This is one of Duras' most skeletal novels. It reads similar to a script and in fact later became a film, although Duras says she did not have the film in mind at first. Much of the text is conversation, not unusual for Duras, interspersed with text that amounts to stage directions. Four main characters, two women and two men, entwine in odd, mostly conversational ways at a hotel in an unnamed location surrounded by a forest. At the start there are the two men Stein and Max Thor, both guests of the hotel, who are vaguely drawn to each other. Max Thor is somewhat obsessed with another guest, Elisabeth Alione, a woman who is convalescing. The two men discuss Elisabeth, her identity and habits, and how to go about engaging with her. In time Max Thor's much younger wife Alissa shows up and the four of them begin to form an uneasy quartet, with Elisabeth at a loss regarding the others' intentions. The atmosphere is tinged with confusion, menace, and impending doom. It's almost as if the three are toying with Elisabeth, and yet there rarely seems to be anything calculating about their behavior. The suggestion of madness creeps in at times.

This edition includes an interview with Duras, chiefly about the film version, and in it she talks about the lack of primacy of one character over another, and 'a gliding from one character to another.' She believes the three characters—Thor, Stein, and Alissa—are in fact interchangeable. What comes out of the mouth of one could just as easily come from one of the others. This effect is palpable in the text. The highlight for me was the final lunchtime conversation after Elisabeth's husband Bernard arrives to pick her up. During their lunch together, Alissa, Stein, and Max Thor gently torment Bernard even more so than they have toyed with his wife. Here's a sample:

n  'What about you?' he asks. 'What do you teach?'
'History,' Max Thor says. 'History of the future.'
Silence. Bernard Alione gazes at Max Thor, motionless. His voice is unrecognizable now.
'Is it very different?' he asks.
'There's nothing left,' Max Thor says. 'So I don't say anything. The students go to sleep.'
Silence. Suddenly there are gentle sobs from Elisabeth Alione.
'Are there still children?' she asks.
'Only children,' Max Thor says.
She smiles through her tears. He takes her hand.
'Oh,' she says. 'Wonderful.'n

For those new to Duras, this is probably not a good place to start, as it exhibits her 'style' at its most extreme. And I include quotes around style because she says in the interview that she was striving to free the reader from the interference of style. Having read and enjoyed many of her novels now, though, I found this to be among her best work, showcasing much of what I have come to admire in her books.

“Bende sizi büyüleyen ve altüst eden bir şey vardı .. doğasını anlayamadığımız bir şey.”

There are three characters who réside in a hôtel, or is it an asylum? The relationship of two men to a woman poses the question of whether they are both lovers of the woman, or whether one of the men is a spokesman or voyeur of the émotions or sentiment of the other man. At times, it is difficult to understand which of the men is engaging in dialogue. The narration relies on dialogue to reveal the plot of the story which modes very slowly over the same visual scènes. There is the dining hall and the woods where the characters meet and slowly reveal details of their intimacy, or is it proposed intimacy. At the end of her stay, the husband of the woman arrives to take her home. The men imply that they wish that the woman stay. She leaves, yet one sensés that nothing at all has changed by her depature. Once there were three character now two that remain in the hôtel, or is it an asylum? Existentiel dilemme, maybe?

No one ever leaves the room

کتاب «گفتا که خراب اولی» داستان چهار شخصیته که داخل مهمانسرایی هستن، جایی شبیه به بیمارستان روانی یا شاید برزخ، یک ناکجا‌آباد. کتاب خط داستانی‌ای نداره که بخوام درموردش حرف بزنم ولی جنونی داره که دلچسبه. دیالوگ‌ها سر و تهی نداره، بی ارتباط با دیالوگ شخصیت قبل ولی با توجه به تمام این چیزها مخاطب رو همراه می‌کنه.

پایان برام جالب نبود، یه احساس ناتمومی داشتم به کتاب. تا آخر این سوال ذهنم رو اذیت کرد که شخصیت‌ها یکی بودن یا چهار شخصیت مجزا یا حتی دوتا. شاید باید به ذهنم اجازه میدادم بدون در نظر گرفتن قوانین معمول، بیشتر با این جنون همراه بشه.

