Two by Duras - Softcover

Marguerite Duras

3.9

115 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0889104417 ISBN 13: 9780889104419

Publisher: Coach House Pr, 1993

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two novellas, w/an interview, tr Alberto Manguel

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From Publishers Weekly:

These two short works, published here for the first time, are typical of Duras: pithy and involving. In one, the narrator tells a story out loud while a man named Yann types it, periodically shouting aloud like "a man demanding something, who doesn't know what that something is." His railing both spurs on the writing and impedes it, until Duras proclaims "It was like a goal: kill it." The other piece consists of instructions to an unnamed "you" who appears to be participating in a film and a failed love affair. These two pieces are complemented by an interview with Duras by Ana Maria Moix, but it does not delve very deep. Duras discusses the role of alcohol in her writing and opines that "the drunks in the taverns . . . are the authentic kings of this world." Duras also calls the awarding of the Prix Goncourt to her book, The Lover "something ridiculous!" and explains why the book cannot properly be called an autobiography, "even if that which is told in the text really happened." An afterword by Manguel and the interview seem like padding that has been added, with limited success, in order to extend two brief pieces into a book-length work.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

In two short pieces previously published in French in the 1980s, Duras explores the cinematic possibilities of her favorite themes, absence and memory. Saturated with recurrent images of still lifes against the backdrop of the eternal sea, Duras's work lends itself easily to the visual medium (as in India Song and The Lover ). In "The Slut of the Normandy Coast," Duras describes her attempt to adapt her elusive novel Malady of Death to film; the difficulties are compounded by her lover, Yann, whose abusive behavior (it is his name for her that gives the story its title) both unnerves and, not surprisingly, enchants her. In "The Atlantic Man," a narrative script addressed in the second person to the departed lover, Duras has "made a film out of his absence." The stories are followed by a confessional interview with the author. This minibook is meager fare even for Duras; it would quickly disappear from library shelves.
- Amy Boaz, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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