Marguerite Duras: A Life

Quel livre remarquable! Laure Adler nous décrit une femme extrêmement intéressante.Marguerite Duras a grandi en Indochine.Sa mère était à moitié folle.Son frère aîné était complètement fou. L'auteur parle du climat social qui régnait en Indochine à cette époque. A 19 ans, Marguerite Duras part en France pour y poursuivre ses études. A l'Université elle a cotoyé plusieurs célébrités; des écrivains, des hommes politiques, etc. Durant toute sa vie Marguerite Duras vit presque en état continuel de dépression. Elle a toujours eu peur de devenir folle, et à quelque part elle l'était. Alcoolique. Elle fut autant géniale dans le cinéma que comme romancière. Elle a eu pleins d'amants mais les 3 hommes qu'elle a vraiment aimés, elle n'a pu les garder, les deux premiers lui ont été infidèles; elle les étouffaient. Le 3e était homosexuel. Une femme qui n'a jamais été vraiment heureuse, problèmes d'argent, d'amour, de santé mentale. Une femme narcissique. L'auteur a le don de nous faire entrer dans la tête de M. Duras. On ressent toutes ses émotions, sa détresse, sa tristesse, sa folie, son génie, les manques dans sa vie, l'amour impossible. Une lecture qui m'a bouleversée.

Laure Adler's book comes close, but no book will ever come close enough. Duras' fans will undoubtedly read anything written about her, so anxious are they for shimmers of truth regarding the woman who left such a perplexing legacy of literature. Adler's biography of the fascinating French writer is good and it is certainly much more revealing than say, Alain Vircondolet's DURAS which might be more of a pleasure to read (he took Duras up on a challenge to try and write as she did), but says far less about the woman. There are times when Adler's sentence structure seems choppy, and this may be hard for more sophisticated readers, but bear in mind that although Anne-Marie Glasheen seems to have made a suitable translation, translations can be difficult and something is almost always lost.The emphasis here should really be on content and Adler did a fair job considering the difficulty in separating the real Duras from the invented one. For those looking merely for facts, Adler clears up the myth around THE LOVER, does a superb job of showing Duras through the war years, and gives a reasonable look at her friendship with Mitterand. One will miss an in-depth report on her relations with her family and will undoubtedly want to know more - especially about the elusive younger brother. As we read we become struck by the presence of men in Duras' life, and we yearn a bit for insights from a close woman friend. Unfortunately, Duras did not seem to allow many women into her life.Adler's book is recommended for any fan of Duras' literature as it will at least give some insight - possibly new - into her working mind. But don't expect miracles. And expect more books forthcoming. Duras' son, Outa, is a rather silent voice in this book and one can't help but think that there is part of Marguerite alive in the world who has not yet spoken (written) his thoughts.

Was Marguerite Duras a heroine or a monster? If Adler is to be believed, the famous French writer and filmmaker was both. This is a fascinating story of a woman who was alternately a patriot and a traitor during WWII. (She slept with the enemy, a Nazi sympathizer, to further her own career and simultaneously worked for the French Resistance.) She wrote sizzling, steamy fiction that she claimed chronicled her own, true adventures as a young femme fatale growing up in Indochina, as a student in Paris, as a radical politician and literary maven. She could be generous and loyal to a fault, or, in the blink of an eye, turn into a raging, arrogant harpy. If the truth is stranger than fiction, then Duras was even more monstrous than the characters in her novels. This is the story, wonderfully told, of a truly sick ticket indeed.