Enigmatic and searing, dripping with spareness and languid eroticism. Reminiscent of Jean Rhys, Henry Miller and other writers of the 1930s and 40s that wrote in the same spare and unflinching style. The story of a million years: young poor girl falls for an older alluring man who is Chinese- and their affair is formative and will shape her forever.

This is a haunting and bittersweet read. You can actually feel the heat of the protagonists' bodies during sex, of how their parts take complete control over them that is uncontrollable.

I highly recommend the 1992 film version starring Jane March and Tony Leung (big Tony) in unforgettable, haunting performances that are an erotic fever dream with Gabriel Yared’s swoony score and rich, Oscar winning cinematography.

Desire

The first time ever I saw your face was on the ferry.

I had my head buried in a copy of the South China Morning Post. My father had said, if I read it every day, I would learn about the world around us, and his boy would become a man. Only then would I be ready to take over the family business after him.

He was right, in his way. I was thin and soft and naïve, even though I had just returned from two years in Paris. I was still a boy, at 28. I’m sure I would have continued as a boy, unless I had met you.

I had slept with many girls in Paris, and I bedded plenty more after you, before I married my wife, a virgin until our wedding night. But I didn't sleep with any of these girls out of love or even desire. I fucked them because I could. They came to me eager to be fucked, and we all knew the reason, my family’s wealth and increasing prominence in Saigon. They all came to me, because they wanted something that my father had.

My father was not an egotistical man. He did not display pride or shame. He did everything out of duty, even make money, buy property, run a department store and build wealth. But when it came to the girls I slept with (not you), and he always found out about them, he took some delight in my sexual activity. No matter how attractive each one was, he knew that by sleeping with them, I was actually disqualifying them from the race to be my wife and share his wealth. Everyone I slept with narrowed it down to the one I would eventually marry.

I looked up from the Post, some article on inflation, and I saw you taking a seat opposite me. I gazed at you longer than I should have.

Everything about you was wrong. You were Caucasian, white, 15 ½ years old, slim, you were wearing a flowing dress that alternately swayed in the breeze or clung to your body, outlining and highlighting your petite breasts. And you were wearing a man’s fedora and gold shoes.

Once I took all of this in, I tried to resume reading the Post. I was looking down at the page, but I couldn’t distinguish a single word, I was thinking of you and I was shaking. Like a boy.

Later the same week, we happened to be on the same ferry again. I didn’t see you on board, but when my father’s driver (until recently, when he retired, my driver) opened the door to the limousine, I noticed that you were standing near the waterline, apparently deciding what you would do next.

I went up to you, determined to offer you a ride in my car, I mean my father’s car. You were apprehensive at first, but I reassured you of my good faith, and you decided to accept. It helped that I was shaking the whole way through our brief discussion.

While we were talking, we stood side on, so that my driver could see both of us, the sides of our faces and the hints of nervous smiles. Something must have touched him, unless he did it out of a sense of duty to my father, for he took a photo of us that day.

He gave it to me when he retired 10 years ago. I have carried it with me, in my wallet, every day since then. Until today, I haven’t pulled it out and looked at it again. I didn’t need to. That moment, in my eyes, has been engraved in my mind for fifty years. The only difference is that the image confirms that I was there, that it wasn’t all in my imagination, you can see both of us. The image is true, and so now is my memory. Only I’m not sure whether I ever wanted to be reminded.

It’s not that the photo reminds me of a time when I was a boy. After all, it was you who made me a man, not reading the Post.

Like my father before me, I am a man of duty. I have faithfully taken care of my wife, my family, my family’s business. Everything has grown under my watchful and caring eye. I have done the right thing, and I will die a contented man, if contentment is what I am looking for.

No, what that photo and that moment remind me of is my capacity for desire. It is something I eliminated from my field of vision after we parted company, at my parents’ insistence, and you returned to Paris, I thought, with your mother.

I already knew the rudimentary mechanics of sex when we stood before each other, a skinny Chinese boy and a skinny French girl, in my bedroom for the first time. As I had done before, I was shaking. Even my tentative erection looked as if it might shake off and fall to the floor. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny then.

Until I met you, I had been lonely. I was even lonelier after I had met you, because of the obsessive love I had for you.

