Destroy, She Said: Marguerite Duras

I love, love, love this author. I like her style, her brevity, the characters, and the writing. But, she does have a particular voice and writes quite staccato, and it isn't everyone's taste. Still, I urge readers to try her.

They certainly don't care that they are in an asylum. "Destroy, She Said" is all about not following The Rules laid out by society, but instead following the heart. That is why they are so freely loving with each other. And that is why they intentionally cheat at games in front of the 2nd woman (forgot her name). Their seduction begins with this simple idea that you do not have to follow the rules. Not at cards, or croquet, or in a false, loveless marriage. They like her and include her in their games, but she becomes very frightened because it contradicts everything she has been taught. They aren't trying to frighten her, or hurt her, but she needs to break her addiction to obedience before she can start to be herself, or start to share love with them. This simple idea of following the heart and natural desires instead of false construction of manners and behavior is so powerful that the idea is absolutely destructive to the bourgeois society. That is why things go in a whirlwind at the end - the simple idea of freedom destroys ALL boundaries - social, political, natural even ... maybe? And in destroying old boundaries it is revolutionary - and seems to share something with the communist/humanist ideal. -- At least, that's what I think.

Two men and two women, all mentally ill, meet in a desolate French convalescent hotel and become their own tiny insular society. They spend much of the book engaging in conversations and semierotic acts which seem utterly pregnant with meaning despite lacking any sort of meaningful foundation whatsoever. This book is built around a whirling nihilistic emptiness which grows more and more pronounced as it proceeds. In the final pages the void roars in every word. Minimal, terrifying.The interview with Duras that constitutes the second half of the book ranges from the provocative to the opaque.