The War by Marguerite Duras
"The War" by Marguerite Duras is a poignant memoir that explores the emotional turmoil and complexities of love, waiting, and survival during wartime. Written during a period marked by the French Resistance, Duras reflects on her conflicting affections for her husband and her lover, Dionys Mascolo, both of whom were deeply involved in resistance activities. The memoir reveals her struggles to maintain hope while grappling with the fear of her husband's fate, as she engages with a German official to gather information about him.
Duras uses her work documenting the experiences of refugees and deportees as a means of coping with her pain and uncertainty. The memoir also provides insights into the darker aspects of human nature, particularly how the aftermath of war can breed resentment and a thirst for vengeance among survivors. Duras offers vivid descriptions of the physical and psychological toll of conflict, capturing the harrowing realities faced by concentration camp victims. "The War" stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, even amidst profound suffering, and leaves an indelible impression on readers, inviting them to reflect on the complexities of wartime experiences and the nature of forgiveness and compassion.
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The War by Marguerite Duras
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published:Le Douleur, 1985 (English translation, 1986)
Type of work: Memoir
The Work
In her introductory notes for The War: A Memoir, Duras informs the reader that she found the memoir in her cupboards and has no recollection of having written it; she simply recognizes her own handwriting. The memoir is a powerful statement of the pain of waiting, loving, and enduring.
During the war years, Duras struggled between conflicting passions for her husband and for her soon-to-be lover, Dionys Mascolo. Both of these men were working within the French Resistance, and she documents the tension she felt as she met with a German representative who was her source of information about her husband’s fate. The complete memoir of the exchanges between Duras and the German official is a separate section of The War.
The War tells of the ways in which Duras survived as she waited. One strategy she used to keep her sanity was to dedicate all of her energy to her work. She documented refugees and deportees as they came through Paris, all the time seeking news of her husband. She tormented herself with visions of her husband shot and decaying in a ditch, a vision she knew was altogether possible, in fact probable.
One powerful and important message within the memoir is the insight offered into human nature. The French after liberation were not, to paraphrase Duras, satiated with violence; many sought satisfaction through making the “enemy” suffer. At a center in which she worked she saw
A prisoner who’s a priest [bringing] a German orphan back to the center. He held him by the hand, was proud of him, showed him off, explained how he’d found him and that it wasn’t the poor child’s fault. The women looked askance at him. He was abrogating to himself the right to forgive, to absolve, already . . . without any knowledge of the hatred that filled everyone, a hatred terrible yet pleasant, consoling, like a belief in God.
The group of Frenchwomen at this place ignored the child and spat on the priest, who, Duras judges, “was right, but in a language the women didn’t understand.” The memoir documents a people’s response to war and hatred. The experience itself, as Duras often notes, defies language.
As in other remembrances of concentration camp victims, the extent of illness and the astounding capacity for survival mark the reader indelibly. The descriptions of hands transparent in the light and bony legs that look like crutches make the camps real. Duras’s unintentional cruelty in having a dessert in the house when Robert first returns haunts the reader. Robert had to wait for weeks to eat real food because his internal organs were not supported well enough to hold it. Duras notes that the survivor was once more being forbidden to eat, just as he was in the concentration camp.
Duras said that she does not remember having written the memoir; readers will be unable to forget it.
Sources for Further Study
Best Sellers. XLVI, July, 1986, p. 140.
Choice. XXIV, September, 1986, p. 129.
Kirkus Reviews. LIV, March 1, 1986, p. 361.
Library Journal. CXI, July 16, 1986, p. 76.
Los Angeles Times. May 16, 1986, V, p. 20.
Macleans. XCIX, June 30, 1986, p. 47.
The New York Times Book Review. XCI, May 4, 1986, p. 1.
Newsweek. CVII, April 28, 1986, p. 74.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXIX, March 7, 1986, p. 89.
The Village Voice. XXXI, July 15, 1986, p. 47.
Washington Post Book World. XVI, May 18, 1986, p. 3.