I apparently picked this up at a sale in 2021. I quite enjoy Duras’ books, but I’ve only read a handful. I think I’ve seen most of her hit movies, though.
This book is quite short, and you have to admire the lengths they’ve gone to to make this into something that can be sold as “a book” — French flaps, sturdy paper, small pages, large margins.
Anyway, this is a collection of texts that Duras wrote for Libération in the summer of 1980. Her method seems to be to look at what happened the last week, and then write about that en passant, in a way that doesn’t make much sense to somebody that doesn’t know what she’s talking about. And then she mixes it with (I’m guessing) what she’s seeing out the windows, as her house is apparently by the beach, so there’s people running around, and there’s this boy, David, who tells her about a shark and stuff.
It’s nifty! A really enjoyable read.
I particularly liked the bit where she calls, er, directory assistance I guess it’s called? in the middle of the night to talk about Gdansk, because she wanted to talk to somebody about Gdansk. I can just picture it — I’ve listened to a few interviews with her…
Sommeren 80 (1980) by Marguerite Duras (buy used, 3.51 on Goodreads)