The Lover

Hello everyone, this weeks reading was “The Lover” by Marguerite Duras, and I will be honest I was not really a fan of this book, I found the book itself to be alright, but It didn’t blow me away or anything like that, to be fair It also wasn’t bad by any means,  just felt a bit in-between for me. As far as the plot goes I found it to be heavy but then again that is very in character for the kinds of books that we have read throughout this course so I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me, overall the book made me a bit uncomfortable but it had some really interesting aspects so I just held onto as I read.

The story itself I feel like has been told many times before, it is the story of a young girl becoming intertwined in a relationship with an older man who also happens to be wealthy, like I said earlier, nothing that will blow your mind. I will say however, the way that Duras writes and describes the relationship adds a lot of depth and makes the story more complex and interesting. The relationship starts pretty obviously with an economic motivation on the girls part, which made sense, as this affair evolves we see it get very intimate which again made me a bit uncomfortable, but it reaches a point where it is said that the young girl does in fact love the man, this at least to me came as a surprise and to be fair I still have my reservations.

Another important point addressed by the book is race and culture, these themes play such an important role in their relationship because we see the power dynamics shift at points, even though the man is much older and wealthier, he still has to deal with racism, while the other girl, even though she comes from a lower socio-economic class, does not face racism.

Overall the book was not my personal cup of tea, and although I can admit that it is an interesting story with important narratives and what seemed to me like good writing, I just never felt captivated by it, and in fact I found it quite hard to get through the uncomfortable moments.

My question for everyone is, what do you think about the way in which the relationship is portrayed? Did you find it interesting or did you dislike it?