In 1984, the famous French female writer Duras's "Lover" came out and won the Goncourt Literary Prize. This is one of the most prestigious literary awards in France, similar to the Mao Dun Literature Prize in China, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in the United States, and the Booker Prize in the United Kingdom. "Lover" was quickly translated into China, and immediately attracted the attention of many Chinese writers, such as Wang Xiaobo, Li Er, Shi Tiesheng, Lin Bai, Chen Yan, Xia Shang and so on.
You know, the Chinese writers of the 80s were quite broad-minded and had very high appreciation, and the literary youth talked about world-class writers such as Franz Kafka, García Márquez, William Faulkner, and James Joyce every day. But Duras has become the object of study for many Chinese writers with the help of "Lover", a large-scale "love novel" that seems to be slightly popular.
Duras
When Wang Xiaobo talked about his teacher's inheritance, he mentioned Duras and "Lover" many times, and the praise was overflowing. He said: He also said: My view of the modern novel is fixed by "The Lover"; reading "The Lover", I know what kind of literal realm the novel can achieve. He even said: I want to offend Duras too.
Why did Duras's "Lover" get such praise from Wang Xiaobo? What legendary experience did Duras herself have that prompted her to write Lover? What is the connection between Wang Xiaobo's "Golden Age" and Duras's "Lover"? To understand these issues, see the breakdown below.
Duras was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1914 to French parents who worked as teachers in Vietnam. When Duras was 7 years old, his father Emir died prematurely, and his mother Mary struggled to raise three children in a foreign country. Marie favored her eldest son, Pierre, and was very cold to her younger sons Paul and Duras.
Pierre took advantage of his mother's favor and often robbed his younger siblings of their pocket money. Disobedience to his words is subject to intimidation and severe beatings. The eccentric Mary always protected her eldest son and let him do whatever he wanted. Duras was only close to his younger brother and had little affection for his eldest brother and mother.
Juvenile Duras
At the age of 15, Duras grew into a beautiful and loving girl. She attended a French secondary school in Saigon and boarded at a saigon public boarding school at night. Although Duras was good looking and had excellent grades, she was not welcomed by her classmates and teachers. Because she was the daughter of a poor elementary school teacher, her family conditions were much worse than those of her classmates.
The children of poor families are crowded among the children of rich families, and the situation is very difficult. Classmates had cars to pick them up after school, but Duras had to walk back to boarding school on his own. The students could wear different beautiful clothes every day, but Duras wore them around with those few old clothes. The students had many novel things to talk about, but Duras had never seen or played anything.
Duras lacked the love of her parents and the warmth of her family from an early age, and was ostracized by her peers during adolescence, which made her extremely sensitive and inferior. At the same time, she is extremely self-respecting and rebellious. At that time, Duras was just a 15-year-old girl, and these complex psychology gathered on her would make her do things that ordinary people could not understand.
One day toward the end of summer vacation, 15-year-old Duras took a ferry back to Saigon to school. On the majestic Mekong River, she watched the raging waters pouring into the sea in the distance. Just as she was admiring the magnificent scenery, suddenly a personable man trembled and handed a cigarette.
The classic scene of "Lover"
Duras was wearing a pair of high heels with gold stripes and a sleeveless tea-brown tunic with a nearly transparent collar. This kind of dress, obviously a mature woman's outfit, is not suitable for a 15-year-old girl at all. Not only that, duras also coated with incense powder and smeared thick lipstick on his mouth. I don't know what her mother thought, but she asked her daughter to dress like this.
After some conversation, Duras learned that the personable man, Named Li Yuntai, was 30 years old and from northern China. His father owned many properties in Saigon and was a rich man. Li Yuntai is a veritable rich second generation, owning a blue villa, a high-end car, and opium smoking money that can't be used up.
Duras and Li Yuntai looked at the magnificent scenery of the Mekong River and absent-mindedly engaged in small talk. After the ship docked, Li Yuntai offered to send Duras back to school in his own high-end car. Duras was only 15 years old at the time, but she also knew what it meant for a strange man to make such a request.
The image of Duras in Lover
In just a minute or two, Duras's brain was racing, thinking about many, many things. Finally, she promised Li Yuntai and got into his black car. Many years later, when Durasti wrote "Lover", he wrote with great sorrow: From now on, I will regret and regret all that I have done for the rest of my life.
Of course, the most obvious change was Duras's life at the time. Since that time on Li Yuntai's car, Duras has had a high-end car. She took a car to school every day and drove back to boarding school after school. In addition, Li Yuntai often takes luxury places to eat and give her expensive gifts. But the price was so high that Duras was about to lose his purity.
After some time, Lee Yun-tae attacked Duras, even though she was only 15 years old. In a slightly gloomy single room, Duras did not cry or make noise, and lost his purity forever. She is both extremely self-respecting and self-effacing. She said: I want you to treat me like you did to those women.
