Fiction – paperback; Bloomsbury; 208 pages; 2023. Translated from the French by Emma Ramadan and Olivia Baes.
It took almost 80 years, but it’s wonderful that Marguerite Duras‘ second novel, The Easy Life, has finally been translated into English for the first time.
Originally published in her native France in 1944, this extraordinary novel is about a young woman dealing with the aftermath of two family tragedies in close succession.
It’s essentially a coming-of-age tale (told in the first person) and is divided into three parts.
The first charts 25-year-old Francine Veyrenatte’s life on the family farm, where her boredom is punctuated by two tragic deaths; the second follows her time in a hotel by the sea, where she goes to deal with her grief but unravels psychologically; and the third is what happens when she returns home.
Power and passion
It’s a maudlin, sometimes painful, story, and one that treads a morally ambiguous line — the first death, for instance, is essentially a murder that is covered up when the family closes rank — but it also possesses great power and passion because we feel the enormous personal transformation that Francine goes through and want to cheer her on.
As an account of resilience and stoicism in the face of adversity, it’s a compelling read, but it’s also a beautifully rendered tale highlighting what happens when people living in isolated communities turn on themselves.
Secluded farm
In Les Bugues, where the family grows tobacco crops on a secluded farm surrounded by woods, the atmosphere is claustrophobic and taciturn: Francine’s adored brother, Nicholas, has beaten up their uncle Jérôme — for reasons that have been brewing for years, but mainly involve Jérôme sleeping with Nicholas’s wife, Clémence, who is also the family’s maid.
In a cold, detached and almost cruel voice, Francine details Jérôme’s slow and painful demise (he takes 10 days to die):
In strong, regular jolts, his legs and arms stiffened; his mournful cry burst through the rooms, the garden, the courtyard, crossed the field between the path and the forest and crouched in the bushes filled with birds and sunshine. He was a beast we wanted to restrain but that managed to escape the house and, once outside, became dangerous to us. Jérôme had not yet lost hope that the outside world would rescue him, while knowing that he was alone at Les Bugues with us, who kept him completely out of sight. (p10)
After his passing, the household’s sense of normality does not resume: Clémence flees to the arms of her own family, for instance, leaving her young son behind, and a romance develops between Nicholas and Luce, a beautiful woman from his past whom everyone adores. Francine also acts upon her attraction to Tiène, who runs the farm, and there’s an expectation, from her mother, that the pair will marry.
But then another tragedy strikes (I’ll refrain from explaining it because it spoils the plot), and this is when Francine, desperate to do something exciting for herself while she has the opportunity, catches the train to T., a town on the Atlantic coast, where she will spend the last days of summer alone in a boardinghouse.
Respite by the sea
But with too much time on her hands and unmoored from her usual routines, Francine becomes deeply introspective and dissociates from herself — notice the shift in pronouns in the following paragraph:
Here, in my room, it’s me. It’s as if she no longer knows it’s her. She sees herself in the mirrored armoire; she’s a tall girl with blond hair, yellowed by the sun, a tan face. In the bedroom, she takes up too much space. From the very small open suitcase, she pulls out three blouses to look natural before the girl watching her. Though she avoids seeing herself, she sees what she’s doing in the mirrored armoire. (p94)
Towards the end of her holiday, an incident on the beach shakes her out of her self-imposed stupor and passivity, forcing her to consider who she is and what she wants out of life.
And so, after 15 days away, in which she’s fallen apart and then put herself back together, she heads home determined to pursue an easy life (hence the book’s title), which is the one mapped out for her, rather than one that might be less predictable and more challenging.
Disquieting and distinctive
There’s a lot to like in this deeply disquieting novel written in Duras’ distinctive style, which is introspective, dark and fierce.
Her prose is eloquent and perceptive (especially when referring to matters of the heart and sexual attraction), but it can also cut to the quick. She expertly conveys mood and suspense by the rhythm and repetition of her words and by keeping her sentences short. It’s almost as if she is writing music to be performed staccato.
This edition, which includes a foreword by American novelist, essayist, critic and professor Kate Zamreno, has a terrific translators’ note, which explains some of the challenges associated with translating the prose into English. I’ll let them have the last word:
We channeled Francine’s boredom, her chaos, her youth and inherent old age. We let ourselves feel her fatigue, her containment, and her fragmentation, in turns. That’s how you translate Duras: you become one of her dreamers and degenerates. (p187)
Reading Matters 
Goodness, this sounds a tough read. I think I’d have to wait till better weather. Somehow, all this wind rain, mud and general gloom leaves me unable to cope with the literary equivalent.