در مجموع کتاب خوبی بود ولی اگر چیزی از دوراس نخوندید شاید «عاشق» انتخاب بهتری باشه.

İyi bir tiyatro oyunu taslağı kıvamında gibi gibi..
Şiirsel bir havası var..
Başka da bir şey söylenmiyor kitap hakkında..

Je suis pas entrée dedans mais g bien aimé le lire….tres envie de voir l’adaptation par contre pr éclaircir un peu tt ça

التدمير هو العنوان الذي تم اختياره ليجمع نصين لمارغريت دوراس؛ الأول والذي بعنوان الرجل الجالس في الرواق والثاني التدمير

الرجل الجالس في الرواق نص طويل عبارة عن مشاهدة يرويها لنا راءٍ لرجل وامرأة في اقترابهما من بعض في تمازجهما في مشهد جنسي هو الأفضل فيما قرأت في إباحيته وصراحته وغوصه الحقيقي في اللذة التي يحاول أن يصل إليها المشاهَدان؛
--
أراه

يتركها تفعل ذلك، ويشاهد معها مجددا. يشاهدها تفعل ذلك، ويستجيب لرغبتها بقدر ما أمكنه. يمد إلى تلك المتعطّشة ذاك الرجُلَ الذي يكونه هو. ففي شَعر المرأة أصبح ذلك يخفق الآن متناغما دائما في إيقاعه مع دقات القلب.

يصرخ بعذوبةٍ أنّةَ سعادةٍ لا تحتمَل.

تمر السماء في مستطيل الباب المفتوح. تتقدم بأسرها، كأنها في انسجام مع سرعة الأرض في حركتها البطيئة. وكتل الغيوم بتخطيط ثابت، تُسيّرُ باتجاه المدى الرحب.

--

النص الثاني عبارة عن رواية قصيرة

فكما وصفت دوراس ولغتها بـ " عبارات باردة كالصقيع عن نساء مطعونات غاضبات، لغة أمكنة وأخرى للمأساة، هيروشيما أو كالكوتا، لكن لم يصل بها الحال إلى هناك.
دوراس امرأة من القرن العشرين، رابطة الجأش، متماسكة ". كل ذلك يتحقق في هذه الرواية المربكة للقارئ ارتباك شخوصها ذاتهم الغالب عليها جو وتكرارا للـ الصمت صمت صمت ... كلمة تتكرر على مدار الرواية بشعور مصاحب لها أشبه بعملية تدمير نجحت دوراس فيه بتدمير القارئ، تدمير الكتابة، تدمير الشخصيات والحدث، ومع هذا أستمر في القراءة وأستمر إلى أن أنتهي وأقول دوراس المربكة العصيّة على الفهم مرة أخرى تستحق القراءة / إعادة القراءة

من الرواية؛

تمسك أليسا شعر إليزابيت بيديها، وتميل لها رأسها كي يصبح وجهاهما متقابلين.

تقول أليسا: نحن نتشابه كثيرا ...، كم هذا غريب

- أنت أصغر مني سنا ... وأذكى مني أيضا
- لست كذلك في هذه اللحظة.

تنظر أليسا في المرآة إلى جسد إليزابيت الذي تكسوه الثياب.

- أحبك وأرغب بك.

لا تتحرك إليزابيت أليون. تغمض عينيها.

تتمتم: أنت مجنونة.
- هذا مؤسف.

تبتعد إليزابيت فجأة، أما أليسا فتذهب إلى جانب النوافذ.

«الیزابت الیون به زمانی طولانی نیاز دارد تا مردی را که درون او هنوز زنده‌ست فراموش کند.»
نوشتن دربارهٔ این کتاب مثل گریه کردن می‌مونه و «می‌خواهد گریه‌ام بگرید، اما غمگین‌تر از آنم.»

A couple years ago I was living in a basement suite, a bachelor pad, a single room with a half wall that divided the kitchen from the living and sleeping room and then a full wall that separated the kitchen from the bathroom, which was given the dignity of having its own door. It was a good place to live, despite its size and the lack of light, and in spite of the settling airs which held back escaping smells of the kitchen. I avoided making curries. In the kitchen were my four bookshelves, full and beautiful, displaying a wealth of adventures. I read a lot; I should have read more.

