The Lover, Wartime Notebooks, Practicalities: Introduction by Rachel Kushner (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series)

She captured my attention within four pages and kept it for many more.

Book in excellent condition.

This volume is a perfect introduction to the work of Marguerite Duras. It contains The Lover (her best-known novel) and two of her nonfiction works: Wartime Notebooks (a series of autobiographical pieces and early versions of future work) and Practicalities (a series of brief pieces written near the end of her life).The Lover is one of my favorite books of all time, a masterpiece of spare prose. It's under 100 pages, so it's not exactly a huge time commitment.The Wartime Notebooks are a mixed bag. Some of the pieces feel fragmentary, but it's interesting to see the genesis of some of Duras' later works.Practicalities is an interesting set of short pieces that were dictated and then later edited by Duras. It's the sort of thing you can dip in and out of.The book is a very nice edition, with good quality paper and an attached ribbon bookmark.

Love that is forbidden -- the age gap is too large, the she is too young, and cultural diffculties separate, rendered with an atmospheric tone that is enchanting the frustrating and then enchanting again. Prepare yourself for some confusing chronological jumps. Duras really know what she's doing. My best advice: read it slowly!

I've had an old paperback of "The Lover" since the '80s; it's good to have this edition from Everyman's Library to replace it. Everyman's Library produces well-bound, well-designed books with fine paper and I have a number of them. They're the books I give when I give gifts. They're not too pricey given how well they're made. If you want a handsome book, one that you'll want to keep, this is the version to get.

Marguerite Duras deserves to be better known today. Perhaps this handsome new collection of her writings put forth by Everyman's Library will make that happen. It contains her most well known work, the novella 'The Lover' set in French Indochine about a young French girl's love affair with a wealthy Chinese man. It also contains her Wartime Notebooks, and Practicalities a series of personal essays.

I had never read any of Marguerite Duras' work, and I found myself enjoying her short novel, The Lover. It must have been quite daring for its time, a story of a very young woman (a girl really--she is only 16) and her lover. It is a very French novel, sophisticated and tart, but never sour. The Wartime Notebooks, mostly memories of her childhood as French Colonialism was coming to a close. It is a lively memoir scattered with fine details that may or may not be completely true, but which are certainly interesting. Less enjoyable but still interesting are the collection of essays called Practicalities, a group of short pieces that cover a number of memories and feelings about her life.The volume itself is beautifully made and quite luxurious, with creamy paper and a lovely bookmark ribbon. I did find the print rather faint and difficult to read, but that may be more my aging eyes than the printing itself. If you don't have perfect eyesight, you might find yourself squinting and pulling the pages close to your face.All in all, this is a lovely book of fiction and essays by a writer who lived like I always envisioned French women living during the wartime years.

There is something extremely vacuous yet disconcerting about this voyeuristic, self-obsessed novel/autobiography. I'm bored with the European notion that pain and ennui are interesting–and with novels that pose as if these emotions are the most relevant parts of life. I hunkered down and bored my way into the story, with its disconnected time lime and postmodernist angst (yawn) hoping I'd come across some gems that would reward my effort. Finally, I finished and got to the essay section and read that the author's main concern was with social injustice. I realized this was the source of her lack of creative focus. Rather than adopting a broad, expansive view of life, she was overwhelmed with her need for revenge against those she deemed socially unjust. That wounded, barely breathing ideology lacked the force to animate her prose. I suppose there might be a universe where doing the wrong thing will yield an inspiring result–but I doubt it–and am exhausted by authors and book that preach such nonsense.