I've heard of Marguerite Duras before I read The New York Times article but was never really exposed to her works as a writer. My first impression of Marguerite Duras was "wow, she's definitely different from other writers I've read about." What intrigues me most is her multicultural life and her odd experience with love. I feel like her extraordinary experiences in life is what gives life to her writing. Many authors are inspired by the people they meet and different events which change their lives completely. In the article, The Lover is described as a "despairing, sensuous novel about an affair between a 15-year old French girl and a 27-year old Chinese man" and furthermore it's display "consuming infatuation and brutal shifts of powers.....echo[ing] many issues of modern colonialism". I can already sense that The Lover is no ordinary love story and it will display extremities of passion and conflicts between the two lovers, which ultimately reflects Duras's experience with love. What's more astonishing is that Duras regards The Lover as an autobiography. Since she's had personal experience with these issues, I can definitely expect a genuine love story that doesn't romanticize but shows the reality of what we call "love". Another part of Duras's life which I found intriguing was how she was inspired by a "pale beauty named Elizabeth Striedter." To Duras she was a woman that represented, "a dark, mythic feminine power" and that she became a writer because of her. She's also the only writer I know that delves into film and creates different media besides literature. After encountering brain damage, alcoholism. strange sexual relationships with her brother and other men, and also involving herself with Communism, she's the most diverse individual I've read about.
I anticipate that The Lover will be a unique romance novel with passions that meets no boundaries, with dark eroticism intertwined with death. Her obsession and madness with destruction and love will probably be the main themes in The Lover.
I agree with you in how Duras is definitely a very diverse and unique person, which means she has a story to tell so her book should be very interesting. I didn't really think about how The Lover was a biography before you said it in your blog post so I guess it will be really cool and a new feeling to read about such a strange and not-everyday love story and know it all happened in real life.
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