You said, “I’d rather you didn’t love me, but if you do, I’d like you to do as you usually do with women.”

I asked, “Is that what you want?”

You nodded. Still I knew that you would never love me, that you could never love me.

I said, “You’ve come here with me as you might have gone anywhere with anyone.”

You replied, “I can’t say, so far I’ve never gone into a bedroom with anyone.”

You begged me, again, to do what I usually did with the women I brought to my room.

I did my best to comply. Although you were a virgin, I made love to you the way you directed me to. It was different to how I normally did it, well there was one difference, I wept while we made love.

The driver soon learned about you, and so did my father. He could tell I felt differently about you, that I wasn’t disqualifying you, that I wanted to marry this white girl, even though you would never love me in return.

He made his position very clear.

“I will not let my son marry this little white whore from Sadec.”

I tried to obliterate his attitude from my thinking. But it must have affected me subliminally.

In bed, as we fucked more and more passionately, I would call out, “My whore, my slut, you are my only love.” And you and I and my cum and your juices and our sweat would be swept up in a torrent of desire.

For a long time, it seemed as if that torrent would never stop. I didn’t know where the waters sprang from, but I definitely didn’t know where they were heading.

My father did, and so he built a dam that would contain the flow, and one day the torrent just stopped.

Loving you had made me a man, he knew that, as I did, and although we disagreed wildly, I was reconciled to my future in the family business.

As my father loosened his grip on the reins and handed them over to me, I expanded to two and then eventually five department stores, and then years later with such a solid foundation, I started investing in shopping centres in Australia, until my family became the largest private holder of retail real estate in the country.

Like my father, I am not an egotistical man or a proud one. I do this because of duty. But there was a moment when I contented myself with a smile.

I had just signed a contract to purchase a centre in Australia for A$30 million. I signed a cheque for a A$3M deposit and gave it to the Vendor’s lawyer. A youngish fellow, he decided to phone my banker and ask whether I had sufficient funds in my account to clear the cheque. The banker asked what the total sale price was. The lawyer answered, and my banker laughed. “There are enough funds in this account to pay the entire sale price in cash.”

The lawyer turned to me, squeamishly, and declared that we had a deal. I said, “I was under the impression we had a deal before you phoned my bank.”

I enquired after that lawyer once. It turned out he had married one of my property managers and was now running a coffee shop, ironically in one of my centres.

I have two daughters. They run our portfolio, and they do a more professional job of it than either I or my father ever did.

Perhaps, my father was better at taking risks than they are, but to be honest they are pretty good at it. I am proud of them, and he would be too. They have married well, and have given me four beautiful grandchildren.

As I said, I have carried our photo in my wallet for many years, ever since I learned of its existence.

Any other man in my position would possibly say that they had everything that they had ever desired.

For me, that is true, except in one sense that I have tried to overlook for fifty years.

I once desired you, that skinny white French girl in the fedora. I desired you with an intensity that I cannot find words to describe.

I have tried to rationalise and deny that desire. I’ve tried to convince myself that I only ever desired you once. And that is actually the truth. I did only desire you once, but that one occasion has lasted fifty years.

Now that I am about to die, or think I am, and my family will soon gather around me to say their farewells, I must take a match to this photo and set it alight, like you once set me alight, and perhaps, I will never know, perhaps I also set you alight, if not for as long.

My favourite nurse just brought me an ashtray and a cigarette lighter.

It took me two or three attempts to burn this image. It didn’t seem to want to go.

But now it is finished and there are only ashes in the tray, and my failing memory, and when I die and it too goes, there will be nothing left of our desire.


n  n

Mural at the Pawpaw Cafe attached to the Brisbane Restaurant "Green Papaya"

This is a thin novella, but do not expect an easy read. Though translated from the original French, you will experience an almost immediate halt, like you are reading something in a different language. And you are. It is the language of dreams. It is also the language of recollection. It does not flow in a typical fashion: it dips you in a moment then pulls you out just as you are getting used to the temperature of the water. It plunges you into another time and place, emoting a feeling out of context and once again as you are getting your bearings, the scene changes again.

