The Lover Literature & Language Book Review Essay Paper

Student’s Name
Professor’ Name
Course
Date
Book Review of The Lover
Written by Marguerite Duras, and translated from French to English by Barbara Bray, The Lover is an epic love story. The book opens with Duras reminiscing about a childhood love that is still fresh in her mind several years later (Duras 1). As a child, she grew up in Saigon in the 1930s. She is an ardent and critical thinker, who writes what passes for a meditative autobiographical book. Duras’ novel can be described as erotic, beautiful, shocking, revealing, and disturbing. There are times when she describes their romance with the son of an affluent Chinese entrepreneur, graphically. The reader understands that she was absorbed by the love that she almost lost herself. Now that she is 70 years old, an older woman, she can only be nostalgic about her romantic youth (Duras 5). While the book is written in a romantic, eddying style, it reveals the complicated relationship between mothers and their daughters, addiction and mental illness, adult responsibility, and the point when children must separate from their parents.
Dura’s affair with her lover began she was a naпve schoolgirl aged only 15, while he was 12 years her senior. While the relationship forms a substantial part of the story, Duras also talks about her poverty-laden family and their eventual bitter separation. She was raised in Gia Dinh, a small town in Saigon. Her father was a teacher, whereas her mother was a headmistress (Duras 13). Years later, she lost her father to amoebic dysentery. Her mother remained in Saigon to raise her and two other siblings.
The book is set in colonial Saigon, an oppressive city, as seen from t...