Welcome to Litsy!

My mother only has photos taken of her children. Never anything else. I haven't got any photographs of Vinh Long, not one, of the garden, the river, the straight tamarind-lined avenues of the French conquest, not of the house, nor of our institutional whitewashed bedrooms with the big black and gilt iron beds, lit up like classrooms by the red street lights, the green metal lamp-shades, not a single image of those incredible places...

In spite of the sticker, I can‘t imagine this as a successful movie - it‘s too internal. A dark story, and I would like a little more about Elder Brother (her fear of him seems out of proportion) but very poetic and immersive. #24in2024 number 21. @Jas16

For me this was a little disjointed in the writing. But I did finish it.

Not much of a cover but hoping this ebook will be just what I‘m needing.

Started a new lunch time book today but decided to finish it this afternoon. #SummerEndReadathon

Beautiful writing & a heartbreaking story. I loved this sad novel‘s languorous & often cyclic prose, fitting for the heat of the Mekong. An older women‘s memories of her forbidden sexual liaison between her 15 year-old self & a Chinese man, this is a story of outsiders, of a union that‘s not really connection, of memory‘s interpretations. She is escaping a terrible home life, yet she survives, asserts self, even discovers desire. Unforgettable.

This is beautiful. I love her writing. The Lover in English. This is a classic that I never got around to reading previously. About a poor French girl who has an affair with a wealthy Chinese man in French Indochina (currently Vietnam).

#DoubleSpin @TheAromaofBooks

?12 janvier 2022
C'est un livre très poétique, même si c'est une histoire de p*dophilie.
Bref, c'est un classique, donc il fallait le lire :)

Ewww. Just. No. Waste of my time.

Ewww. This is how the Chinese man would have "taken" his own child? What the fuck!! Also, I have no idea what the hell happened. The whole book was just a mess of nothing. The characters (what characters??) were not worth six paragraphs, let alone 100 pages. Just. No.

…and what do you say when you just let things say themselves, when you let the body alone, to seek and find and take what it likes, and then everything is right, and nothing‘s wasted, the waste is covered over and all is swept away in the torrent, in the force of desire.

#currentlyreading #bookblurbs

#conflictedworlds #lover

"He says he's lonely, horribly lonely because of the love he feels for her. She says she's lonely too. She doesn't say why."

@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Languorous, erotic, philosophical, sweet—if you like authors like Rachel Cusk and are open to older literature, this is for you.

Duras takes us through an array of emotions and sensibilities, sometimes dangerous and dark, other times lovely and tender. Such variety was one of my favorite aspects. It‘s also a very short novel, one you could read in a day if you wanted.

Oh yeah and an absolutely killer opening page.

Nice article/segment.I‘ve read 2 of the books mentioned. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/03/1011367989/immigration-books-roundup

Here is everything I read for #booked2020 fall.
Think Pink: Women Talking
Gothic Horror: The Historian
Set in Southern Asia: The Pearl That Broke Its Shell
Book club Worthy: Valentine
New in 2020: Magic Lessons
Bottom of Your TBR: The Lover

Thank you @BarbaraTheBibliophage @Cinfhen @4thhouseontheleft I had such a great time this year with your prompts and look forward to getting started with the ones for 2021.

The prose in this tiny novel was so beautiful I wish I‘d read it at half speed so I could savour it longer - one of those books with a thinner plot but heavy atmosphere, a lot to say even though not much happens.

#tbrread for #wintergames2020 #merryreaders @Clwojick +16

When I saw that #bottomofyourtbr was a #booked2020 prompt the choice was obvious. I have had this slim book since college and never managed to read it. An older woman looks back on her past including the older lover she had when she was 15 and her tumultuous family. Gorgeous writing but it all felt removed as if she felt distanced from her own memories.

#alphastack
A little stack of #letterL lovelies....

You ever read something and love their style? Yet feel no emotional attachment to anything in the book? That was me for this book.

Dolore straziante, se ne annusa costantemente l‘odore, la scia di una pena strisciante che non la abbandona mai. Nella sequenza atemporale di un passato che rivive scrivendo si percepisce il dramma struggente della vita morsa, afferrata con intensità così come l‘inesorabile ineluttabilità di ciò che sembra definito e immutabile, quei punti fermi, terribili, della sua vita che acquistano una crudele implacabilità.

Thank you for the tag @BarbaraTheBibliophage & @squirrelbrain 💕

1. See tagged book.... I loved it! 💕
2. My reading comprehension in French is passable at best, but I did recently buy a copy of ‘Un certain sourire‘ by Francoise Sagan, to see if I can up my game! 🇫🇷

Consider yourself tagged if you‘d like to play along..💕

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

Truly gorgeous writing.... An autobiographical novella set in French-colonial Indochina, it tells the story of a young girl‘s sexual awakening, her affair with a rich Chinese man, and her fraught relationship with her depressed mother. The story feels dreamlike, an elderly woman reminiscing about her life, hazy and ethereal at times, memories slipping from her grasp, scenes pieced together in a jumbled fashion. Really beautiful. Loved it.. 💕

#weeklyforecast

In progress
- I have to complete my audiobook by Wednesday for a bookclub! 🎧
- Almost done with a Twenty One truths which is fun and actually quite sad too... 📚
- Just started The Lover which has gorgeous writing so far...💕

Hoping to start...
- Queenie & Stoner ..... both fit lots of challenge prompts and have been on my #TBR too long! And I have a feeling both will be totally my jam! 👍😊

This is not just the semi-autobiographical story of a young girl (15) having a relationship with a man quite older (27), but the also fraught relationships between her and her mother and her brothers. Beautifully written/translated but its structure made it difficult to follow. Between a pick and so-so.

