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Destruir, diz ela
“Destruir, diz ela” (1969), de Marguerite Duras, gira em torno de um pequeno grupo de personagens reunidos em um hotel isolado, perto de uma floresta, onde suas interações são carregadas de tensão, desejo e destruição simbólica. A narrativa acompanha Élisabeth Alione, uma mulher emocionalmente perturbada que se envolve em uma dinâmica intensa e enigmática com Max Thor, um professor de história, sua companheira, Alissa, e Stein, um judeu misterioso. A estadia de Élisabeth e suas interações com os outros desencadeiam um jogo psicológico em que os diálogos fragmentados e a atmosfera opressiva exploram a alienação, o desejo e a ideia de destruição — não apenas física, mas também das estruturas sociais, do pensamento e das identidades fixas.
Como em outras obras de Duras, há uma recusa em oferecer uma narrativa tradicional com progressão linear, privilegiando em vez disso a experiência sensorial e emocional dos personagens. O romance transita por temas recorrentes na obra da autora, como o feminino, a loucura e a dissolução da linguagem. O livro foi adaptado para o cinema pela própria Duras em 1969.
_______________________________________________
“Publicado em 1969, Destruir, diz ela marca um ponto de inflexão em uma década crucial na produção literária de Marguerite Duras, articulando o início de uma nova fase, na qual ela se dedicará primordialmente ao cinema. Com o predomínio da visualidade, do olhar objetivo, a escrita desse romance já é cinema, e lembra nesse aspecto as melhores realizações do Novo Romance Francês. No entanto, é o esvaziamento das cadeias lógicas, que abole os vínculos causais entre os momentos e não deixa que uma narrativa se constitua, que inscreve esse livro em um projeto poético e político ainda mais ousado. Duras escreve “destruir” como expressão de um desejo radical: através da experiência mesma da escrita – e posteriormente da criação audiovisual –, passar a zero a humanidade e esboçar, a partir dos escombros, um reinício.”
Maurício Ayer, no prefácio à obra
Como em outras obras de Duras, há uma recusa em oferecer uma narrativa tradicional com progressão linear, privilegiando em vez disso a experiência sensorial e emocional dos personagens. O romance transita por temas recorrentes na obra da autora, como o feminino, a loucura e a dissolução da linguagem. O livro foi adaptado para o cinema pela própria Duras em 1969.
_______________________________________________
“Publicado em 1969, Destruir, diz ela marca um ponto de inflexão em uma década crucial na produção literária de Marguerite Duras, articulando o início de uma nova fase, na qual ela se dedicará primordialmente ao cinema. Com o predomínio da visualidade, do olhar objetivo, a escrita desse romance já é cinema, e lembra nesse aspecto as melhores realizações do Novo Romance Francês. No entanto, é o esvaziamento das cadeias lógicas, que abole os vínculos causais entre os momentos e não deixa que uma narrativa se constitua, que inscreve esse livro em um projeto poético e político ainda mais ousado. Duras escreve “destruir” como expressão de um desejo radical: através da experiência mesma da escrita – e posteriormente da criação audiovisual –, passar a zero a humanidade e esboçar, a partir dos escombros, um reinício.”
Maurício Ayer, no prefácio à obra
132 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
52 people are currently reading
2126 people want to read
About the author
Marguerite Duras
396 books3,285 followersMarguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu , known as Marguerite Duras, was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews
October 26, 2023
Everyone knows Duras for 'The Lover', but she wrote many other novels, which may come as a surprize to some. I've read quite a few now, and Destroy, She Said would probably be up there hovering around my top five. It's a short work, that benefited reading in one sitting, and I have since read it again. It was also a movie, and Duras's fictions have, of course, been filmed before, From the likes of Alain Resnais to Jules Dassin, but this was her first movie wholly her own, and she has come up with some surprises. Although Destroy, She Said avoids most of the vulgar conventional ties to place and character, and although it says very little once that it does not also say twice, it gives the impression finally of precision, eloquence and considerable wit. Three of the four main characters - Alissa, Max, and Stein are confident people, that is, in their chilling madness, and so begins a destructive game set in a rural hotel, which sees Elisabeth Alione, a vulnerable woman who is convalescing after giving birth to a stillborn child, being targeted for mental onslaught. This had a cinematic quality to it, that was like a mix of Hitchcock, Alain Robbe-Grillet and Resnais. It may have felt easy to read the first time around, but more complexities showed up the second time, giving it greater depth. It's a clever work, that won't please those wanting something warm and comforting, as it's deceptively cold.
April 7, 2014
Floating in ambiguity, three guests at a hotel that may be a sanitarium that may be some kind of waiting area just outside the next world that may be the most unremarkable of vacation spots -- three guests become obsessed with a fourth, and attempt to draw her into their company/game/world/madness, under the sound of unseen tennis courts. Just beyond, the woods, always the woods, a lure, a threat, a veil, a plot unfulfilled but tantalizing. Duras is at great pains here to create, despite her very specific sense of urgency, as open and destabilized a narrative as she can. Without directly contradicting herself, she constantly inclines her characters away from obvious resolution: of the four, it's the only one that we actually know to be convalescing who seems least trapped by the place, who retains the most connection to the outside world, and the least to the others. On the other hand, it's the only character that we actually get to see arrive from the outside, not a patient or guest, that is referred to by the others as insane. And like sleep-walkers, they spiral around and around eachother, under the sun and sound of the tennis courts, on the edge of the wood that none quite seem able to enter or pass through.
