L’amour

I found Love the most difficult of Marguerite Duras’ novels I’ve read so far. I actually read it a second time, when I realized that I just didn’t get it. The second time, I read it very slowly and deliberately. It remained a difficult work but I did discover its beauty.

Three people on a beach. Two men, one woman. It’s the same beach as in all the other novels by Duras. T. Beach, S. Thala. With features that remind very strongly of Trouville-sur-Mer where Duras lived. The boardwalk, the hotel, the town on the hill behind the coast.

One man walks near the shore, in the distance. When he comes at the end, he turns back. Or sometimes he disappears. He is followed by gulls, sometimes. The other man is near the woman. She sits on the beach. He approaches her, seems interested in her romantically. She is evasive.

Sometimes it feels like they have done this before. That they came back to this place after having been away for a long time. Maybe one of the men was looking for the woman.

They meet each other, and they leave each other. Like the tide. During the day. Sometimes at night. They cry. They sleep.

It feels like the entire story takes place on a long straight stretch of sandy beach. Though it’s difficult to find a “story” in the novel. If anything, the lack of story in L’amour has greatly inspired and supported my own desire to have no story in Bientôt l’été.

There is no need for a story. We are dealing with emotions that we all know. But what we need is an opportunity to explore them, to see them in another light. To discover the indifference at the bottom of love, or the beauty of distance, the joy of unfulfilled desire and the poetry of psychological torment.

A dog dies on the beach. After a storm, we find dead seagulls. A man screams. A woman plays with the sand. Her eyes are closed. We want things. We know it. Yet we play. We play the game of human contact. We know that we can never get as close as we desire. So the distance of communication is comforting.

We always return. We are glad to see each other. Glad to have company on this incomprehensible piece of rock hurling itself through time and space. The sunset is beautiful.