Marguerite Duras wrote this as an older woman, and it's clear that this is heavily autobiographical. These are remembrances of herself at 15 and a half years young, and her erotic love affair with a 27 year old wealthy Chinese man. Again, the reader halts. 15? 27? Ick? A different time? Can we peer in on their affair without feeling uncomfortable? I'm not altogether sure. Yes, she's mature beyond her years. Yes, she seems to be the one in charge. For me though, it treads the razor's edge of true-life Lolita, with his uncontrollable love for this girl, with his tearful, sexual obsession.

There's a blurry child prostitute image I keep seeing, a child with gold lamé heels and a pinkish brown fedora. A girl being dropped off at school in her lover's limousine. An unphotographed, lonely and serious girl, whose family life has sucked the childhood out of her. Her father has died, her mother is mentally ill and is barely keeping the family afloat in manageable poverty, her older brother beats her. She looks back at this time with her Chinese lover as the pivotal time in her life. She tells him she will never love him. She tells him she is with him because of his money.

She believes it, when she says it. She takes the money. Her family devours the meals he pays for, wordlessly. She is unprepared for the shifting clouds, the imperceptible variations of the heart, carried on the notes of a Chopin waltz, that there was love, that love "was lost in the affair like water in sand". This love defines her, even into old age.

A poetic, powerful, dreamy glance back at a love affair, painful in its secrecy, in its illicitness, in its doomed fate.

3.5 stars

Hazy, strange, and often brilliant - I read it slowly, relishing it as I went. Impossible to really rate it.

"I think it was during this journey that the image became detached, removed from all the rest. It might have existed, a photograph might have been taken, just like any other, somewhere else, in other circumstances. But it wasn't. The subject was too slight. Who would have thought of such a thing? The photograph could only have been taken if someone could have known in advance how important it was to be in my life, that event, that crossing of the river. But while it was happening, no one even knew of its existence. Except God. And that's why - it couldn't have been otherwise - the image doesn't exist. It was omitted. Forgotten. It never was detached or removed from all the rest. And it's to this, this failure to have been created, that the image owes its virtue: the virtue of repenting, of being the creator of, an absolute."

went over my head and seemed more like a cerebral workout. I might not be the most appropriate or intelligent audience for this.

Ich habe selten Leidenschaft und Verlangen so prägnant gelesen wie in diesem Buch. Duras Schreibstil ist ungewöhnlich. Viele Sätze sind einfach, kurz, teilweise unvollendet, gerade wenn es um die Liebesbeziehung geht. Aber dadurch bekommt der Ton eine Schnelligkeit wie ein ansteigender Puls beim Liebesspiel. Andererseits sind hier Beschreibungen der spiesigen Kolonialgesellschaft und des fremden Landes sehr wortgewandt und methaphorisch. Einerseits schreibt sie in Ich-Form, dann wechselt sie wieder scheinbar grundlos im nächsten Abschnitt in die Rolle der auktorialen Erzählerin.

Wäre dieses Buch die Fiktion eines Autors, wäre es bestimmt ein großer Lolita-ähnlicher Skandal geworden. So ist diese Autobiografie einer damals 70jährigen Autorin über ihre erblühende Lust, Leidenschaft und Liebe zu einem älteren, chinesischen Mann in Indochina Anfang der Dreißiger Jahre allenfalls erstaunlich. Ich hatte vor 30 Jahren den Kinofilm gesehen und der war mir in guter Erinnerung. Ich empfand ihn als ruhig und sehr erotisch. Erstaunlich, wie gut der Film die Stimmung des Buch umsetzt. Überraschend fand ich allerdings, dass weite Teile des Buchs sich um die Familie der Autorin drehen und gar nicht um den Liebhaber. Allerdings gewinnen die Schilderungen der Lieblosigkeit, die sie von Mutter und Brüdern empfängt, eine besondere Bedeutung im Kontext des Ausbruchs zu sexuellen, verbotenen Abenteuern. Hat mir sehr gut gefallen.

(Book 252 from 1001 books) - L'Amant‬ = The Lover (The Lover #1), Marguerite Duras

The Lover is an autobiographical novel by Marguerite Duras, published in 1984. It has been translated to 43 languages and was awarded the 1984 Prix Goncourt. It was adapted to film in 1992 as The Lover.

