I know I said that “Time of the Doves” was one of the books of all time, but this book is a strong contender for the book of all time. “The Lover” by Margurite Duras was an interesting book to say the least. This book’s subject matter was heavily sexual, which would be eyebrow raising in a normal setting, but completely weird considering that this book is about a 15 year old. I found the very in depth descriptions of her love and love-making to her older lover a unsettling to read as much of the description was about how young and undeveloped and innocent she was, and furthermore, Duras makes sure you know how taboo and messed up the situation is by referring to the protagonist as a child many times…
The first of the themes in this book that I wanted to talk about was, unsurprisingly, love. I thought that this book’s description of love was a lot more depressing in a guttural sense than the rest of the books. While the other books’ depressing was more of an infuriating feeling that makes you want to punch a hole in your wall out of frustration at the relationship, “The Lover” creates a feeling that is akin to chain smoking in the pouring rain after losing your job. Duras makes it very clear that The Protagonist has no feelings of love or is at least trying to repress those feelings while The Lover is deeply infatuated with her. this brought up a very interesting point of the two-sided predatory nature of their relationship. On one hand we have The Lover, who is being predatory in the literal sense as he is literally having sex with a child, and on the other hand we have The Protagonist who is using The Lover for sex and for money. I think that the kind of role reversal here was very perplexing.
One of the other themes that i found interesting was race and its impact on the story. The Protagonist’s whiteness is brought up many times and is a driving force behind many of her actions throughout the story. I found that she had a lot of white privilege, but also encountered a lot of prejudice for it. For example her lover’s father looked down on her for being white, but also she got preferential treatment from her boarding school because she was white. The Lover’s race is also an integral part of his character. The fact that he is Chinese is seen as a detriment to his character by The Protagonist’s family and the protagonist. Through my reading, it seemed as if all his other negative traits like his sickliness all stemmed form him being Chinese which irked me a bit. I also found that the Native Vietnamese population also were kind of looked down upon as lesser than the whites throughout the book which makes me question the ideology of Duras a bit.
All in all, this was a weird book. The sexual nature of it made it a uncomfortable read to say the least, and the age of the characters made it even worse. I found it difficult to find a real underlying meaning behind all the underage sex, but maybe I am too goldfish brained to comprehend the genius that is Margurite Duras.
My Question: Do any of you find that your race effects you ability to find love?
- Jon
I think it’s interesting how depressing the book was yet she was mostly a pretty neutral narrator, she cried at one point I think, but it wasn’t really described why or described in a sad way. Even in the stuff about her family and her mother hitting her she stayed fairly unaffected, I felt.
-Dalia Currie
Jonathan, very good eye in seeing the subtle ways in which the inappropriateness of the relationship is highlighted. And yes, despite her white privilege, she still faces a lot of hate – or perhaps because of it? I remember the scene when her mother chastised her for ruining her marrying prospects given the affair.
Thanks for your comment!
– Tesi
Hi fellow Jonathan,
I agree with your idea that the ‘love’ illustrated in this book is a different kind of depressing compared to the others we’ve read so far. To answer your question, I do believe that race effects one’s ability to find love. Often, having similar cultural backgrounds can allow people to connect more easily, or the opposite if one wants to distance themselves from their background.
Hi Jonathan, I think you bring up very important ideas when it comes to “The Lover”. I agree with you that I was uncomfortable but maybe thats what made the book so captivating to read. Like a car crash you cannot look away from. To answer your question I’m Southeast asian and my boyfriend is south asian. At least we can relate to each other more than if it were something like this situation but there is definitely still hurdles. Great blog post!
Hey there, I think your post was interesting and it gave me a new perspective, to answer your question, I don’t think race affects your ability to find love but it does affect what we look for in love, how its nurtured and how its represented, since it all ties back to the culture that one grows up with
Jon what a banger post, easily one of my favourite blog posts I’ve read in this class! Your opening line “I know I said that “Time of the Doves” was one of the books of all time, but this book is a strong contender for the book of all time” is a god damn bar and a half, never change. I greatly agree with everything you had to say in the post, I too was greatly uncomfortable and although I don’t smoke much, I too felt like I was chainsmoking in the rain during this one. I’m so excited to read your future posts and love the little Kirby on the website 🙂
Hi jon, great blog post! I too was uncomfortable reading the underage sex scenes and I was reading the first scene on the bus so I was very uncomfortable and was hoping no one could see what I was reading. The first scene was very descriptive and that caught me off guard.
-Sofia Almerling