The Lover

I recently read a book called The Lover by Marguerite Duras. Released originally in French in 1984, this book is about a very young girl (presumably Duras, and not quite fictional) having an affair with a significantly older Chinese man. The book tackles sexual frustration, poverty, racism, and family relations, it just unfortunately doesn’t do any of them very well. The story is out of chronological order, which does not heighten its effect whatsoever, and while there are certainly a few nice dramatic scenes and the narrative voice is fully developed, the book is unnecessarily disorienting, which detracts from the piece. The narrator (or Duras) is trying to make sense of what happened, and I certainly hope she did, because I didn’t get much from it. QFS on this book before you even bother to pick it up.