Set against the backdrop of French colonial Vietnam, The Lover reveals the intimacies and intricacies of a clandestine romance between a pubescent girl from a financially strapped French family and an older, wealthy Chinese man. In 1929, a 15-year-old nameless girl is traveling by ferry across the Mekong Delta, returning from a holiday at her family home in the town of Sa Đéc, to her boarding school in Saigon.

She attracts the attention of a 27-year-old son of a Chinese business magnate, a young man of wealth and heir to a fortune. He strikes up a conversation with the girl; she accepts a ride back to town in his chauffeured limousine.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز چهاردهم ماه آگوست سال1998میلادی

عنوان: عاشق؛ نویسنده: مارگاریت دوراس؛ مترجم: قاسم روبین؛ تهران، انتشارات نیلوفر، سال1376؛ در116ص؛ شابک9644480511؛ چاپ سوم سال1377؛ چاپ چهارم سال1378؛ چاپ پنجم سال1380؛ چاپ ششم سال1384؛ چاپ هفتم سال1388؛ چاپ هشتم سال1391؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان فرانسه - سده20م

عنوان: عاشق؛ نویسنده: مارگاریت دوراس؛ مترجم: کافیه جوانرویی، کرج، انتشارات مانگ، سال1393؛ در90ص؛ شابک9786009452019؛

یادیست یادگار، از اندوه و از سر بگذشته ها: فراز و فرود خواسته های یک زن، همان بانوی نگارنده؛ این کتاب به نوعی خود زندگی‌نامه ی «مارگریت دوراس» است، که در یک برش زمانی، از دوره‌ ی نوجوانی‌ خویش، به بازنمایی مکان، زمان، و آدم‌های دوروبری می‌پردازند؛ در مستعمره یا در همان کلنی «هندوچین»، یک مرد «چینی» پولدار، عاشق دختر پانزده ساله‌ ای می‌شود، که با کرجی در حین گذر از رودخانه است؛ راویها گاه دخترک، گاهی دانای کل، و زمانی پیرزنی است، که یادمانهای جوانی‌ خویش را، بازگو می‌کنند، و در حین روایتْ، خوانشگر را با شخصیت‌های دوروبرِ دخترک، و ویژگیهای اجتماعی، و روانشناسی آنان، آشنا می‌سازند؛

دخترک گاه عاشق خود را دوست میدارد؛ و گاهی از او بیزار است؛ همین حس پارادوکسیکال را، او نسبت به مادر خود هم دارد؛ اما در مورد برادرانش، تصمیم خود را گرفته؛ از برادر ارشد بیزار است، و برادر کوجک را دوست میدارد، و علت آن، مرگ زود هنگام برادر کوچک‌تر، و شباهت برادر بزرگ‌تر به خود هموست؛ در نهایت پدر معشوق، مانع ازدواج او، و پسرش می‌شود؛ و علی‌رغم میل پسر، زنی «چینی»، برایش اختیار می‌کند؛ اما آن‌چه موجب فروش جهانی موفق کتاب، تحت عنوان «رمان نو» شد، ماجرای آن نیست، بلکه عدم التزام «دوراس»، به رعایت کلیشه‌ های رایج رمان‌نویسی، یا خاطره‌ نگاری محض، و در نتیجه نگارش آزادانه، و بی‌قید و بند ایشانست

دیدگاه روان‌کاوانه، و تصویرپردازی «دوراس»، گرچه در جاهائی بی‌ ربط می‌نماید، اما حاکی از هوش نویسنده، برای جلب و انگیزش خوانشگر عام است؛ تا حدی که «عاشق»، به عنوان نمونه‌ ای از ادبیات روان‌شناسی، معرفی می‌شود. یادمانهای تراژیک نویسنده، که به صورت یک مجموعه، صیقل‌ شده، و آماده‌ ی ارائه است، باعث می‌شود که زمان روایت به صورت پاندولی، در حال رفت و بازگشت، در حال، و گذشته باشد. زبان سیال و عریان دوراس، به پختگی لازم رسیده؛ تا از عشق، لذت، بدنامی، گناه و تنفر، هرچند با ابهام و ایجاز، اما به سادگی سخن بگوید، و به درد زیستن، اعتراف کند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 24/10/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 03/11/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

It strikes me that The Lover by Marguerite Duras may have been more enthralling in its original French than it stands in translation. The brief book seems like transposed notes from a journal, very autobiographical fragments & reminiscences from a long ago period in the author's life. It does seem to capture the heat & torpor of colonial life in Southeast Asia, mostly pre-WWII but with a sense of distance, the refreshing of hazy memories of a long ago affair that involved a poor but beautiful & captivating 15 year old French girl & a seemingly dissolute but wealthy Chinese man, perhaps a decade older.