There's also a film, Duras' own directorial debut, that echoes and subtly modifies the original. They're very true to eachother though, reflected images. They both feel, to me, like this:
(It's a poster I drew for a a screening at the Spectacle this month, April 2014. Check it out if you're in New York, it plays twice more.)
There's also a film, Duras' own directorial debut, that echoes and subtly modifies the original. They're very true to eachother though, reflected images. They both feel, to me, like this:
(It's a poster I drew for a a screening at the Spectacle this month, April 2014. Check it out if you're in New York, it plays twice more.)
December 7, 2020
Duras ile tanışmamız şimşekler çaktırmamıştı. Ama güvendiğim isimlerin referansına sahip olduğundan yakın zamanda tekrar şans vermeden duramadım. Tek oturuşta bitirdiğim bu tiyatro metninin kapağını kapadığımda ilk izlenimim şuydu: Yahu ben az önce ne okudum?
Kitapta kadraja asla girmeyen bir tenis oyununun sesleri altında inanılmaz bir tekinsizlik hüküm sürüyor. Huzurlu tasvir edilen ama metnin içinde hiç öyle hissettirmeyen büyük bir park ve ardında da orman var; ve bu durum ortaya efsunlu bir ortam çıkarıyor. Karakterlerin söylediği (ya da zannettiği) gibi bir inziva otelinde miyiz; bir akıl hastanesinde miyiz yoksa Araf’ta mıyız? Bilmiyoruz ve bu gergin durum kitap demlendikçe okuru müthiş etkiliyor.
*
Gerisini spoiler vermeden yazamam ama üstüne daha konuşmayı çok isterim.
*
4,5/5
Kitapta kadraja asla girmeyen bir tenis oyununun sesleri altında inanılmaz bir tekinsizlik hüküm sürüyor. Huzurlu tasvir edilen ama metnin içinde hiç öyle hissettirmeyen büyük bir park ve ardında da orman var; ve bu durum ortaya efsunlu bir ortam çıkarıyor. Karakterlerin söylediği (ya da zannettiği) gibi bir inziva otelinde miyiz; bir akıl hastanesinde miyiz yoksa Araf’ta mıyız? Bilmiyoruz ve bu gergin durum kitap demlendikçe okuru müthiş etkiliyor.
*
Gerisini spoiler vermeden yazamam ama üstüne daha konuşmayı çok isterim.
*
4,5/5
January 21, 2023
When the Twin Towers came down, I was in Paris. I watched, as most did, events on TV. Then, in the street, a man I didn't know spoke to me. He thought I looked distressed. We went to a cafe. For several years, he called me. Always on the anniversary. Is it French? Or is it me? This book will make you ask the same things.
Perplexing. Enticing. Teasing. Here's how it starts. (The spacing is odd. GR removed the gaps in the original. Think computer gone rogue not poem when you read.)
"An overcast sky. The bay windows shut.
From where he is to
the dining room he can't see outside.
But she can. She is looking out. Her table touches
the windowsill.
The light makes her screw up her eyes. They move
to and fro. Some of the other guests are watching the
tennis matches too. But he can't see
He hasn't asked to be moved to another table,
though.
She doesn't know she is being watched."
Something sinister is afoot. What it is you decide. Duras, it seems, is just watching from the sides like someone at a tennis match.
3.5
Perplexing. Enticing. Teasing. Here's how it starts. (The spacing is odd. GR removed the gaps in the original. Think computer gone rogue not poem when you read.)
"An overcast sky. The bay windows shut.
From where he is to
the dining room he can't see outside.
But she can. She is looking out. Her table touches
the windowsill.
The light makes her screw up her eyes. They move
to and fro. Some of the other guests are watching the
tennis matches too. But he can't see
He hasn't asked to be moved to another table,
though.
She doesn't know she is being watched."
Something sinister is afoot. What it is you decide. Duras, it seems, is just watching from the sides like someone at a tennis match.
3.5
August 12, 2021
3,5*
- Que é que fazes durante o dia? Durante a noite?
- Nada.
- Não lês?
- Não. Finjo.
- Onde vais nesse livro?
- Nos preâmbulos sem fim.
No final de “Destruir, Diz Ela”, encontramos as indicações cénicas para esta obra, o que faz sentido, porque tudo nesta obra cheira a encenação, desde as personagens que pouco têm de natural nas suas falas e ações, até às situações que, às vezes, raiam o absurdo.
O cenário construído por Marguerite Duras é uma espécie de sanatório a que três das quatro personagens parecem ter ido parar por acaso. Só Elisabeth Alione, alvo da curiosidade dos outros, constantemente observada por eles, está ali com um propósito claro, o de se restabelecer por ter dado à luz um nado-morto e por algo mais, como depois vem a saber-se.
- Aqui ninguém fala com os outros.
- E você? Tinha-me falado se eu não o tivesse feito?
- Não - Elisabeth sorri – sou tímida. Além disso não me aborreço, tomo demasiados medicamentos para me aborrecer...
Stein, um judeu errante, Max Thor, professor de “História do futuro” e a sua jovem namorada, Alissa, aquela que é claramente apontada como louca, parecem um bando de feras disfarçadas à procura de uma presa fácil.