It was in that space, on an old chair, the only one I had, that I discovered Marguerite Duras in The Lover. I think most people come to Duras through The Lover. I wrote a review of that book which, if you are interested, you can read here . I liked it without being astonished by it; I thought it had a good deal more to say, I thought I needed to read it again when I had a bit more maturity. I wonder if now I have a bit more maturity. After all, here I am, no longer living alone but instead loafing around in my parents’ house, in my old bedroom, looking for jobs in another city, hoping the right thing will pop up so that I can go and not be here. Surely I have matured. But I ask about my impending maturity as it develops because this book, Destroy, She Said, has made it clear to me that Duras knows what she is doing, and is far better at it, far more intricate, far more precise, than I appreciated back then in that chair hidden away from the sun.

Now I do not think that I know what Destroy, She Said is about. I might even understand it less after having read the collection of interview shambles that were included at the back of the novella. But I think I have a sense of something that it was, something that it was trying to be, something that it succeeded at with all of its slight pages and broken, incomplete, beautiful sentences. And, I think I have a sense that it, like The Lover, is worthy of a second or third or fourth reading; maybe one or two or three more which should be afforded to it soon. I know, after putting it down, I thought immediately of picking it up again for another whirlwind tour of its form and relationships and its soul.

What impressed me most about this book is perhaps the thing I tried to share in an instagram post I wrote about it earlier this week. This novella, which Duras was bold enough to call a novel, is not really a novel, and is perhaps closer to a book of poetry in many of its ways, but then is actually more like a piece of theater, at times looking and feeling and reading like it in your head, and then it transfers into the precise benign imagery of great mid-century film-making, black and white and grey-scaled, before the broken sentence structure and jilted and direct dialogue and fragmentary thinking reminds, once again, of poetry - which is to say that it fills you with all sorts of questions that you can’t form into a shape. It is something special.

At the end of the book are two pages of theater notes. Tonight I left my parents’ house, used my dad’s car and everything, to go downtown and see a musical that an acquaintance had invited me to. He was in it. I don’t know him well, but I think he likes reading. I know I mentioned this book to him, said he might be into it given his background in theater and all that, and he told me that he had a copy of The Lover on his shelf. I wanted to give it to him. Before the musical I was planning to say something like “if you don’t love this book after reading it then I want it back. But if it is going to help you make something beautiful and meaningful and something that captures the spirit of this book, then I want you to keep it.” But after seeing the musical, this silly romp about breaking up with boyfriends and using all sorts of famous music from the 60s and 70s to help the women navigate the breakup, I doubted that it was the book for him. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t judge an actor for the work that he takes on to keep food on his table. But I carried my copy with me to the show, excited to share it and bond a bit more over art, and afterwards I hid it under my scarf while waiting for him and then chatting with him in the lobby. He is a nice chap, and it may be that after talking to him a bit more I will decide to send it his way for a while, maybe forever, for the sake of art and its progression, but I couldn’t give it to him in full confidence. That is a confidence I feel I need; this is something special, and I want it to be admired by the hands that hold it.

Destroy, She Said is a marvellous book. I’m glad it has brought me back to Duras with a profound respect. Recommended for all sorts of mysterious reasons that I can’t explain.

Time

The days go by, but people are always somewhere else.

Eroticism

Her lovers trades places. They're married but just met. They met here but already knew each other.

Place

Only one escapes. One enters, or was she already there?

Violence

Tearing her mind to pieces. Making her passive.

Madness

"You're insane."
"You didn't tell me Alissa was insane."
"I didn't know."

Passivity. Action. Reaction. Cinema. Montage. Editing. Bourgeoisie. Intellectualism. Fusion.

Three people become one, but also reliant on each other. Parasites.

I am borrowing this from Dodie. There is no interview in the one I'm borrowing - no wait there is but it's all about the movie, no insight into this frustrating, gendered, ultra-French little roman. I pulled it off the shelf at her house and got engrossed, although usually I can't stand Duras. Yeah - I was engrossed, and then just grossed. No not grossed, bored and frustrated. It's like an illustration of "Vive la difference".