The Square by Marguerite Duras (1955)

French Literature and History on The Reading Life

Not long ago I read and posted on my first work by Margaruite Duras, The Lover.  Set in French colonial Vietnam, it is a very powerful story about a young French girl's relationship with an older wealthy Chinese man.  It is a story of sexual obsession, class distinctions and the impsct of colonialism on Vietsmese society.  

I wanted to read more of her work and was happy to find four of her novels published in a Kindle edition.

The Square is set on a park bench in Paris, on a Thursday afternoon between 430pm and nightfall.  There are but two characters in the work, a woman of twenty and an older man, both sitting on the bench.  Not knowing each other, they begin to talk.  At first the conversation is the bland innocuous talk of two strangers just passing the time.  Slowly each begins to open up, their ways of coping with life begin to emerge.  Each one begins to learn from the other.

The Square is almost all dialogue.  It is interesting and worth reading.  I did prefer The Lover but that just may be because I am very into colonial Asian fiction.

I will read and post on the other three works in the collection