- Vocês interessam-se mesmo muito por ela – exclama Bernardo Alione.
- É verdade.
- Pode-se saber porquê? - a voz readquiriu força.
- Por razões literárias – responde Stein.
Stein ri. Alissa olha-o rir deslumbrada.
- A minha mulher é uma personagem de romance? – pergunta Bernard Alione.
É uma obra opaca a maior parte do tempo, com personagens obscuras cujas intenções também não são claras, a não ser talvez a de se destruírem umas às outras mas de um modo quase impercetível, através da sedução, de insinuações e de sub-reptícios actos de agressão psicológica.
- Que é que fazes durante o dia? Durante a noite?
- Nada.
- Não lês?
- Não. Finjo.
- Onde vais nesse livro?
- Nos preâmbulos sem fim.
No final de “Destruir, Diz Ela”, encontramos as indicações cénicas para esta obra, o que faz sentido, porque tudo nesta obra cheira a encenação, desde as personagens que pouco têm de natural nas suas falas e ações, até às situações que, às vezes, raiam o absurdo.
O cenário construído por Marguerite Duras é uma espécie de sanatório a que três das quatro personagens parecem ter ido parar por acaso. Só Elisabeth Alione, alvo da curiosidade dos outros, constantemente observada por eles, está ali com um propósito claro, o de se restabelecer por ter dado à luz um nado-morto e por algo mais, como depois vem a saber-se.
- Aqui ninguém fala com os outros.
- E você? Tinha-me falado se eu não o tivesse feito?
- Não - Elisabeth sorri – sou tímida. Além disso não me aborreço, tomo demasiados medicamentos para me aborrecer...
Stein, um judeu errante, Max Thor, professor de “História do futuro” e a sua jovem namorada, Alissa, aquela que é claramente apontada como louca, parecem um bando de feras disfarçadas à procura de uma presa fácil.
- Vocês interessam-se mesmo muito por ela – exclama Bernardo Alione.
- É verdade.
- Pode-se saber porquê? - a voz readquiriu força.
- Por razões literárias – responde Stein.
Stein ri. Alissa olha-o rir deslumbrada.
- A minha mulher é uma personagem de romance? – pergunta Bernard Alione.
É uma obra opaca a maior parte do tempo, com personagens obscuras cujas intenções também não são claras, a não ser talvez a de se destruírem umas às outras mas de um modo quase impercetível, através da sedução, de insinuações e de sub-reptícios actos de agressão psicológica.
October 11, 2017
A couple years ago I was living in a basement suite, a bachelor pad, a single room with a half wall that divided the kitchen from the living and sleeping room and then a full wall that separated the kitchen from the bathroom, which was given the dignity of having its own door. It was a good place to live, despite its size and the lack of light, and in spite of the settling airs which held back escaping smells of the kitchen. I avoided making curries. In the kitchen were my four bookshelves, full and beautiful, displaying a wealth of adventures. I read a lot; I should have read more.
It was in that space, on an old chair, the only one I had, that I discovered Marguerite Duras in The Lover. I think most people come to Duras through The Lover. I wrote a review of that book which, if you are interested, you can read here . I liked it without being astonished by it; I thought it had a good deal more to say, I thought I needed to read it again when I had a bit more maturity. I wonder if now I have a bit more maturity. After all, here I am, no longer living alone but instead loafing around in my parents’ house, in my old bedroom, looking for jobs in another city, hoping the right thing will pop up so that I can go and not be here. Surely I have matured. But I ask about my impending maturity as it develops because this book, Destroy, She Said, has made it clear to me that Duras knows what she is doing, and is far better at it, far more intricate, far more precise, than I appreciated back then in that chair hidden away from the sun.
Now I do not think that I know what Destroy, She Said is about. I might even understand it less after having read the collection of interview shambles that were included at the back of the novella. But I think I have a sense of something that it was, something that it was trying to be, something that it succeeded at with all of its slight pages and broken, incomplete, beautiful sentences. And, I think I have a sense that it, like The Lover, is worthy of a second or third or fourth reading; maybe one or two or three more which should be afforded to it soon. I know, after putting it down, I thought immediately of picking it up again for another whirlwind tour of its form and relationships and its soul.
What impressed me most about this book is perhaps the thing I tried to share in an instagram post I wrote about it earlier this week. This novella, which Duras was bold enough to call a novel, is not really a novel, and is perhaps closer to a book of poetry in many of its ways, but then is actually more like a piece of theater, at times looking and feeling and reading like it in your head, and then it transfers into the precise benign imagery of great mid-century film-making, black and white and grey-scaled, before the broken sentence structure and jilted and direct dialogue and fragmentary thinking reminds, once again, of poetry - which is to say that it fills you with all sorts of questions that you can’t form into a shape. It is something special.