What was rather fascinating was the suggestion that while the man might have been considered a predator, it is the girl who is in charge of their relationship, establishing dominance from their first meeting on a ferry across the Mekong and remaining the dominant force until at novel's end, she sails away from him, en route back to France, with the Chinese man in his chauffeured black limousine looking on longingly as the ship sails away, ending their relationship.

Some of the motivation for the quite sensual initial encounter & all those that follow is detailed in the unnamed girl's apparent need to establish her identity. It is said that the defining element of her deliberately unconventional appearance is her hat, a man's fedora, causing her to declare, "the hat makes me whole." It also allows her to cross certain gender lines & to be ambiguous to many who view her.




She feels an alien within her own family, with an educated but erratic mother who prefers the greater potential of the girl's older brother who eventually gambles away what remains of the family wealth and a father who at one point is working in Cambodia and later in the novel has died, with the time periods often seemingly random, even intermingled.

Because the family is poor & seems bereft of love, the girl seizes the opportunity to translate her beauty into a financially rewarding relationship with the Chinese man who she states early on, she can never love & who she keeps at a distance emotionally even as they are daily sexually intertwined. "I'd rather you didn't love me" she declares, at which point her Chinese lover "knows already she'll never love him." Still, she sees herself as the child of this very vulnerable Chinese man, even as she is sexually awakened & they seem to exploit each other.

here is obvious tension between the French colonials and the native SE Asians who are colonized, even when they possess more wealth or status than the white population. And there is considerable tension between the girl & her mother, who calls her daughter a prostitute & on occasion beats her. And yet the mother is somehow loved by the daughter, even though at times her mother seems to descend into a kind of madness, causing a similar effect on the daughter, who at one point intones: "I went mad in full control of my senses."



While The Lover seems a disjointed tale, like passages from a diary being read in no particular order, there is some continuity that attaches to statements such as..."Very early in my life, it was already too late. It was already too late when I was 18." Also, in the brief novel, she declares "the story of my life doesn't exist. There is no center to it, no path, no line." What we are then left with is a series of non-sequential snapshots of someone attempting without much success to gain perspective on her life. All that remains are hazy memories, which are also ambiguous, much like Proust seemed to indicate:

We exist only by virtue of what we possess, we possess only what is present to us, and many of our memories, our moods, sail away on a voyage of their own until they are lost to sight. And then we can no longer take them into account in the total which is our personality. But they know of secret paths by which they return to us.

*Within my review: 1st & 4th images=the author, Marguerite Duras; 2nd=a shot from the film version of The Lover; 3rd=house that was inspiration for where lovers met.

Цікавезний роман про підлітковий злам, перехід, втрату. Це автобіографічний роман про 15-річну дівчинку, яка усвідомлює божевілля матері та маніакальні напади старшого брата, спостерігає за світом французької колонії, де всі на неї звертають увагу через її візуальну інакшість, де всі знають, яка роль їй відведена - білої жінки, котра просто чекає, проте вона постановляє собі, що писатиме, коли виросте. І от вона пише чи то про "я" чи про "вона", пише без імен, лише з ролями, пише про те, що відбулося у далекому минулому та виринає як спалах фотоапарату, як спогад, як множинність деталей, виринає і тригерить. Бо далі буде війна і вона має дещо спільне з дитинством - просочується всюди. Ти не можеш позбутися дитячих спогадів, переписати сценарій, позбутися страхів. У своєму відчаї та пошуках, дівчина знайомиться з 32-річним китайським мільйонером, який стає її коханцем. Вона враз дорослішає, коли перебуває поруч з ним, коли розуміє, що керує ним, коли порушує правила пансіону і прогулює ліцей, коли міркує про пристрасть і жадає її. Вона довіряє своєму коханцю себ: "Думаю, йому можна довіритись, адже це все, що він уміє в житті - тільки любити і більше нічого". Зрештою, він закохується у неї, а вона його відштовхує, але, на відміну від родини, яка байдужіє, коханець залишається назавжди. Можливо, ця любов була взаємною? Невідомо, але вона точно була важливою, щоб перейти на новий етап дорослішання.

