![]() Of these impressions and images, it is the broad strokes of Vietnam that linger. Does not exist,” teases Duras, revealing only “enough to give a glimpse of it.” This characteristic style makes the work feel opaque: to read The Lover is to come away with impressions and images but an inability to summarise events or understand the narrative in its entirety. This places the reader in limbo, never allowing them to fully comprehend the tale being told: “The story of my life does not exist. Factually, much of the work’s content is incorrect and Duras’s treatment of her memories-her deliberate elision and emendation-means that she retains a certain autonomy over the text. It qualifies as neither fiction nor memoir, carving a space somewhere in between. The Lover is autobiographical, but not an autobiography. The way she revised her life was potent, too. There was something intoxicating about Duras’s prose: her raw, unvarnished approach to female sexuality, her depiction of nascent desire overpowering social strictures. When I first read The Lover aged eighteen, I was spellbound.
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