The Lover – Marguerite Duras
This was the last of the classic french novels for my historical fiction study group. I bought the Kindle edition and read it while I was out-and-about; waiting for appointments, or to collect children, so my reading was scattered and very unfocused. This was not helped by the style of the book, which jumped about a bit.
Here’s the blurb …
Saigon, 1930s: a poor young French girl meets the elegant son of a wealthy Chinese family. Soon they are lovers, locked into a private world of passion and intensity that defies all the conventions of their society.
One thing I noticed was that, despite the shortness of the novel (more of a novella), it packed in a lot. And the detail was vivid – the hat, the shoes, the ferry on the Mekong, etc.
This isn’t my favourite classic french novel (that’s Madame Bovary).
More reviews …
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/nnp/duras-lover.html?module=inline
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/04/27/on-a-pedestal/