Read this for #1001Books — I need to up my game because the app now tells me I need to read 4 books/month from the list, instead of 3 😱

I didn't like it. Someone recommended this book to me last year and I'm just now reading it. It jumped around and was kinda confusing. It was kinda slow moving too. I didn't like that the girl was 15 and her lover was 27.

New Read 😊 so far so good 😊 the photo is a throwback to reading in Hawaii 📚

Holy crap on a cracker! I LOVED this book! And not just for her relationship with said Lover! Her mother‘s depression, her descriptions of the country, all of it! It was beautiful! I‘d re-read this anytime! We have a 15-year-old French girl who begins an affair with a 30-year-old(?) Chinese man, in pre-war Indochina. The narrative jumps around a bit, but I never found this distracting. I absolutely fell in love w/her writing. 145/1,001 #1001Books

The prose in this book! 😍😍😍 #1001Books

I‘m almost done with Sons and Lovers, so I decided to get my next book on deck! THE #TBRBowlOfDestiny HAS SPOKEN...and I feel like it‘s trying to tell me something...two titles in a row with the word lover!? #1001Books

#quotsyjune18 #early

It‘s also Marguerite Dumas‘ birthday. @maximoffs @Reecaspieces You were born on an auspicious day! Duras and Angelou! Happy Birthday to you both! 🎂🎉 🎈

#fiercefeb #imaposeur

This prompt made me think of the hyper self consciousness of the teenage girl in The Lover. (Also chosen by @batsy for another prompt this month!)

She becomes so aware of the face and body and how it is seen by others. The addition of the hat changes her, makes her something new. This book spoke so thoughtfully about being the object of others gaze. And such beautiful language, rightfully a classic!

#IsThisDesire It's both desire and a power struggle, I think, and that's the disturbing fact that makes this brutal, sad book memorable for me.

#FierceFeb @Cinfhen

It was a bit of a hard read in french for me, a lot of jumping back and forth in time, between characters, places and such. Some parts of it seemed incredibly well written to me and others were totally whatever. I must say I was expecting much more. Will have to see the movie again, since I saw it over 20 years ago and compare.

“Un jour, j‘étais âgée déjà, dans le hall d‘un lieu public, un homme est venu vers moi. Il s‘est fait connaître et il m‘a dit: “Je vous connais depuis toujours. Tout le monde dir que vous ètiez belle lorsque vous ètiez jeune, je suis venu pour vous dire que pour moi je vous trouve plus belle maintenant que lorsque vous ètiez jeune, j‘aimais moins votre visage de jeune femme qui celui que vous avez maintenant, dévasté.” #firstlines

"I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door."

I loved this beautiful, stark, haunting book but practically everyone in here gives love a bad name. #yougiveloveabadname #Rocktober @BarbaraBB @Cinfhen

"I've never written, though I thought I wrote, never loved, though I thought I loved, never done anything but wait outside the closed door."

Word. #globalliterature #margueriteduras #thelover #literature #books #fiction

Man I have read some 5 star books this year. This is probably the most beautiful of them. It‘s told in glimpses and memories. A paragraph or two at a time and then jumping to another moment. The writing is almost unbearably beautiful. You have to stop and draw breath! At the same time it‘s sad and lonely, brutal in its honesty, unique in its insights. How can it do so much in so few pages?!!! That‘s why it‘s a classic right?

I am in love with this book already.

#addiction led me to alcoholism led me to Hemingway & Fitzgerald led me to this article:
"The long list of male alcoholic authors is well known, but what about their literary sisters?"
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/13/alcoholic-female-women-writers-mar...

#anditsaugust

Raw, terrible and somehow tender.

This stunning masterpiece will stay with me forever. I love the way Duras plays with multiple narrative devices to explore her salacious love affair with a Chinese man.

Pretty used books I picked up in Washington 📚

It's so good. Finally stopped being embarrassed I had never read it / am reading it. Omg.

An old woman remembers the affair she had as a 15 year old French girl with a 27 year old Chinese man in Saigon in the 1930s. Beautifully written, I would describe it as stream-of-consciousness but more postmodern.

In the beginning the writing style seems very confusing, very excessive. Sentences seem incomplete to me. I think that's the style, but it was agonizing to read through. This book definitely has the "diary" entry type of feel to it. It romanticized death and pain. But honestly, I just saw mental illnesses everywhere in the main character, in her family etc. It's nothing to romanticize about in my honest opinion.