-nos por areias movediças, mapeando a angústia e o vazio, cujas coordenadas do destino final são o amor e a dor.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, just a fabulist suspension-capsule of nothing less than the fucking Shoah framed in a lover’s clothes and bony shoulders. So ineffably sad and beautiful. So heartbreaking and uncannily triggering of that vagus nerve twinge—we’ve been here before/we’ve not been here before/this is the Holocaust/it will always be the Holocaust.

This impossible beach. Christ; so much sand. Sand; so much Christ.

[Lyudmila Spasova · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Говорехте ми: Какво си мислите, че правите? Какво значи всичко това? Да пишете постоянно по цял ден? Всички ще ви изоставят, защото сте луда, непоносима за живеене. Идиотка... Даже не забелязвате вече, че задръствате масите с вашите чернови навсякъде, купища и купища..."

Маргьорит Дюрас

"Ян Андреа Щайнер"

Любовта, алкохолът, Холокостът, детството, писането, морето, едно дете със сиви очи, Теодора Кац - вечните теми на Маргьорит Дюрас.

За да разбереш тази книга, трябва да си прочел повечето и други романи.
Не ми хареса особено, въпреки че пак ми бръкна в душата с този неин, само неин стил, като че ли разговаря със себе си и създадените от нея герои.
И с любимия Ян Андреа, който винаги отсъства, защото преследва красиви бармани в луксозните хотели. Последната любов на Дюрас.

[Lucie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doux et cruel comme un bon Duras. L'amour comme une longue semaine d'ivresse, en bord de mer, la Normandie, la fatigue au coin des yeux et le souvenir de l'absence au pas de la porte. J'aime ce livre parce qu'il porte le nom d'un homme, qu'il lui est dédié. Et cet amour pour cet homme, mais aussi l'amour pour l'enfant, pour ce qu'il deviendra, et le deuil de l'autre, l'enfant qui ne deviendra plus.


(blog --> http://www.minuitmoinsdeux.com)

[Mina-Louise]

The way I’ve personally perceived Yann Andréa through other bits of her literature and interviews has been completely different, also usually an outsiders view of him, as someone opening the door or answering the telephone, being someone waiting on Marguerite. And the story of how they became what they were, the beginning of the friendship, letter writing, and seeming obsession became clearer through this.

And more importantly I was left with what I’m almost always left with when it comes to her writing; somehow the dullness of everyday life isn’t what is really going on. There is feeling, depth of emotions, love and sentiment so heavy and palpable that there is nothing else. The lull of life, or hurricane of life, is nothing. Everything is the emotion between people who feel this intensely. Explainable or unexplainable can’t-exist-without-each-other kind of relationships. Where everything exists between the life we all have to live.
I end up in them a lot, and am in an unexplainable can’t-exist-without-each-other kind of relationship now- and I think it is the only kind for me, which is why I am so drawn to Duras' writing. No one writes it better. You live it and intertwine your life and tangle your being with the other being, and feel like there is nothing without it. And sometimes the thread unravels, or it all melts together, or you go through the pain of disentangling lives, often tearing threads to get away because the intensity can be killing. … which this book isn’t about, and their relationship wasn’t, but it is what I understand and feel from what her writing produces in me and is familiar. Everything she writes is more than it is.

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another essential window into Duras' meta-narrative. Begins with episodes semi-recounted in Practicalities, then instantly begins to bleed across its borders into Blue Eyes, Black Hair and presumably L'Été 80. Then, a fairytale, a holocaust, an impossible romance, a secret dialogue.

[Esperança Almeida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ler Duras é uma experiência indescritível. Nunca se acha aquilo que se busca. Ainda bem!

"[…] nunca se conhece a história antes que seja escrita.
Antes que ela sofra o desaparecimento das circunstâncias que levaram o autor a escrevê-la. E sobretudo antes que sofra no livro a mutilação do seu passado, do seu corpo, do seu rosto, da sua voz, que se torne irremediável, que tome um caráter fatal, eu quero dizer também: que se torne algo exterior ao livro, que seja levada para longe, separada do autor e perdida, para ele, por toda a eternidade"

[Kenning JP Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just perfect. Sadness and love seen from all the possible angles as well as remembered and contemplated. Potential as well as perished love arise and are pondered along with the melancholy of the sea, the war, and the young lost youth. So sublime in its sympathetic serenity and empathetic isolation.

