In “Nadine From Orange, ” Duras arrives at the theme she will become famous for, romantic relationships between adolescent girls and older men as found in The Lover. There are also recurring themes found in Duras’ s body of work that are less simple to assimilate. There seems be space enough in Duras’ s mind for all of these disparate topics and for them to connect in surprising ways. The entries are a wise and worldly sort of stream of consciousness, most ly beginning with observations about other vacationers or the weather and often ending with pronouncements on global politics, the most extended analysis being about Gdańsk, Poland and the labor solidarity movement there, which helped to bring about th at nation’s modern democracy. She was asked to write an entry every day, but in the end, apparently after much back - and - forth with her editor, she wr ote weekly observations from the seaside town of Trouville, in Normandy. The last piece in the collection is a longer multi-part essay made up of journal entries Duras was asked to complete in the summer of 1980 by the then editor of French newspaper Libération. And t hrough the meandering journey of these ess a y s it is always possible to identify with Duras’ s “I.” They make distant events, foreign ideas, and even repulsive thoughts belong to the reader herself. Baes and Ramadan capture the liberty and madness, the very breath of Duras’ s thought: moving seamlessly between ideas, the measured precise inhales and exhales of an opera singer. As I was reading, I was constantly impressed not only with the beauty of each phrase but with the detail and research that must have gone into translating this collection.
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These are not easy essays, but they are always a pleasure to read. It is not often that there is a text within a translated text that explains so well the work being done by that very translation. Doesn’t the convention of respected meaning in fact propagate backwards ideas that work against the liberty of a text, against its breath, or its madness? As if meaning could only be found in texts, and not in music.
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It’s a shame that when we talk about translation, we stop at its literal meaning. Is it possible to talk about a musical translation? We talk about musical interpretations. Succinct and beyond modern in its attitudes, “On Translation” puts forward the idea that translation is a genre of writing unto itself, and much more than the transfer of ideas between languages :Ī translated text has been translated by someone based on a first reading which is always just as personal as the writing, and which can never be erased. In a book that is largely about writing, however, a short essay about the art and craft of translation stood out for me. In Me & Other Writing, t here are pieces of varying length and depth collected, ranging from meditations on Duras’ s mother to essays on Flaubert, local new s, reading, writing, Yves Saint Laurent, and so much more. It is this duality in the “me” voice that makes these essays so endearing and easy to engage with.Īlthough more well known for her work as a novelist and playwright, Duras was also an author of nonfiction, with books such as Writing, The War: A Memoir and Practicalities. Her voice comes across as measured yet absolute, generous yet unrelenting. Duras writes this “me, ” this “I, ” this assured voice that lends an air of assurance to outspoken and controversial opinions.
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Even as she ages, even as she is struggles with alcoholism, Duras’ s sense of self in these pages as an active, never-resting being who must write persists. They span thirty years and have no clear connecting thread other than Duras’ s recurring exploration of her own enduring, fastidious writerly self and the themes that haunted her for her entire life. Many of the pieces collected here are appearing in English for the first time. Duras, on the other hand, comes across as a hyperactive, if not always systematic, writer throughout Me & Other Writing, a volume of her selected nonfiction works just out with the publishing project Dorothy, and translated by Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan with an introduction from Dan Gunn. In the first entry of the long, episodic essay Summer 8 0, Marguerite Duras asks: “ And what is this concept of summer anyway? ” A timely question for the arrival of a new collection of her writing - fond memories of summer with its heat and slowness and inactivity.