Reviews with content warning for Pedophilia - The Lover

— i would give this a 4 but after thinking it over i couldnt bring myself to do that and settled on a 3.75 LOL.. this book gets a bit hard to follow along as it continues and i found myself grazing over long paragraphs after losing interest. i do enjoy the collection of memories and switches between povs as the narrator reflects on snippets of her childhood, watching the young girl from her adult eyes and the eyes of the reader.

her relationship with her adult lover is strange. i feel for her with her relationship with him and her mother, how it felt like she clinged onto him because of her upbringing and societal belief that she as a young girl was nothing but a sexual object. you question whether it was love or merely just desire needing to be met—many things the lover did made me feel ill. its reminiscent of a lolita type relationship, but told from the pov of dolores.

the racism and whiteness is something i as a poc had trouble coming to terms with, but nonetheless it was a quick book i couldn't put down.

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james1star's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I admit I did build this book in my mind and expectations as one I was going to love. It’s about a doomed love with the longing that comes with it in the form of French auto-fiction but ummm… what was this?!? Hugely disappointing and honestly a very unpleasant read.

The book follows our narrator (basically a younger Duras) as she begins a love affair with an older Chinese man during her time in French Indochina (Vietnam) and how this develops. This is one part of the story where the relationship with her mother and strangely abusive (why?) older brother takes up more of the ‘The Lover’ then the actual lover parts (okay…) and we essentially learn who she is and her place in the family dynamic. There’s sort of more to the story but I don’t care for it.

The book is messy, there’s inconsistent time jumps and quite a lot of what’s being said just doesn’t make much sense - I felt like I had to go over passages time again to pinpoint what’s going on. The Chinese man is sometimes called by the mc and others as ‘a’ or ‘the’ Chinese which yes I get the time but if he’s someone you once loved or at least cared for wouldn’t you make the tiny effort to address him properly? No? Okay then. He’s also written/portrayed as weak and slightly cowardly in the way he won’t stand up to his father which is yeah great Asian representation in your book! This is bad but what I thought was just nope ewww dis-gus-tang was how later in the book Duras becomes this ‘child’ character and as I quote ‘He takes her as he would his own child. He’s take his own child the same way.’ (p. 107 of the harper perennial ed) which is just vile, like I cannot comprehend how or why her mind went there?!? It’s depraved and to want this to happen just nopeeeee.

The saving grace and why this book isn’t a 1 star is the writing is nice, I mean it’s French so this is somewhat the standard now. It’s lyrical and flows but the actual content is confusing and very frustrating at times. I do also appreciate the way it portrays the French-Viennese relations and also the way women were viewed and expected to do things.

On the whole, very underwhelming and it’s put me off reading more by her for a long time. Would most definitely not recommend this book.

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stellabyproxy's review against another edition

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dark reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

“We’re united in a fundamental shame at having to live.”

“I’ve never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door.”

“It’s while it’s being lived that life is immortal, while it’s still alive.”

“My memory of men is never lit up and illuminated like my memory of women.”

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empsea's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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cestarimm's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

i wouldn’t know how to rate this book. the writing is breathtaking and i love the way duras narrates her family dynamics. the least interesting thing about it is the older lover!

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odpeppiatt's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

"We said nothing about all this outside, one of the first things we'd learned was to keep quiet about the ruling principle of our life, poverty. And then about everything else. Our first confidants, though the word seems excessive, are our lovers, the people we meet away from our various homes, first in the streets of Saigon and then on ocean liners and trains, and then all over the place." (60)

"I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door." (25)

the reason for my high rating is primarily bc of the voice. it's really hard to be conversational and poignant at the same time, but duras really nailed it I thought. she did this really weird thing with punctuation, using it in this intentionally incorrect (unless punctuation was different in France? in the '80s? doubt it but maybe) way, really unique & unlike anything I've seen (not that I've really been out here "seeing it all"), that made you have to read it with a certain rhythm, probably the way she wanted it to sound. it intensifies the inner monologue, suggests that the narrator isn't as blasé as she presents herself. like this: "I looked at her to try to find out, find out who she was, Marie-Claude Carpenter. Why she was there rather than somewhere else, why she was from so far away too, from Boston, why she was rich, why no one knew anything about her, not anything, no one, why these seemingly compulsory parties. and why, why, in her eyes, deep down in the depths of sight, that particle of death? Marie-Claude Carpenter. Why did all her dresses have something indefinable in common that made them look as if they didn't quite belong to her....." (66) a lot of the sentences are fragments, things like that, just ~musical~ as they say. but it sounds good like that, it's more like how people talk, reminisce. this book would definitely sound really good read aloud. her experience as a screenwriter is obvious (in a good way).

I read this to ring in Valentine's Day (based solely on the title)....... needless to say it was very UNceremonious..... between this and Anaïs nin, I have digested more unstigmatized pedophilia than I ever wanted to in my life. I just needed more acknowledgement that it's fucked up. and I get that that's maybe the point and the reader's reaction is enough commentary and whatever Duchamp said about the spectators making the art and whatnot, but what if the reader doesn't react "correctly"? it goes back to the whole fucking licorice pizza debate (there were real-life people Ginj/OS/I talked to who didn't consider the age gap the whole time they were watching the movie--ginj and I still thought the you were supposed to feel weird, OS disagreed). but regardless, I needed my uncomfy-ness to be validated more because I have a hard time trusting my own opinions as it is (**not that I didn't trust my vindication of my opinion here)

my other qualm is just that I wanted to know more about pretty much all of the characters, especially the younger brother. I felt like she reflected on a lot of big life moments

like her father and both of her brothers dying

without actually disclosing the moments themselves.

ok that's all my takeaways I think......

**had to bring it down a quarter of a star bc I don't know that I really loved reading it, even though I appreciate it.........

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