The Lover by Marguerite Duras

the lover duras

In The Lover (L’Amant), Marguerite Duras reflects on her youth in 1930s Indochina.  This memoir focuses mainly on her affair with the man who would become her first lover, the adult son of a Chinese millionaire at least 12 yrs her senior.   The short book (only about 100 pages) weaves in and out of the author’s memories in a dreamy manner that is not unappealing.  I had the impression that Duras was literally writing down her recollections as they occurred to her, and this helped to ease the way through the somewhat disjointed structure.

Often explained as an “erotic novel”, The Lover is actually more of an exploration of a young girl’s sexual awakening in Saigon, and her discovery of the power that comes with her budding sexual prowess.  She does not seem to be in love with the man that she is sleeping with, but she becomes obsessed with the effect that she has on the man, and he in turn is obsessed with her.  As he nervously and carefully teaches her how to make love, she becomes an eager student.  Their daily meetings teach her more and more about the control that a woman can have over a man.  This is not to say that she derives no pleasure from the encounters, but simply that she initially treats them very much as a pupil learning a new skill.  With time, however, her passion grows, as does her confusion.  Because she is white, the man’s father refuses to allow him to marry her, so they both know that their affair will never be allowed to continue.

With all of that, what I found to be the most compelling and heart wrenching aspect of The Lover was the sad story of the young girl’s life away from her lover.  As the daughter of a French school administrator, she is very much neglected and left to her own defenses, as her widowed mother struggles to make ends meet.  She is sent to a boarding school that has a shocking lack of supervision over the comings and goings of the young girls, and this, of course, is how Marguerite manages to get away with her lurid encounters with a much older man.

All in all, it was a well written, interestingly paced book that I would recommend. Think of it as a sort of Lolita story, but from Lolita’s point of view.  It will disturb some readers, as it is a fairly sexually charged tale of an underage girl with a much older man, but I don’t believe that the novel was meant to titillate.  Rather unlike the beautiful movie inspired by Duras’ memoirs.

Jean Jacque Annaud’s film is brilliant.  Beautiful.  Haunting.  Seductive.  Emotionally confusing and passionate.  And, contrary to several of the comments on Netflix, I would not consider it to be soft porn.  It is quite graphic for a mainstream film, and yet it is so lovingly portrayed that it comes off as breathtakingly sensual, rather than simple erotica.  The older lover is played by Tony Leung. His striking good looks, combined with his ability to capture the trembling nervousness with which he first approaches the object of his desire is extremely captivating. (I’ve included the trailer at the end of this review)

In the end, I would say that both the film and the novel are good, but for different reasons.  While the film stays true to the book, it lacks the musicality and artistic magic of the prose.  But the film captures passion that does not come through in the book.  They each stand on their own.

xoxo

Natalina

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The Devil in White City by Erik Larson

MURDER, MAGIC, AND MADNESS AT THE FAIR THAT CHANGED AMERICA.

devil white city The Devil in White City by Erik Larson

This is the first non fiction book that I’m reviewing here on Book Review Babes.  The Devil in White City is an engrossing story that reads like a novel.  Indeed, the facts within are extraordinary, and with such a tale, it is difficult to believe how infrequently this story has been told over the years.  There are actually two narratives in this book.  One explores the fantastic Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, and the other is the story of America’s first serial killer, but both stories are entwined in incredible ways.

Daniel Burnham was the architect responsible for organizing the World’s Fair.  His is a tale of political intrigue, determination, and the realization of a dream. Burnham crosses paths with some very notable characters, including Thomas Edison, Annie Oakley, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Buffalo Bill, just to name a few.  But along the way he also faces corruption, deceit, and tragedy.

This Fair highlighted the best and worst of a budding American landscape entering a modern age.  It showed how teamwork and common purpose could come together against all odds to accomplish a feat of near perfection.  Something of this magnitude is a testament to the mentality of that age, I think.  I wonder if we could pull something like this off today with the same result.  However, even such a noble undertaking can have its dark side, and the World’s Fair of 1893 had a decidedly dark underbelly.

Many people saw the Fair as a sort of American Mecca… a place where they’d be able to seize their destiny and start anew.  This naive idealism is what caused young women to flee from their rural homesteads and farms to Chicago, in hopes of finding a job, and eventually a sophisticated and well to do husband.  Of course, these women generally lacked the survival skills to navigate life in the big city, and often found themselves lost and disoriented.

This set of circumstances sets the stage for our other tale, that of  Dr. H. H. Holmes, who preyed on these vulnerable young women.  He pretended to be very wealthy, highly educated, and quite sophisticated.  He was also extremely forward with his sexual advances.  He would meet women and promise them everything…marriage, children, stability…. understandably he was able to charm countless unsuspecting women.  Keep in mind, the concept of a serial killer was foreign to America at the time.  It wasn’t part of the psyche.

Holmes carried out his killings in awful fashion.  He put Jack the Ripper to shame.  He would gas, rape, torture, mutilate, burn, dismember, and dissect his victims.  He even bought an entire building where he carried out these awful deeds, and no one suspected him.  Even though the evidence was right there, he continued to get away with his wicked deeds.  These are the parts of the book where you want to scream at the cops that Holmes befriends…you want to shout at his creditors to investigate…you want to shake some sense into the unsuspecting women and tell them he isn’t what he seems.  It is a difficult story, made more visceral in the fact that it is all true.