[salva · Rating 4 out of 5]

...et ces baisers lui rendaient la vie par l'oubli de la vie.

[Ulrika Mars]

Om jag läste den på ett språk jag kan bättre kunde jag ge en stjärna eller fem.

[Rosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amor, dolor, tristesa, joia, melancolia, el temps, la història, la vida i el temps.

El mar.

[Natala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ona má hrozne haunting styl psaní, o to víc v ty franine, já hrozne nevím jak to popsat, ale musím od ni přečíst asi všechno no

[Victoria Guerra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Debo ser muy ignorante, seguro, porque no he entendido absolutamente nada de este libro. He intentado contextualizarlo a ver si es que me faltaba información, pero nada. Qué ansiedad pasar 109 páginas y no entender nada. Qué pereza.

[Soup · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book sequences and paces itself in a way that is rather familiar to Duras' works on screen. Much of the story is told in third person perspective so as to ride on the detachment to forming any linear storyline around the subject in question (Theodora Kats) — whether this is done in reaction to avoiding speaking on Theodora Kats, a missing link in her works and life or done simply to divert attention away from themselves and their loneliness in each other's company; remains a mystery.

Yann Andréa Steiner is a vivid picture of sacred love that promises eternity, and an obituary to memories innocent these two Jewish children had to carry around with them for thousands of years to come. The ability to shift the focus to bring out a foreign subject and draw total attention to it is something I'm growing to love in Duras' works!

[anamacannuco]

dejad de darle bola a esta señora que está MUERTA

[afonso abreu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foi após essa noite que você começou a me escrever cartas. Muitas cartas. Às vezes uma por dia. Eram cartas muito curtas, tipo bilhetes; eram, sim, como apelos vindos de um lugar insuportável, mortal, de uma espécie de deserto. Esses apelos eram de uma beleza inegável.

Eu não lhe respondia.
Guardava todas as cartas.
Havia, no alto das páginas, o nome do lugar onde foram escritas e a hora ou o tempo: Sol ou Chuva. Ou Frio. Ou:
Sozinho.

E depois, uma vez, você ficou muito tempo sem escrever. Talvez um mês, eu não sei mais quanto tempo durou.

Então é a minha vez no vazio deixado por você, essa ausência das cartas, dos apelos, eu lhe escrevi para saber por que você não escrevia mais, por que havia parado de escrever como se fosse violentamente impedido de fazê-lo, pela morte, por exemplo.

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dije que no podía evitar llorar. Se había convertido para mí en un deber, una necesidad de mi vida. Podía llorar con todo mi cuerpo, con toda mi vida. Para mí, escribir era como llorar.

Le parecía que la palabra era ruidosa, mentirosa y que ella había escogido el silencio de lo escrito."

"si no hubiera ni amor ni muerte nadie escribiría libros"

[Lari · Rating 4 out of 5]

One day summer will be over. The memory of it sometimes comes to you in the bright light of the beach, through the transparency of the rolling waves. When summer stretches as far as the eye can see, so strong, so hurtful or dark, or sometimes illuminating; when you're not there, for instance, and I am all alone in the world.

[Nannyuski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Después de haber leído El amante me quedé con ganas de volver a sumergirme en una de sus historias. Me encanta con la belleza y el dramatismo que escribe. Sus historias son diferentes y escandalosas. Necesito más de ella.

[mlenag · Rating 3 out of 5]

me ha puesto un poco incómoda...

