Inkslinger On writing, on books, and on book arts

Character Sketch: Duras, The Lover

Marguerite Duras

In my editing work, I've been thinking a lot about character development, particularly of minor characters.  Vivid description brings to life the protagonist.  Vivid minor characters bring to life the world of the protagonist and the tensions that enliven it.  Baldwin knew this; so did Salinger.

In what little personal reading time I have these days, I return to my roots: Duras, Colette, Sagan, art histories about Cassat, Morisot, and Manet.  I know I've quoted The Lover before, but a few additional passages of the book continue to tease me.  If all you know of The Lover is the film, go to your nearest used bookstore and pick up a copy.  It's about the damage of war--the war within families, the war between nations, the war spawned of racism.  It's about the people who shrivel up in the face of the hunter, and those who confront it, trembling or stoic.  It's about the shame of poverty.  It's also an index of the themes, characters, and storylines that appear and reappear throughout Duras's oeuvre.  The Lover makes great bookends: read it before reading the oeuvre, then after.

Today, I have a simple quote to share: the opening paragraphs.  They describe the protagonist -- Duras herself.  Descriptions of main characters often constitute the most awkward passage of a book.  Maybe it's just me.  Do I need to know the color of hair or the color of eyes?  Not if I don't learn something more, the fleshiness of that being.  Such as in this:

One day, I was already old, in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me.  He introduced himself and said, "I've known you for years.  Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young, but I want to tell you I think you're more beautiful now than then.  Rather than your face as a young woman, I prefer your face as it is now.  Ravaged.

I often think of the image of the image only I can see now, and of which I've never spoken.  It's always there, in the same silence, amazing.  It's the only image of myself I like, the only one in which I recognize myself, in which I delight.

Very early in my life it was too late.  It was already too late when I was eighteen.  Between eighteen and twenty-five my face took off in a new direction.  I grew old at eighteen.  I don't know if it's the same for everyone, I've never asked.  But I believe I've heard of the way time can suddenly accelerate on people when they're going through even the most youthful and highly esteemed stages of life.  My ageing was very sudden.  I saw it spread over my features one by one, changing the relationship between them, making the eyes larger, the expression sadder, the mouth more final, leaving great creases in the forehead.  But instead of being dismayed I watched this process with the same sort of interest I might have taken in the reading of a book....