From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

The Lover

Marguerite Duras,

Maxine Hong Kingston (Introduction),

Barbara Bray (Translator)

Start date: December 1, 2015

Finish date: December 15, 2015

Discussion: Classics Corner

Discussion leader: Nicole

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What Members Thought

Mar 03, 2008 Laura rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction-20th-century, french-literature, book-and-movie, read-2009, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, novellas, bookcrossing

Dans L'Amant, Marguerite Duras reprend sur le ton de la confidence les images et les thèmes qui hantent toute son ouvre. Ses lecteurs vont pouvoir ensuite descendre ce grand fleuve aux lenteurs asiatiques et suivre la romancière dans tous les méandres du delta, dans la moiteur des rizières, dans les secrets ombreux où elle a développé l'incantation répétitive et obsédante de ses livres, de ses films, de son théâtre.

A movie was made based on this book: The Lover (1992), directed by Jean-Jacques A ...more

8 likes · Like · see review

Jun 17, 2025 William rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2025

A book unique in many ways. Based on the author’s own experience as a young girl but not precisely autobiographical. Very cinematic in the way it shifts scenes, time frames tenses, and between the first and third person and is told in short paragraphs.
The writing is descriptive and beautiful. The imagery is similarly vividly described. Themes of coming-of-age, power as it is expressed in sexual relationships, colonialism, race and social norms, family dysfunction and the meaning of love and desi ...more

1 like · Like · see review