At the end of the book are two pages of theater notes. Tonight I left my parents’ house, used my dad’s car and everything, to go downtown and see a musical that an acquaintance had invited me to. He was in it. I don’t know him well, but I think he likes reading. I know I mentioned this book to him, said he might be into it given his background in theater and all that, and he told me that he had a copy of The Lover on his shelf. I wanted to give it to him. Before the musical I was planning to say something like “if you don’t love this book after reading it then I want it back. But if it is going to help you make something beautiful and meaningful and something that captures the spirit of this book, then I want you to keep it.” But after seeing the musical, this silly romp about breaking up with boyfriends and using all sorts of famous music from the 60s and 70s to help the women navigate the breakup, I doubted that it was the book for him. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t judge an actor for the work that he takes on to keep food on his table. But I carried my copy with me to the show, excited to share it and bond a bit more over art, and afterwards I hid it under my scarf while waiting for him and then chatting with him in the lobby. He is a nice chap, and it may be that after talking to him a bit more I will decide to send it his way for a while, maybe forever, for the sake of art and its progression, but I couldn’t give it to him in full confidence. That is a confidence I feel I need; this is something special, and I want it to be admired by the hands that hold it.
Destroy, She Said is a marvellous book. I’m glad it has brought me back to Duras with a profound respect. Recommended for all sorts of mysterious reasons that I can’t explain.
It was in that space, on an old chair, the only one I had, that I discovered Marguerite Duras in The Lover. I think most people come to Duras through The Lover. I wrote a review of that book which, if you are interested, you can read here . I liked it without being astonished by it; I thought it had a good deal more to say, I thought I needed to read it again when I had a bit more maturity. I wonder if now I have a bit more maturity. After all, here I am, no longer living alone but instead loafing around in my parents’ house, in my old bedroom, looking for jobs in another city, hoping the right thing will pop up so that I can go and not be here. Surely I have matured. But I ask about my impending maturity as it develops because this book, Destroy, She Said, has made it clear to me that Duras knows what she is doing, and is far better at it, far more intricate, far more precise, than I appreciated back then in that chair hidden away from the sun.
Now I do not think that I know what Destroy, She Said is about. I might even understand it less after having read the collection of interview shambles that were included at the back of the novella. But I think I have a sense of something that it was, something that it was trying to be, something that it succeeded at with all of its slight pages and broken, incomplete, beautiful sentences. And, I think I have a sense that it, like The Lover, is worthy of a second or third or fourth reading; maybe one or two or three more which should be afforded to it soon. I know, after putting it down, I thought immediately of picking it up again for another whirlwind tour of its form and relationships and its soul.
What impressed me most about this book is perhaps the thing I tried to share in an instagram post I wrote about it earlier this week. This novella, which Duras was bold enough to call a novel, is not really a novel, and is perhaps closer to a book of poetry in many of its ways, but then is actually more like a piece of theater, at times looking and feeling and reading like it in your head, and then it transfers into the precise benign imagery of great mid-century film-making, black and white and grey-scaled, before the broken sentence structure and jilted and direct dialogue and fragmentary thinking reminds, once again, of poetry - which is to say that it fills you with all sorts of questions that you can’t form into a shape. It is something special.
At the end of the book are two pages of theater notes. Tonight I left my parents’ house, used my dad’s car and everything, to go downtown and see a musical that an acquaintance had invited me to. He was in it. I don’t know him well, but I think he likes reading. I know I mentioned this book to him, said he might be into it given his background in theater and all that, and he told me that he had a copy of The Lover on his shelf. I wanted to give it to him. Before the musical I was planning to say something like “if you don’t love this book after reading it then I want it back. But if it is going to help you make something beautiful and meaningful and something that captures the spirit of this book, then I want you to keep it.” But after seeing the musical, this silly romp about breaking up with boyfriends and using all sorts of famous music from the 60s and 70s to help the women navigate the breakup, I doubted that it was the book for him. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t judge an actor for the work that he takes on to keep food on his table. But I carried my copy with me to the show, excited to share it and bond a bit more over art, and afterwards I hid it under my scarf while waiting for him and then chatting with him in the lobby. He is a nice chap, and it may be that after talking to him a bit more I will decide to send it his way for a while, maybe forever, for the sake of art and its progression, but I couldn’t give it to him in full confidence. That is a confidence I feel I need; this is something special, and I want it to be admired by the hands that hold it.
Destroy, She Said is a marvellous book. I’m glad it has brought me back to Duras with a profound respect. Recommended for all sorts of mysterious reasons that I can’t explain.
January 11, 2019
İyi bir tiyatro oyunu taslağı kıvamında gibi gibi..
Şiirsel bir havası var..
Başka da bir şey söylenmiyor kitap hakkında..
Şiirsel bir havası var..
Başka da bir şey söylenmiyor kitap hakkında..
September 30, 2015
You're part of me [...] And I don't know you.
July 11, 2023
04/2020
From 1970
Lack of description and exposition. Abstract, sometimes surreal. Short. It is a story, not a play, but at the end, there are instructions for staging it as a play. Like it is a story that knows it's actually a play. Interesting and fun to read.
From 1970
Lack of description and exposition. Abstract, sometimes surreal. Short. It is a story, not a play, but at the end, there are instructions for staging it as a play. Like it is a story that knows it's actually a play. Interesting and fun to read.
September 26, 2024
'I'm afraid [...] Afraid of being abandoned, afraid of the future, afraid of loving, of violence, of numbers, of the unknown, of hunger, of poverty, of the truth.’
Love how stripped back and cinematic Duras's writing is. A deeply visual novel that is deceptively simple and thematically rich.
Love how stripped back and cinematic Duras's writing is. A deeply visual novel that is deceptively simple and thematically rich.
October 5, 2020
Time
The days go by, but people are always somewhere else.
Eroticism
Her lovers trades places. They're married but just met. They met here but already knew each other.
