Four Novels by Marguerite Duras

 The four novels in this Grove book are The Square, Moderato Cantabile, 10.30 on a Summer Night, and The Afternoon of Mr. Andesmas.

It is marvelous how Duras conjures up a poetic intensity from very simple situations. The paraphrasable plot is laughably simple, but the patterning of language and incident is masterly. There are intensifiers deployed—a limited time and place, the intoxication of alcohol, the murder of one's lover, music, a storm—but all woven in so naturally that they seem to come from within the characters, rather than without. The man and the girl would find their way to the park bench one afternoon because they are who they are. The method is to bypass psychology to aim straight for the formal, and intense, emotion.


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