The striking, doll-like face of the young Duras is deconstructed, dissolved into that of the septuagenarian in a kind of acceleration of the ageing process. In a series of carefully arranged fragments, Duras creates a Baconesque self-portrait distorted by memory, alcohol and regret. The starting point of this journey takes the form of a very specific, and unexpected, sequence of images – the transformation of her face. Set largely in the Saigon of the late 1920s, the novel invokes one of the most formative events in Duras’s life: the first time she gives herself over to physical desire, to what she calls the “pleasure unto death”. The case for American Psycho: why this controversial book (sold here in shrink wrap) still matters In just over 100 pages, it opens a portal through time, conjuring up the long-lost Indochina of her youth. Written when Duras was turning 70, The Lover is one of those great literary acts of looking back. L’amant, to use its French title, is a work that stuns with its emotional force and lyrical beauty. In 1992, it was made into a major film by celebrated director Jean-Jacques Annaud. As well as becoming an international bestseller, The Lover won one of France’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Prix Goncourt. Most of the world did not agree with Duras’s assessment. Marguerite Duras, one of the most iconic French writers of the 20th century, didn’t think much of her most commercially successful novel The Lover (1984), a fictionalised account of an affair she had as a 15-year-old with a Chinese man nearly twice her age. This is part of an occasional series, making the case for or against controversial books.
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