Place
Only one escapes. One enters, or was she already there?
Violence
Tearing her mind to pieces. Making her passive.
Madness
"You're insane."
"You didn't tell me Alissa was insane."
"I didn't know."
Passivity. Action. Reaction. Cinema. Montage. Editing. Bourgeoisie. Intellectualism. Fusion.
Three people become one, but also reliant on each other. Parasites.
The days go by, but people are always somewhere else.
Eroticism
Her lovers trades places. They're married but just met. They met here but already knew each other.
Place
Only one escapes. One enters, or was she already there?
Violence
Tearing her mind to pieces. Making her passive.
Madness
"You're insane."
"You didn't tell me Alissa was insane."
"I didn't know."
Passivity. Action. Reaction. Cinema. Montage. Editing. Bourgeoisie. Intellectualism. Fusion.
Three people become one, but also reliant on each other. Parasites.
October 4, 2022
Bà này vừa mộng du vừa viết sách à? Đúng là điên hết cả. Hấp dẫn quá huhu
April 26, 2015
3.5; a sort of nouveau roman response to 'Last Year at Marienbad', set in a resort/rest hotel perhaps just down the road from Robbe-Grillet's and with the emphasis on memory changed to identity; possesses an atmosphere of constant, haunting ambiguity but for me nowhere near as effective as the other.
September 10, 2017
Okurken filme yazarı uyarlanmış olması çok yerinde diye düşündüm.. Hafif hafif esen bir Adrasan rüzgarı yüzüme vururken ve tam da doğum günümde tüm gün dalıp gittim. Yıkmak diyor bir kadın... çok bir şey beklemiyorum hiçbir zaman Marguerite Duras'tan, o da bana çok bir şey vermiyor. öyle güzel anlaşıyoruz işte, daha ne olsun...
March 19, 2022
Duras okurunu nasıl kamyon çarpmışa çeviriyor oynat bakalım.
Dürüst olmak gerekirse kitabı hafife alarak okumaya başladım, gerek cüssesi gerek farklı yazım tarzına bakarak dedim ki "hemencecik okurum bunu, müthiş"
Hmm. Müthiş kısmı nispeten doğru ama on günümü aldı okuması. Tamam belki başına geçemedim, kitap için özel bi' zaman ayıramamış olmam benim hatamdı fakat yine de zorlu bi' eser bana kalırsa.
Tekniğine ise lafım yok, gerçekten kral amme hizmeti; film şeridi gibi gözler önünde tüm sahneler. İlmek ilmek işlenmiş tüm konu. Üstelik bunu minimum çaba ile yaptığı öyle belli ki. Resmen Duras büyüsü. Farklı tema, şöyle kafam dağılsın bi' yaaa arayışındaki okurlara öneririm.
Dürüst olmak gerekirse kitabı hafife alarak okumaya başladım, gerek cüssesi gerek farklı yazım tarzına bakarak dedim ki "hemencecik okurum bunu, müthiş"
Hmm. Müthiş kısmı nispeten doğru ama on günümü aldı okuması. Tamam belki başına geçemedim, kitap için özel bi' zaman ayıramamış olmam benim hatamdı fakat yine de zorlu bi' eser bana kalırsa.
Tekniğine ise lafım yok, gerçekten kral amme hizmeti; film şeridi gibi gözler önünde tüm sahneler. İlmek ilmek işlenmiş tüm konu. Üstelik bunu minimum çaba ile yaptığı öyle belli ki. Resmen Duras büyüsü. Farklı tema, şöyle kafam dağılsın bi' yaaa arayışındaki okurlara öneririm.
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September 29, 2016Bu kitapta kişiler değil de, duygular ve durumlar konuşuyor sanki. Kim kimdi diye düşünerek okudum bi süre, sonra o kaygıyı bırakıp sadece kitapta hakim duyguya saldım kendimi. Marguerite Duras'ın kitaplarındaki o aynı his, o duygunun da tarifi yok bende, tanımlayamıyorum.
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February 28, 2021"sessizlik..."
August 12, 2021
2.5*
I have a faint understanding as to what Duras was going for: structurally destroying the conventional novel and psychologically destroying the character Elizabeth Alione. I think the problem was that I felt like I was flailing about while reading it, rereading passages and slaving over what their purpose was and what it all could mean. Rather, I should have reconciled with myself that it was written so that I could and would not understand everything. I should have surrendered myself to its ambiguity.
It is described as having an “underlying violence” and "recurring moods and motifs of eroticism and stifled desire." These themes are so masterfully and inconspicuously woven throughout the novel that the reader can undoubtedly sense the awful and violent truth to Stein, Alissa, and Max’s motives and high sexual tension without being told explicitly. The eroticism is sort of hidden in the shadows, always there but never brazen. It lies in the prose. For instance, Duras repeatedly uses the word “silence." This pause disrupts the story, but I find it further ferments each character’s lustful and destructive motives.
An interview with Duras is included at the end and acts as a curtain in which Duras draws to help us understand the workings of this book and how it changes on the screen. A very interesting interview that mulls over the translation of different mediums as well as shedding light on what is actually happening here in this stint of time at a what I’m concluding is a sanitorium.
This was the first work I read by Duras and despite not entirely enjoying it, I have no aversion to picking up her other works, especially The Lover.
