Flaunting weakness.

There’s something self-indulgent about Duras’ work. She allows her characters to dwell on emotions, to wallow in a certain melancholia. But it feels like an wonderful luxury. And incredibly beautiful in its fragility. The characters flaunt their weakness as an insult, a challenge. And so their weakness becomes their strength, the ultimate weapon.

And that strength is very seductive. I used to roleplay Duras-style a bit in art school with a girl friend. She was very good at it. Using the polite form while expressing intimate feelings. Speaking of oneself in the third person. Saying things twice, first in third person, then in first. It was a lovely game.

It’s very easy to make fun of this writing style, to parody it. But since her subject matter is always love, the joke is always on the joker. Maybe love is perverse in Duras’ work, maybe it is selfish, maybe it hurts. But she has lived it and that puts her in a position where no mockery can affect her.