O iubire ca o privire tulbure, pierdutã în suferințã, într-o aproape moarte. O atracție teribilã, o apropiere inevitabilã între doi oameni a cãror legãturã este cumnutrebuie în ochii comunitãții. Pasiunea lor este dusã de torent, de forța dorinței, de nevoia trupurilor de a fi atinse ṣi de a fi vãtãmate. Un loc şi un timp al durerii, o legãturã eşuatã din aşternuturi. O slãbiciune difuzã se strecoarã între cei doi, o sfârşealã care îi amoțeşte şi care se încheie cu o tãcere fãrã de urã, fãrã de repulsie sau de ruṣine, o combinație ca o jeluire surdã, tristã, fãrã de ecou.
Cartea asta îşi meritã cu prisosințã locul pe acele liste de mare cãutare: 100 de cãrți de citit într-o viațã.

fragmented, drab, and full of unpleasant people. had a nice part about a hat though.

امشب دیگر تحمل فکر کردن به مرد شولنی را در خود نمی‌بینم. تحمل فکر کردن به هلن را هم ندارم. بنظر می‌رسد که زندگی این دو از نوعی غنا برخوردار است، غنایی که بیرون از وجود آن‌هاست؛ من اما گویا از این چیزها مبرا هستم. به قول مادرم "این دخترک به چیزی دلخوش نیست". گویا زندگی دارد چهره‌ی واقعی‌اش را به من نشان می‌دهد. بنظرم حالا دیگر باید این چیزها را برای خودم بگویم، بگویم که میل گنگی به مردن دارم و این کلمه را دیگر از این پس جدا از خودم نمی‌دانم. میل گنگی به تنها بودن دارم، در عین حال می‌دانم از وقتی که کودکی‌ام را پشت سر گذاشتم، بعد از ترک آن خانواده‌ی حیله‌گر، دیگر تنها نیستم. نوشتن کتاب را به زودی شروع می‌کنم. آنچه در فراسوی اکنون می‌بینم همین است، در برهوتی بی‌انتها که در هرجایش گستره‌ی حیاتم برایم آشکار می‌شود

قصه‌ی خانه‌ی مادربزرگ

خواندن "عاشق" مانند این است که روی پای مادربزرگی فرتوت بنشینید و به داستان‌ها و خاطراتش از نخستین عشق گوش دهید. ولی داستانی که مارگریت دوراس از این عشق نخست تعریف می‌کند با داستان‌های دیگر تفاوت دارد، ناگفتنی‌هایی از عشقی لولیتا‌وار که حالا بعد از گذر بیش از نیم قرن، در هفتاد سالگی مجال بروز پیدا کرده‌اند. روابط عاشقانه‌ی دوراس همیشه عنصری غیرعادی و عجیب در خودش داشته و از این جهت بسیار خاص بوده. اگر بر اساس توالی زمانی از آخرین رابطه‌اش به گذشته بازگردیم، رابطه‌ی دوراس 66 ساله با یان آندره‌آ 33 ساله، رابطه با دیونیس ماسکلو (فعال سیاسی عضو نهضت مقاومت فرانسه) ، رابطه‌ی رسمی با روبر آنتلم (زندانی معروف فرانسوی در اردوگاه‌های مرگ نازی‌ها) و رابطه‌ی دوراس 15 ساله با مرد چینی شولنی 32 ساله. کتاب عاشق، ماجرای این رابطه است