I have a faint understanding as to what Duras was going for: structurally destroying the conventional novel and psychologically destroying the character Elizabeth Alione. I think the problem was that I felt like I was flailing about while reading it, rereading passages and slaving over what their purpose was and what it all could mean. Rather, I should have reconciled with myself that it was written so that I could and would not understand everything. I should have surrendered myself to its ambiguity.
It is described as having an “underlying violence” and "recurring moods and motifs of eroticism and stifled desire." These themes are so masterfully and inconspicuously woven throughout the novel that the reader can undoubtedly sense the awful and violent truth to Stein, Alissa, and Max’s motives and high sexual tension without being told explicitly. The eroticism is sort of hidden in the shadows, always there but never brazen. It lies in the prose. For instance, Duras repeatedly uses the word “silence." This pause disrupts the story, but I find it further ferments each character’s lustful and destructive motives.
An interview with Duras is included at the end and acts as a curtain in which Duras draws to help us understand the workings of this book and how it changes on the screen. A very interesting interview that mulls over the translation of different mediums as well as shedding light on what is actually happening here in this stint of time at a what I’m concluding is a sanitorium.
This was the first work I read by Duras and despite not entirely enjoying it, I have no aversion to picking up her other works, especially The Lover.
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December 20, 2023Como toda la obra de Marguerite Duras, Destruir, dice alberga una frialdad que no sé cómo asumir. Todas las emociones de sus cuatro protagonistas están contenidas, a punto de explotar, pero no explotan nunca. En ese sentido es una obra 100% durasiana que deja una sensación de lejanía y quietud perturbadora.
October 14, 2024
“Bende sizi büyüleyen ve altüst eden bir şey vardı .. doğasını anlayamadığımız bir şey.”
May 31, 2017
This is one of Duras' most skeletal novels. It reads similar to a script and in fact later became a film, although Duras says she did not have the film in mind at first. Much of the text is conversation, not unusual for Duras, interspersed with text that amounts to stage directions. Four main characters, two women and two men, entwine in odd, mostly conversational ways at a hotel in an unnamed location surrounded by a forest. At the start there are the two men Stein and Max Thor, both guests of the hotel, who are vaguely drawn to each other. Max Thor is somewhat obsessed with another guest, Elisabeth Alione, a woman who is convalescing. The two men discuss Elisabeth, her identity and habits, and how to go about engaging with her. In time Max Thor's much younger wife Alissa shows up and the four of them begin to form an uneasy quartet, with Elisabeth at a loss regarding the others' intentions. The atmosphere is tinged with confusion, menace, and impending doom. It's almost as if the three are toying with Elisabeth, and yet there rarely seems to be anything calculating about their behavior. The suggestion of madness creeps in at times.
This edition includes an interview with Duras, chiefly about the film version, and in it she talks about the lack of primacy of one character over another, and 'a gliding from one character to another.' This effect is palpable in the text. The highlight for me was the final lunchtime conversation after Elisabeth's husband Bernard arrives to pick her up. During their lunch together, Alissa, Stein, and Max Thor gently torment Bernard even more so than they have toyed with his wife. Here's a sample:
'What about you?' he asks. 'What do you teach?'For those new to Duras, this is probably not a good place to start, as it exhibits her 'style' at its most extreme. And I include quotes around style because she says in the interview that she was striving to free the reader from the interference of style. Having read and enjoyed many of her novels now, though, I found this to be among her best work, showcasing much of what I have come to admire in her books.
'History,' Max Thor says. 'History of the future.'
Silence. Bernard Alione gazes at Max Thor, motionless. His voice is unrecognizable now.
'Is it very different?' he asks.
'There's nothing left,' Max Thor says. 'So I don't say anything. The students go to sleep.'
Silence. Suddenly there are gentle sobs from Elisabeth Alione.
'Are there still children?' she asks.
'Only children,' Max Thor says.
She smiles through her tears. He takes her hand.
'Oh,' she says. 'Wonderful.'
January 12, 2021
Read it, then read it again. This book moves fast, not just due to it's length but due to the urgency the words demand. Written in such a was as it reads like a screen play you find yourself immediately submerged in the directions. Consistently you are moved from character to character as the camera, at some moments there will be no identification as to who is speaking but somehow the blanks fill themselves in.
Opening the book you are thrust into a descript but undisclosed location, is this a hotel, a sanitarium, a wellness retreat, a psychiatric ward? You're never fully given an answer but you are consistently reminded that people here are not quite right. The story will then follow three main characters as they pine for a fourth. This triad (whose origins are as strange as anything else) begin to slowly reach out to another character in an attempt to bring her into their group.
The entire story reads almost like a fever dream; if you are a fan of the obscure and more artsy type books and films, this book is a wonderful afternoon read to add to your collection. At ~130 pages, ~40 are made up of an interview with the author at the end.
Opening the book you are thrust into a descript but undisclosed location, is this a hotel, a sanitarium, a wellness retreat, a psychiatric ward? You're never fully given an answer but you are consistently reminded that people here are not quite right. The story will then follow three main characters as they pine for a fourth. This triad (whose origins are as strange as anything else) begin to slowly reach out to another character in an attempt to bring her into their group.
The entire story reads almost like a fever dream; if you are a fan of the obscure and more artsy type books and films, this book is a wonderful afternoon read to add to your collection. At ~130 pages, ~40 are made up of an interview with the author at the end.