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LOL. I actually loved it. I think she’s an exquisite writer. I probably should have put it on my best of the year list.
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I still think I might have to wait. I HAVE just finished Prophet Song.
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LOL. I’m not interested in that one at all.
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I wasn’t at all convinced I wanted to read it, but it drew me reluctantly in, and I’ve a feeling it may make one of my Books of the Year.
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Ah, brilliant. I’m rereading Moderato Cantabile right now, which I read in French as a teenager and absolutely adored, all that austere angst and seaside melancholy. I was given it as a gift in English translation for Christmas this year (the giver had no idea how much I’d loved it at seventeen!) and it’s already proving fascinating to see how the sentiments do or don’t lend themselves to expression in another language. It sounds like The Easy Life is an earlier experiment in the same emotional environment.
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Oh I read Moderato Cantabile a few years ago and loved it but found it slightly puzzling. But I can see similarities in this one: how a tragic event throws the narrator’s life into disarray and she spends a large part of her time trying to figure herself out. I assume you have read The Lover? That book is extraordinary. I still often think about it. She’s an incredible writer, someone who seems to marry hard won experience with a great understanding of human emotions.
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No actually, MC is the only Duras I’ve ever read! Should definitely try some others.
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Oh, do read The Lover. It’s wonderfully evocative (it’s set in French Indochina, where she was born) and reflective of her “difficult” personality, I think. She had a troubled upbringing and disliked her mother and brother, and because the book is semi-autobiographical they do not come out of the story well. It’s a moody, judgemental and erotically charged book!
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“Moody, judgemental and erotically charged” would certainly explain why I liked her work so much as a teen…!
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80 years, that’s ridiculous!
I’ve liked the Duras that I’ve read, though I do have to be in the mood for her moodiness…
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Yea, I don’t know why it took so long, although the translators do say it was difficult work … choosing the right words to convey the right mood and then trying to preserve the author’s changes in tone and prose style from part to part. So maybe it was off putting for a long time. But so glad it was eventually done… it’s an amazing novel, one I’d like to read again because she’s so clever at not explaining things so you have to kind of figure it out for yourself. I love writers who do this.
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I;ve never read Duras and have never been sure where to start. This does sound good though.
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Much of her work is out of print. This would be a good place to start, but I do highly recommend The Lover, her autobiographical novel which won the 1984 Prix Goncourt.
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I have a copy of The Lover, so I’ll start there.
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Strange it took so long get translated I’ve reviewed three books from her all different but that was her style of writing I may see if library has this for woman in translation month
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From Wikipedia I can see there’s a few that haven’t been translated (assuming wiki is correct), so maybe they didn’t do well in France so no one thought them worthy of translation 🤷🏻♀️
This is my third Duras… her books are a little hard to come by but I did recently buy an Everyman edition which includes The Lover (which I read years ago), her wartime writings and a collection of autobiographical essays.
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Guiltily, she says, I’ve not read Duras yet, though she’s on my TBR. I love that Translator’s comment you end on. I do like it when translator’s comment on their task because it helps my concern about reading through a mediator.
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I love reading translator notes, too. This one is better than the introduction… Also, if you haven’t read Duras this would be a good place to start as would be The Lover.
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The Lover, as you might have guessed, is the one I had. It was suggested for our reading group one year, but didn’t get up and we passed it by. It’s not too late though more me to try to resurrect it.
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I highly recommend The Lover – an amazingly evocative read. My review is here: https://readingmattersblog.com/2015/05/03/the-lover-by-marguerite-duras/
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Thanks kimbofo.
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Pardon my ignorance, I’ve been spending the last little while reading up on Duras. I see I can get some of her novels on Audible, including this one, but they are not very long, so I might look in the bookshop first.
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She’s a bit hard to come by. The Lover should be readily available either as a single volume or as part of an Everyman edition that includes some personal essays and diaries. I bought the Everyman from New Edition last year when I saw it on the shelf. It had “buy me, buy me” flashing in bright lights above it. LOL.
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I’m new to Duras’ early work but I find it fascinating. You’re absolutely right about the moral ambiguity. Whole Days in the Trees is worth reading if you haven’t all ready.
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Thanks for recommending Whole Days in the Trees, a title I’m not familiar with. It seems to be out of print (like much of her work) but I might have a hunt on Abebooks and see if I can track down a cheapish copy.
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I have The Lovers on my TBR, sounds like I should get stuck into it!!
(although might have to wait for the Covid brain-fog to lift)
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Hope the covid brain fog lifts soon and you can immerse yourself in the pages of The Lover – it’s a powerful read.
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