یک
ماجرای کل روایت در ویتنامِ مستعمره‌ی فرانسه می‌گذرد. در جامعه‌ای با اکثریت ویتنامی و اقلیت فرانسوی و چینی. مارگریت 15 ساله در مسیر پانسیون شبانه‌روزی با مرد چینی ثروتمندی از محله شولن آشنا می‌شود، مرد دیوانه‌وار به او عشق می‌ورزد و بعد از مدت کوتاهی روابط جنسی آن‌ها در خانه‌ای در محله شولن آغاز می‌شود. دوراس و مردچینی اندک اندک رسوا می‌شوند و در نهایت آن‌ها برای همیشه از هم جدا می‌شوند و دوراس ویتنام را به مقصد فرانسه ترک می‌کند. دوراس در این کتاب بیش از هرچیزی از خانواده‌اش می‌نویسد، از برادر ضعیف و کوچکی که دیوانه‌وار دوستش داشت و با مرگش انگار خودش مرد، برادر بزرگتری معتادی که در خیالش بارها او را کشته بود و آرزوی مرگش را می‌کرد و مادری که فقر حاصل از ورشکستگی کمرش را شکسته و به مرز جنون کشانده بود. او در آن روزها به خود قول می‌دهد تا روزی سرگذشت مادرش و تیره‌روزی‌هایش را بنویسد، بگوید که چگونه آب رفت و محو شد، که ماموران دولتی چه بر سرش آوردند و چگونه موجب مرگش شدند

دو

مدت‌هاست که می‌شناسمتان، همه می‌گویند که در سال‌های جوانی قشنگ بوده‌اید، ولی من آمده‌ام اینجا تا به شما بگویم که چهره‌ی فعلی‌تان به‌مراتب قشنگ‌تر از دوران جوانی‌تان است. من این چهره‌ی شکسته را بیشتر از آن چهره‌ی جوان دوست دارم.

کتاب با ذکر این جمله‌ی یان‌اندره‌آ، عاشق شیدای دوراس در سنین پیری آغاز می‌شود، چنانکه مخاطب در آغاز خیال می‌کند که کتاب درباره‌ی او نوشته شده است، ولی عاشق در اینجا کس دیگری‌ست، مردی از قاره‌ای دیگر. انگیزه‌ی دوراس از رابطه‌اش با مرد شولنی چه بود؟ بدیهی‌ست که مرد چینی او را دیوانه‌وار دوست داشت و اگرچه بخاطر الزامات خانواده‌ی سنتی‌اش هرگز نتوانست حتی خیال آینده‌ای مشترک با دوراس را در سر بپروراند، ولی سال‌ها پس از جدایی از دوراس و ازدواجش با نجیب‌زاده‌ای چینی، طی تماس تلفنی با دوراس دوباره اظهار عشق می‌کند و می‌گوید تا عشقش به او تا روزی که بمیرد زنده خواهد ماند، اما دوراس چه؟ بنظر می‌رسد دوراس هیچوقت مرد چینی را دوست نداشته و صرفا بخاطر وضعیت مالی او به رابطه با او تن داده است، چنانکه مادرش نیز پس از دریافت پول مرد شولنی از مدیر پانسیون می‌خواهد فرزندش را آزاد بگذارد. با این وجود دوراس بعد از جدایی از مرد چینی تصور می‌کند شاید مرد شولنی، این چینی سراپا عاشق را دوست داشته و درگیری خود رابطه مانع از درک چنینی احساسی شده باشد

سه
این اثر بیش از آنکه خاطره‌نویسی باشد، یک رمان نو محسوب می‌شود و از این رو روایت توالی زمانی مشخصی ندارد و وقایع بطور پراکنده در متن جا گرفته است. خواندن این اثر به مانند این است که گویی خواننده به تماشای رودی گل‌آلود نشسته است و وقایع دور و نزدیک زندگی دوراس را که در رودخانه شناور است می‌بیند. بدیهی‌ست که فهم دقیق و برقراری ارتباط با چنین اثری می‌تواند برای مخاطب دشوار باشد، اما فیلم اقتباسی‌ رمان عاشق به کارگردانی ژان ژاک آنو (1992) داستانی منسجم از دل این اثر بیرون کشیده و بدون تکلف، با وفاداری عمیق به متن، ماجرای این عشق را به تصویر می‌کشد. از این رو دیدن فیلم را برای درک هرچه بهتر این اثر توصیه می‌کنم

پی‌نوشت: قسمت‌هایی از کتاب، بخصوص جزئیات روابط دوراس و مرد چینی در نسخه‌ی فارسی سانسور شده (که نمی‌توان از مترجم خرده گرفت)، دیدن فیلم این کاستی‌های متن فارسی را کاملا جبران می‌کند