June 22, 2008
Hmm, I kinda think Duras went a little too far in the spare, nonlinear direction with this one. It's written to be a play and maybe it would have had more impact if I had experienced it in that way. Duras is one of my favorite authors and I found some of the images in this book creepily enticing, but I wasn't fully understanding the psychology of the characters. And is it just me or did this book make anyone else think of Blanchot's Thomas the Obscure?
May 11, 2008
For all her skill and daring as a postmodernist, Duras doesn't get the kind of attention she should. Possibly because she is a lady. Anyway, this is her best novel, I think, a real killer.
November 19, 2017
کتاب عجیبی بود. زمانی که میخوندمش تمام مدت منتظر بودم ولی نمی دونم منتظر چی!
October 23, 2022
3.5
«el silencio la clava en la cama. la luz ya no se apaga. una mañana os encontrarán, informes, juntos, una masa de alquitrán y no entenderán. salvo yo»
«el silencio la clava en la cama. la luz ya no se apaga. una mañana os encontrarán, informes, juntos, una masa de alquitrán y no entenderán. salvo yo»
January 30, 2018
Oh Marguerite. Thank you for existing, and writing.
Destroy, She Said. I wanted to read it for the title alone, but Marguerite Duras’s 1969 blissfully short book has other pleasures. In a hotel’s lobby and grounds, two male guests bond over the mystery of an aloof woman who keeps pills and a book nearby as she lazes through her stay. The author blurs their identity and the reader can’t keep track of which man is solemnly considering their life and her. The destroyer Alicia arrives – the married professor’s younger wife- and she electrically connects the four of them. As the trio suss out the mystery woman’s story of miscarriage from adultery, normative social boundaries gradually blur until even a game of cards teeters on hysteria. The quartet is broken when the woman leaves with her canned food factory owning husband, and the moment passes as our trio of monsters, Alicia and her admirers, hungers to search for her. The weight of film pulls this book into a strange territory as the separate passages feel like shots from a New Wave film with repetitive shots- sounds from tennis courts, a dark forest hedging them in. The book becomes unclassifiable due to its lightness of prose, hints of character and plot, and feel of a play. What was just four people in a boring hotel having a casual interaction becomes another Duras mystery where a danger fueled by the chaos of the erotic looms ominously.
The following translation of a long/interview conversation with Duras and other filmmakers (?) is a treat that expands understanding of the novel. Reading it is like actually sitting with a group of over serious French left artists, deeply meditating on every choice Duras made in her resulting film of the book. Yes, she really wants you to consider every choice she made. She asks them to consider she wrote from a political angle and this was about destruction of the bourgeouis order, intentionally making the men- a professor and a Jewish man- interchangeable- emblems perhaps of the Left.
While I don’t quite grasp their fuzzy logic about pure destruction as the solution to the right’s power, you have to admire Duras’s audacity as an artist- her own destruction of our expectation of novels while demanding we pay attention to these details of ciphers, dissolved down almost to their gender roles. Her stripping of superfluous details only adds more mystery and reader involvement in the text. I would possibly reread this someday as you find yourself having fun slipping around trying to find where your sympathies can land in a group of feckless adulterers.
Destroy, She Said. I wanted to read it for the title alone, but Marguerite Duras’s 1969 blissfully short book has other pleasures. In a hotel’s lobby and grounds, two male guests bond over the mystery of an aloof woman who keeps pills and a book nearby as she lazes through her stay. The author blurs their identity and the reader can’t keep track of which man is solemnly considering their life and her. The destroyer Alicia arrives – the married professor’s younger wife- and she electrically connects the four of them. As the trio suss out the mystery woman’s story of miscarriage from adultery, normative social boundaries gradually blur until even a game of cards teeters on hysteria. The quartet is broken when the woman leaves with her canned food factory owning husband, and the moment passes as our trio of monsters, Alicia and her admirers, hungers to search for her. The weight of film pulls this book into a strange territory as the separate passages feel like shots from a New Wave film with repetitive shots- sounds from tennis courts, a dark forest hedging them in. The book becomes unclassifiable due to its lightness of prose, hints of character and plot, and feel of a play. What was just four people in a boring hotel having a casual interaction becomes another Duras mystery where a danger fueled by the chaos of the erotic looms ominously.
The following translation of a long/interview conversation with Duras and other filmmakers (?) is a treat that expands understanding of the novel. Reading it is like actually sitting with a group of over serious French left artists, deeply meditating on every choice Duras made in her resulting film of the book. Yes, she really wants you to consider every choice she made. She asks them to consider she wrote from a political angle and this was about destruction of the bourgeouis order, intentionally making the men- a professor and a Jewish man- interchangeable- emblems perhaps of the Left.
While I don’t quite grasp their fuzzy logic about pure destruction as the solution to the right’s power, you have to admire Duras’s audacity as an artist- her own destruction of our expectation of novels while demanding we pay attention to these details of ciphers, dissolved down almost to their gender roles. Her stripping of superfluous details only adds more mystery and reader involvement in the text. I would possibly reread this someday as you find yourself having fun slipping around trying to find where your sympathies can land in a group of feckless adulterers.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 20, 2020
"Yıkmak" diyor kadın. Acaba okurun tüm gerçekliğini yıkmaktan mı bahsediyor? Delilik diye nitelendiremediğim diyalogların arasında acı içinde kıvrandırmaktan mı? Eğer bundan bahsediyorsa ben o acıyı son sayfasına kadar yaşadım. Başta Max Thor kadının her hareketini izlediğinde,Alissa otele geldiğinde,Stein ve Max Thor diyaloglarında beni bu kadar kıvrandıran ne oldu peki?