After that time, Duras suddenly felt older. Although she was only 15 years old at the time, she was still 15 years old. But she allowed herself to be spoiled, to be spoiled. After betraying her purity, she felt old, old.
Since then, Duras has often been with Li Yuntai, even skipping class. When the scandal reached Mary, Mary was furious. Mary locked Duras in the house, tore her clothes so hard that she beat her to the ground, and even that she was a "prostitute." The little brother Paul stood helplessly outside the door, crying and begging his mother not to hit his sister.
Inexplicably, Mary did not let her daughter and Li Yuntai cut off contact, and even accepted the valuable gift sent by Li Yuntai. The eldest brother Pierre encouraged Duras to continue to associate with Li Yuntai, so that he could also get benefits. The family's attitude in the face of this situation is such that it is not surprising that Duras will be deeply involved in this deformed love.
Although Li Yuntai is a idle playboy, he has extremely strong feelings for Duras. In order to please Duras's family, Li Yuntai invited them to dinner many times and gave them valuable gifts, even if they did not disperse happily each time. After Li Yuntai was humiliated by Duras's family, he often vented his anger on Duras. Duras had no good way but to cry silently in the night. For this relationship, she has no future at all.
Li Yuntai also can't see the future, and the main obstacle is not Duras's family, but his father. The couple, who could not see a future, spent more than a year together in a very strange way. They try to restrain their feelings and make everything a deal. Li Yuntai gave Duras money, and Duras was at his mercy.
After Li Yuntai's father learned of the scandal, he immediately asked Li Yuntai to immediately break off relations with the "little white prostitute". Otherwise, he would not be recognized as a son. For Li Yuntai, the threat is fatal because it means being stripped of inheritance rights. Li Yuntai was idle all day, only knew how to spend money and did not know how to earn money, and could not imagine how to live without money.
In response to his father's threat, Li Yuntai resisted extremely weakly. He knelt before his father, weeping about his love for Duras, and finally asked his father to let him spend some time with Duras. But Li Yuntai's father did not back down, demanding that Li Yuntai immediately sever ties with Duras and prepare to marry a Chinese girl who also came from a large family.
Li Yuntai felt a deep sense of despair. Only then did he realize what a useless man he was. Only then did he realize how much he loved Duras. Unfortunately, it was too late. That day, the desperate Li Yuntai treated Duras like a lover for the first time. The two hugged each other and cried bitterly, together in despair, desperate and bitter.
It all ended here, and it all became a distant past. Li Yuntai has since disappeared into Duras's life, becoming a vague lover from northern China, an increasingly distant memory. Before parting, Li Yuntai said to Duras emotionally: I can never get you again, and I will never have you again. The last thing he did was buy her a ticket back to France.
On the day of the farewell, Duras looked out over the riverbank on the boat to find Li Yuntai's figure. However, he never appeared in her sight, and he would not come to her side as before, trembling and giving her a cigarette. It wasn't until the boat moved slowly that she spotted the black sedan. Later, Duras wrote:
She knew that he was watching her. She was also watching him. She couldn't see him again. She watched as the black car sped away. Finally, the car was no longer visible. The port disappeared. Land also disappeared.
After Duras returned to France, he had no scruples about associating with boys, but every relationship could not last long. On the campus of the University of Paris, she is a striking beauty. But as the years passed, the man never appeared with her again. It all ended long ago in the summer of the year I was 17 years old.
Later, Duras got married, had children, divorced, fell in love again and again, and had one lover after another. How many, maybe even she can't remember. However, although she was always accompanied by people, she was always lonely. She moved the literary world with works such as The Case Against the Pacific and The Sound of the Piano, and moved the film industry with Hiroshima Love, but she never found what she wanted.
What she wants to find is an absolute love, a love that has nothing but love, a love that excludes everything but love. In the end, she could only say in despair: If I hadn't become a writer, I would have become a prostitute.
Duras is undoubtedly a very attractive woman, although in the eyes of ordinary people she may be a "crazy woman", there are always men who will love her. Even when she was in her 70s, when she was too old to look old, there were still young lads who loved her. Andrea, 27, pursues Duras with perseverance, even though she is 70 years old. They lived together for 16 years until Duras died. However, Duras still did not wait for the love he wanted.
When Duras is really old, she always misses Saigon when she was 15 years old, Mekong when she was 15 years old, her 15-year-old self and that person. The personable 30-year-old man from northern China. And Li Yuntai, for so many years, has actually not forgotten Duras.
After Li Yuntai separated from Duras, he soon became intimate with a rich lady. But he never forgot Duras. He followed his memory to visit Duras' mother. From Duras's mother, he heard a lot about Duras. He had come to Paris many times, but he did not dare to look for her.
It wasn't until more than half a century later, when he and she were growing too old, that he finally plucked up the courage to give her a call in Paris. He trembled and said to her:
I went to Saigon to see your mother, and I know you're writing, and I'm saddened by the early death of your little brother. I just want to hear your voice. I still love you. As in the past, I still love you. There's no way I can't not love you. I love you and will love you until I die.
