erotic and disorienting in the best way aka marguerite duras

Depois de perceber que o livro retrata um tipo de psicose (conscientemente ou não por parte da autora), no feminino, portanto muito sensual e arrebatador, tudo faz sentido. Fascinante talento! Não à toa, o próprio Lacan lhe fez uma vénia!

what the hell was that ...

Marguerite Duras malaisante prend la tête à tout le monde avec son livre de merde

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die group read.

Reading this one for a group read. Why? I like torture? I don't know folks... yeah it's kinda dreamy and poetic, stream-of-consciousness writing... but it's boring. Does anything happen, I mean HAPPEN to these people? lol Ok... I'm going to finish it because I'm half-way through and it reads fast... but I'm yawning folks. Plus, I find I'm flipping back and forth trying to figure out who's saying what. Maybe something got lost in the translation, which is sadly so often true.

Well... I finished the book. I can't say it really was a book I had to read before I died. Wonder why they call it the "ravishing" of Lol Stein. Not much ravishing going on with all the clandestine sex going on. lol

such disparity in duras’s writing.

the past century erotica about orchestrating and experiencing an affair from the outside is fun.

though the Pride and Prejudice focus on relationships with women being hysterical and men simple adds to the fantasy, it’s grating. the whole thing is hysterical. like the crying and laughing in The North China Lover. duras uses that hysteria. it’s excessive here.

and there’s a Three Women exploration of identity.

while the narrative perspective switches have something to do with the identity theme, it’s unpleasant. especially when the third-person makes its way into dialogue.

lol is a good character. there’s appeal in the way being stuck manifests in her. that can be found in anything else duras has written. this is my least favorite of her novellas. of the six that i’ve read so far.

2 1/2 stars

No, it's not really one of the greatest novels ever written in any objective way, but I'm such a fan of the French nouveau roman I can't help but give this lovely little tome five stars. I loved everything about The Ravishing of Lol Stein--the mysterious narrator, the non-place and mix of cultural origins to the names of the fugitive characters, the convoluted story told almost entirely through impressions and emotions, the inner reality that trumps all sense of any outer objective realism, the inconclusive ending, the smell of the mellowing, cheap paper of a Grove Press hardcover from a 1980s remainder bin. I remember so vividly falling in love with the novels of Blanchot, Duras, Beckett, Sarraute, Philippe Sollers, and Robbe-Grillet in college, how they set me to writing with increased fervor searching to say what had never been said before in new, unthought forms of narrative. Reading this was like hearing an LP I never heard before from a band I loved back in the 1980s.

"Penso que, apesar de Marguerite Duras​ me fazer saber por sua própria boca que não sabe, em toda sua obra, de onde lhe veio Lol, e mesmo que eu pudesse vislumbrar, pelo que ela me diz, a frase posterior, a única vantagem que um psicanalista tem o direito de tirar de sua posição, sendo-lhe esta reconhecida como tal, é a de lembrar, com Freud, que em sua matéria o artista sempre o precede e, portanto, ele não tem que bancar o psicólogo quando o artista lhe desbrava o caminho.
Foi precisamente isso que reconheci no arrebatamento de Lol V. Stein, onde Marguerite Duras​ revela saber sem mim aquilo que ensino"
Homenagem a Marguerite Duras pelo arrebatamento de Lol V. Stein por Jacques Lacan​ em Outros Escritos

Có vẻ như đây là tác phẩm dễ chịu nhất của M. D mà tôi đã đọc. Nhưng mà, nói sao ta, vẫn cứ thấy thiếu thiếu gì đó để trở thành một tác phẩm lớn. Có vẻ như Le Monde hơi ưu ái M. D khi xếp "Nỗi đam mê của Lol. V. Stein" vào danh sách 100 cuốn sách hay nhất thế kỷ 20.

3,5.
J'ai l'impression que tout est clivant pour moi, chez Duras. Sa vie, ses idées, ses livres.
J'ai aimé l'approche des personnages, de ne pas tout en savoir, de les suivre comme ils sont. J'ai aimé l'écriture de la sensualité.
Mais je suis quand-même mitigée et j'en sors sans avoir vraiment adoré... Je relirai peut-être, pour voir plus tard.

Troublant.

I have long wanted to read Marguerite Duras. Now I have and it was difficult but I will read more. Something about her way of looking at and writing about how love, desire, and passion can send a female mind into utter breakdown is intriguing; both the fact of the breakdown and the description of it.

Lol Stein at 19 years old was jilted by her fiance for another woman during summer vacation. It happened at a ball, the biggest one of the season, just a couple months before the wedding date. She fell into a deep mental illness assumed by her family to be caused by the incident. Some years later Lol married another man, moved with him to a different town, had two children and appeared to be the perfect mother and wife, keeping a perfect home.

For some reason, they moved back to her childhood home and she began to recreate her tragedy by spying on her old best friend Tatiana from that summer when they were 19. She stalks Tatiana and one of her lovers in the guise of a voyeur but proceeds to draw that lover's attention to herself. At least that is what I managed to figure out with some help from an analysis of the novel I found on-line.

Reading this book was not unlike reading Clarice Lispector, it was similar to some novels I have read by William Faulkner in writing style, even reminded me a bit of Patricia Highsmith. I don't, I can't recommend this type of writing to anyone particularly. One does not read such writing necessarily for enjoyment.

I am writing this review on the eighth day of having a horrible bout of the flu. I was not sick when I read Lol Stein but while I have been sick I have felt something like she seemed to feel in the story. Divorced from my usual fairly competent self, unable to carry out the demands of daily life, but knowing that the "real me" is still there or will be back when I am better.

Marguerite Duras was born of French parents in Indochina (now Vietnam) in 1914. She was one of the most important literary figures of the 20th century in France, wrote 22 novels, as well as stories, plays and screenplays, essays and memoir during her 82 years of life.

If it is true that we read to know we are not alone (it is true for me), then Duras has proved herself to me as someone who can put into words how it is when a woman feels alone, can gather her in and say she is not. It is possible to carry what are socially unacceptable thoughts, emotions, and desires while still living the charade we call life. That fine line.