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Beni zorlayan şeylerden en temeli kişi ve mekanların dokunduğumda parçalanması. Yazar ilk darbesini böyle yapıyor. Okur diyalogların kime ait olduğunu takip edemediğinde onunla alay ediyor. Siz de aldığınız darbeden sonra ayağa kalkıp yola devam etmeye çalışıyorsunuz. Sonra bir bakıyorsunuz mekan da belirsizliklerle donatılmış,her an silinecekmiş gibi. Bunu fark edince "Neredeyim ben,neler oluyor?" diye sorguluyorsunuz. Bunu algılamaya çalışırken diyalogların belirsizlikleri içinde çalkalanıyorsunuz. Başta anlamsız gelen her diyalog sizi kara delik gibi çekiyor. Tuhaf hissediyorsunuz,çünkü normalde bir anlam yüklemediğiniz şeyler karakterlerin ağzından anlam yüklemeliymişsiniz gibi çıkıyor. Siz onları tanımıyorsunuz,hiçbir şey bilmiyorsunuz. Bildiğinizi sanıyorsunuz ama en son delirmeye başlayan siz oluyorsunuz.
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Ben bunları yaşarken Alissa,Max Thor ve Stein,Elizabeth’in zihninde oluşturduğu insanlar mı diye düşündüm önce. Sonra acaba Max Thor ve Stein aynı kişi mi diye devam ettim. Acaba bu üçlü Elisabeth’i kendi zihinlerine mi hapsetmeye çalışıyorlar da dedim. Hatta otel akıl hastanesi tarzı bir yer mi diye teori oluşturdum. Ya da Alissa bir ölü mü? Tam olarak bu teorilere son vermem kitabın yarısına denk geliyor. Kitap baştan sona diyalog olduğu için sürekli beynimde farklı sesler duymaya başladığımda böyle bir kitabın delilik olduğunu iddia ettim. Şu an da duyuyorum sesleri. Marguerite Duras,sana teşekkür ediyorum "delirmeye başlamış olabilir miyim?” sorusunu sordurduğun için. Belirsizlikler içinde 4 insanda korkuyu,sevgiyi,varoluşu görmeye çalışırken üstünü sıkıca kapattığın ve bendeki gerçekliği yıktığın için.
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Beni zorlayan şeylerden en temeli kişi ve mekanların dokunduğumda parçalanması. Yazar ilk darbesini böyle yapıyor. Okur diyalogların kime ait olduğunu takip edemediğinde onunla alay ediyor. Siz de aldığınız darbeden sonra ayağa kalkıp yola devam etmeye çalışıyorsunuz. Sonra bir bakıyorsunuz mekan da belirsizliklerle donatılmış,her an silinecekmiş gibi. Bunu fark edince "Neredeyim ben,neler oluyor?" diye sorguluyorsunuz. Bunu algılamaya çalışırken diyalogların belirsizlikleri içinde çalkalanıyorsunuz. Başta anlamsız gelen her diyalog sizi kara delik gibi çekiyor. Tuhaf hissediyorsunuz,çünkü normalde bir anlam yüklemediğiniz şeyler karakterlerin ağzından anlam yüklemeliymişsiniz gibi çıkıyor. Siz onları tanımıyorsunuz,hiçbir şey bilmiyorsunuz. Bildiğinizi sanıyorsunuz ama en son delirmeye başlayan siz oluyorsunuz.
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Ben bunları yaşarken Alissa,Max Thor ve Stein,Elizabeth’in zihninde oluşturduğu insanlar mı diye düşündüm önce. Sonra acaba Max Thor ve Stein aynı kişi mi diye devam ettim. Acaba bu üçlü Elisabeth’i kendi zihinlerine mi hapsetmeye çalışıyorlar da dedim. Hatta otel akıl hastanesi tarzı bir yer mi diye teori oluşturdum. Ya da Alissa bir ölü mü? Tam olarak bu teorilere son vermem kitabın yarısına denk geliyor. Kitap baştan sona diyalog olduğu için sürekli beynimde farklı sesler duymaya başladığımda böyle bir kitabın delilik olduğunu iddia ettim. Şu an da duyuyorum sesleri. Marguerite Duras,sana teşekkür ediyorum "delirmeye başlamış olabilir miyim?” sorusunu sordurduğun için. Belirsizlikler içinde 4 insanda korkuyu,sevgiyi,varoluşu görmeye çalışırken üstünü sıkıca kapattığın ve bendeki gerçekliği yıktığın için.
September 24, 2014
Another 3.5 star book. I don't really know how much of the impenetrability here is about missing cultural context on my part (the interesting but ultimately not that clarifying interview with Duras that makes up the second half of the book was the first time I realized that the book was intended to be at least somewhat about/filtered through Marxism, for example) and how much of it is intentional, but that's actually the most successful part of the book for me. Duras has written something exceptionally effective here; the atmosphere is charged with meaning. But what is that meaning? I don't know if I could ultimately tell you. I plan to reread this at some point, I'll be interested in seeing whether I get anything more concrete out of it then.
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