Li Yuntai did not go to see Duras after all, although he had already inquired about everything about her. Li Yuntai left Paris after making the call, and once again completely disappeared into her life, just as she had done more than half a century ago. Durasvood cried again and again at the table, weeping for the love of half a century ago, weeping for himself half a century later, weeping for his life. Finally, she picked up a pen and wrote on the manuscript paper: I am old.
I'm old, what about when I'm old? Duras did not write exactly that Li Yuntai made a phone call to him, but imagined a moving picture - Li Yuntai came out in front of her and said to her affectionately:
I will always remember you. You were very young then, and everyone said you were beautiful. Now, I am here to tell you that for me you are more beautiful now than when you were younger, when you were a young woman, and I love your battered face even more than you did then.
This is the beginning of "Lover", which will soon move the world, a beginning that writes about the vicissitudes. The whole "Lover" is actually in this vicissitudes of the mood. This vicissitudes can arouse everyone's empathy, because everyone will grow old, will lose the beauty of the past, and will endure the devastation of time.
After the novel "Lover" came out, it stunned the entire French literary scene and amazed the whole world. The Chinese literary scene was also deeply shaken, setting off a Duras fever. Wang Xiaobo, Shi Tiesheng, Xia Shang, Li Er, Lin Bai, Chen Yan and other writers were highly respected by Duras and deeply influenced by her.
The most influential person affected by Duras's "Lover" is the famous writer Wang Xiaobo. In "My Teacher's Inheritance", Wang Xiaobo once lamented: Reading "Lover", I know what kind of text realm the novel can achieve. On many different sides, Wang Xiaobo repeatedly mentioned Duras and never spared words of praise. Wang Xiaobo even said bluntly: "Works like "Lover" make me deeply cold, and I always feel that such a good work should be written by me. Therefore, Wang Xiaobo was determined to write a good work that could "offend Duras".
It is worth noting that "Lover" can have such a great impact on Wang Xiaobo and other Chinese, and the translator Wang Daoqian is indispensable. Many people have translated Duras's "Lover", but only Wang Daoqian has completely restored the charm of the original work. Wang Xiaobo, who was deeply touched, once said: Duras's article is good, Mr. Wang's translation and translation are also very good, and the infinite vicissitudes are all in it.
There are many broken sentences and repeated words in "Lover", which are beautiful and mysterious, full of the poetry of the looping aria, which is simply heartbreaking. The language alone is immersive. Moreover, "Lover" also has a very moving storyline and a very profound ideological connotation.
Some people may be a little distressed when they first see "Lover" and don't know why Duras wrote it that way. But if you experience the mystery, you will be moved to be indescribable. People are constantly changing, literally changing. In the flow of time and space in nature, the heaviness and sadness of the vicissitudes spewed out. What is that? That's the real life, everyone's life!
On the surface, "Lover" only depicts a sad love story on a relatively large scale. But after experiencing the deep meaning, you will find that the connotation is very deep. A 15-year-old girl and a 30-year-old rich boy fall in love in a foreign country, and the gap between the two is not only the years? Duras tells the story from a desolate twilight perspective, extending this emotion as long as a lifetime, and extending those obstacles to an irresistible degree.
The two fall desperately in love in an absurd environment, trying to feel each other's presence, but in the end it is a void. The large-scale depictions between men and women, fused with the course of the whole story, became rhythmic. For this rhythm, Wang Xiaobo was particularly touched and applied it to the "Golden Age".
Comparing "Golden Age" and "Lover", it is not difficult to find the influence of Duras on Wang Xiaobo. Chen Qingyang in "Golden Age" establishes a great friendship with Wang Er in order to prove that he is not a "broken shoe", just as the pure Duras in "Lover" has become a rich lover, preferring to be misunderstood as a "prostitute" by others rather than admit that he loves each other. The two sides met, fell in love, separated, and reunited many years later, and the overall pattern of the story is the same.
Wang Er and Chen Qingyang, Duras and Li Yuntai, they were extremely confused about their existence. They all live in a conventional world, living according to the will of others and the rules of the world. Eventually, they all feel the truth through "sex" and rebel against the more absurd environment in an absurd way. But it is not destined to last, but it can only be a "golden age" that I will miss with my life.
Who has not had youth, and what person will not grow old? When life enters the twilight, what do the years leave you? In the golden age of your life, is there a person or something that has left you with a strong mark? "Lover" depicts absurd and even ugly men and women, but no one can deny that it projects the truth of life.
If you want to know more about "Lover", welcome to read the original book. It is highly recommended that Wang Daoqian's translation, which is recognized as the best translation, restores the charm of the original to the greatest extent. Just poke the link below to get Wang Daoqian's translation of "Lover", the genuine boutique is not abridged, and the price is very affordable.
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