[Andrea Putrino · Rating 3 out of 5]

jpense qu’elle a kiffé le poème Et la mer et l’amour de Pierre Marbeuf

[Julia Eriksson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duras lyckas verkligen vara otrolig i sin enkelhet. De små medlen, den språkliga varsamheten, hur berättelsen vävs fram i kärlek och parallella historier. Och havet slår mot stranden, det drar in och sköljer bort som om tiden vore evig.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yann Andrea Steiner comes from Duras’ later works and accordingly, reflects back on her life as a writer through the context of her love with the young man, Yann Andrea Steiner. The book weaves between three stories, times and places. The initial story is that of Duras and her lover, Steiner, as he comes to stay with her, breaking her habitual solitude. The story moves as Duras and Steiner observe from their window a six-year-old camper and his eighteen-year-old counselor fall in love on the beach. The boy, Samuel Steiner, is a holocaust survivor, an orphan working through the trauma of his little sister’s death. Like Duras, the little boy is a recluse, always apart from the rest. He stares out to the sea and sees nothing, laughs when the seagulls choke on worms, and when asked what he is thinking about he says he doesn’t know. The counselor tells him she loves him and they promise to meet at this same beach in ten years. The third story is the counselor’s myth about a little boy named David and a shark. The shark ate David's parents, then saved him by carrying him on his back to an island where the Source lives. The shark cries over his guilt of desiring to eat David as well.

These stories do not overtly connect but some parallels can be found. The shark and his desire to eat David seems to speak on the counselor’s desire to consummate her love with the little boy. The little boy on the beach and Duras’ lover are both Steiner, and are both involved with older women. The sea is a central force in all three stories, an important theme for Duras. She also says that if there were no sea and no love, no one would write books.

Duras has mastered the art of giving the reader just a little less than necessary. She never quite carries you to the end; she claims your devotion and denies satisfying your appetite. It becomes unclear (and unimportant), whether or not the account of the boy on the beach is “real” or only the imaginations of Duras and Steiner as they watch from their window. Is it 1944 or 1980? Are they merely filling in the boy’s story to make up for Duras’ unfinished book on Theodora Kats’?

Duras’ writing in Yann Andrea Steiner is finely tuned after a life of work. Her language is clear and minimal, giving power to a single word or phrase, that it could never carry anywhere else. Her story does not bother to explain why its characters matter or what happens to them, or if they were even real at all. It is a more important story of singular experience, delicate and absolutely beautiful.

"We tell each other things that have no relation to the afternoon’s events or the coming night but that relate to God, to his absence that is so present, like the breasts of the young girl, so young before the immensity of what is to come." -Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Duras was born in 1914 in Giadinh, of what is now Vietnam. Her parents, both teachers, moved the family to Indochina as part of the French government’s campaign to encourage more workers to live in the colony. After her father’s death, Duras lived in relative poverty, a period of her life that proved to be highly influential in her writing. At age eighteen, Duras moved to Paris to study mathematics, then political sciences, and finally law at the Sorbonne. She worked as a civil servant in 1935 in the Ministry for Colonial Affairs, and was active in the Resistance during the war. In 1945 she joined the Communist party. An amazing woman, Duras still found time and energy to make a dozen films (including the screenplay for Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour, 1959) and write more than 45 novels and plays.

[Rosa Ramôa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marguerite Donnadieu escritora, argumentista e cineasta francesa nascida a 4.4.1914, na Indochina(Vietname), e falecida a 3.11.1996, em Paris.
Aos 17 anos mudou-se para França,onde estudou na Sorbonne, em Paris. Licenciou-se.
Adoptou o nome Duras(nome da localidade onde o pai tinha propriedades).
Manteve uma relação conturbada,habitada por Yann Andréa Steiner, 38 anos mais novo que ela e obcecado pelos seus livros.
Foram amantes.
Andréa escreveu sobre o período em que viveu com Duras,já ofuscada por problemas alcoólicos.O álcool faz parte da sua literatura.Decadente. Esteve ausente durante meses.Perto da morte.A dormir.
Andréa acompanhou-a...
Escreveu um livro sobre esse não momento: MD.
Marguerite também o acompanhou e presenteou: YAS
Os livros cruzam-se com luz*

[Jossefin]

Не знам. За първи път се "срещам" с Маргьорит Дюрас. Не знам какво "чувствам" към книгата. Това книга ли е въобще? Прилича. Но...

[emmarps · Rating 3 out of 5]

j'ai perdu de mon objectivité quand je parle de Duras... je vous dirais juste de le lire du coup : c'est un bébé livre de 120 pages en plus !

[Antonio Jiménez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Duras es mágica y este libro un hechizo. Leerla es navegar entre aguas desconocidas (y a veces turbulentas), sin necesariamente perseguir un destino.