The Malady of Death
Marguerite Duras
Jun 2015 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Ebook
64
Pages
About this ebook
“[An] erotic, existential mystery . . . part philosophical meditation, part fantasy” from the Prix Goncourt-winning author of The Lover (The Guardian).
A man hires a woman to spend several weeks with him by the sea. The woman is no one in particular, a “she,” a warm, moist body with a beating heart—the enigma of Other. Skilled in the mechanics of sex, he desires through her to penetrate a different mystery: he wants to learn to love. It isn’t a matter of will, she tells him. Still, he wants to try . . .
This beautifully wrought erotic novel is an extended haiku on the meaning of love, “perhaps a sudden lapse in the logic of the universe,” and its absence, “the malady of death.”
“The whole tragedy of the inability to love is in this work, thanks to Duras’ unparalleled art of reinventing the most familiar words, of weighing their meaning.”—Le Monde
“Deceptively simple and Racinian in its purity, condensed to the essential.”—Translation Review
Praise for Marguerite Duras’s international bestseller, The Lover
“Powerful, authentic, completely successful . . . perfect.”—The New York Times Book Review
“An exquisite jewel of a novel, as multifaceted as a diamond, as seamless and polished as a pearl.”—Boston Herald
“A vivid, lingering novel . . . a brilliant work of art.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
A man hires a woman to spend several weeks with him by the sea. The woman is no one in particular, a “she,” a warm, moist body with a beating heart—the enigma of Other. Skilled in the mechanics of sex, he desires through her to penetrate a different mystery: he wants to learn to love. It isn’t a matter of will, she tells him. Still, he wants to try . . .
This beautifully wrought erotic novel is an extended haiku on the meaning of love, “perhaps a sudden lapse in the logic of the universe,” and its absence, “the malady of death.”
“The whole tragedy of the inability to love is in this work, thanks to Duras’ unparalleled art of reinventing the most familiar words, of weighing their meaning.”—Le Monde
“Deceptively simple and Racinian in its purity, condensed to the essential.”—Translation Review
Praise for Marguerite Duras’s international bestseller, The Lover
“Powerful, authentic, completely successful . . . perfect.”—The New York Times Book Review
“An exquisite jewel of a novel, as multifaceted as a diamond, as seamless and polished as a pearl.”—Boston Herald
“A vivid, lingering novel . . . a brilliant work of art.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
About the author
Marguerite Duras was born in Gia-Dinh, Indochina on April 4, 1914. After attending school in Saigon, she moved to Paris, France to study law and political science. After graduation, she worked as a secretary in the French Ministry of the Colonies until 1941. During World War II, she joined the Resistance and published her first books. After the liberation, she became a member of the French Communist Party, and though she later resigned, she always described herself as a Marxist. Her first book, Les Impudents, was published in 1943. During her lifetime, she wrote more than 70 novels, plays, screenplays and adaptations. Her novels include The Sea Wall, The Lover, The Lover from Northern China, The War, and That's All. In 1959, she wrote her first film scenario, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, and has since been involved in a number of other films, including India Song, Baxter, Vera Baxter, Le Camion (The Truck), and The Lover. She died on March 4, 1996 at the age of 81.
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