Larson is a grand story teller.  There isn’t a lot of dialogue to rely on, as the book is told in narrative fashion, and Larson really did his homework.  But, he manages to captivate you with his incredible descriptions that make everything seem urgent and real.  One of my favorite literary devices is the metaphor, and Larson is a master.  With phrases like, “the heat rose with the intensity of a child’s fever” and “sentences wandered through the report like morning glory through the picket of a fence”,  I was instantly swept up in the sights and sounds of the place and time, which enhanced not only the beauty, but also the horror.

I loved the way The Devil in White City alternated between the two plots.  Juxtaposing Burnham’s feats of the impossible and magical against Holmes’ diabolical deeds at the same place and time was brilliant, leaving conflicting feelings of wishing to have been present to witness “Eighth Wonder of the World”, and thankful to have been spared the temptation to partake in such an event.  Avoiding Holmes’ advances may have been more difficult in reality than in the imagination of the reader.

If I had to name a flaw with the book, it would have to be the almost mind numbing detail presented.  It seems that nearly every nail and board and hammer is accounted for in Larson’s research, and some of these details became a bit overwhelming.  But don’t let that deter you.

The Devil in White City is a book that is full of the rapture of a magical time in history, and the terror of a twisted mind set free in a playground of innocence.

Natalina

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Stiff – The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

stiff cover Stiff The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Have you ever wondered what happens to bodies that are donated to science? The lovely Mary Roach, who is not a scientist but takes a scientific approach to her books, has written a wonderfully informative, hilariously funny and at times utterly gross-out book. The subtitle of the book is “The curious life of human cadavers” and it really is a very curious book and one of the best things I’ve ever read on the subject of death, something which I readily admit to being fascinated with; from the forensic point of view, from a curiosity point of view, from the point of view of science and the unknown. Morbid I admit but how many of you out there watch shows like CSI or read books by people like Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs? Death is fascinating. Really.

In Ms Roach’s own words “For 2,000 years, cadavers – some willingly, some unwittingly – have been involved in science’s boldest strides and weirdest undertakings”. Stiff is an interesting and often incredibly funny look at the lives our bodies can take on after death.

If it wasn’t for the research and sometimes very strange experiments of these donors we wouldn’t have many of the things we take for granted every day. From surgeons practicing procedures to save lives or even giving you a facelift, airbags in cars, learning about ballistics and human decay helping to snare perpetrators of crime, you can thank a dead donor.

This book is not for the faint hearted as it goes into incredible and sometimes disgusting detail but somehow the author manages to convey all of these details with laugh out loud, very irreverent humour. Don’t get me wrong, she in no way belittles or makes fun of the dead, quite the opposite in fact. You get an amazing insight and gain a great deal of respect for those who have given the ultimate gift of their bodies to forward the science of living.

Think about surgery. From life-saving transplants to gender-reassignments to facial reconstruction and amputations, none of these would be possible if it wasn’t for the dead. Some surgeries can, of course, be practiced on living people under the close instruction of teachers but others would never have been possible if these procedures weren’t first completed on cadavers.

With wars raging around the world, cadavers have helped surgeons come up with techniques that can save limbs and lives. Every time you drive a car with an airbag you can say a little prayer of thanks to the human crash-test dummies that are helping you to be as safe as possible. Yes of course they use dummies in testing but every so often a real body needs to be used as no matter how life-like they make them, no dummy can actually realistically show what can happen to real flesh and bone. It sounds awful but think about how many lives are saved from this one experiment alone.

Cadaver donors are cut up, shot up, blown up, stitched together and taken apart all in the name of science and making the world a better place. Of course that hasn’t always been the case, this book also covers everything from the grotesque experiments of a weirdly Frankenstein nature – and I mean that in the truest sense – people trying to reanimate corpses, body-snatching, trying to measure the weight of a human soul, plastination and even composting!

Although you can easily sit back and read about the body-snatching and surgical practices of bygone eras it can be very confronting to read about a head on a tray about to get a nose job, so be prepared. It’s gore galore but extremely interesting and surprisingly entertaining. There’s also a bit about becoming a human dumpling but I won’t spoil the surprise.

The book was written because of Mary Roach’s own desire to donate her body after death so she decided to throw herself into the research and write about it. My reasons for becoming a donor aren’t very good at all. My reasons boil down to a Harvard Brain Bank donor wallet card, which enables me to say “I’m going to Harvard” and not be lying. You do not need brains to go to the Harvard Brain Bank, only a brain.

I know that many will think the subject matter is very distasteful and disrespectful, I totally understand that. Death is not something we as humans take lightly. Many will feel that the only respectful way to deal with death is by burial or cremation. After all, we are all going to die some day and most people don’t want to think about their own, or a loved one’s, body being used and abused but I’m a firm believer in “you can’t take it with you when you’re gone” so I have a great respect for those who give the greatest gift of all, their bodies – either as an organ donor or a body donor – all are are helping the living by this unselfish act.

Whether this book makes you decide to become a cadaver donor or turns you completely off the idea, Stiff is a wonderful, funny, gruesome and honest account of what may become of your body after you leave it. It’s a ripping read and completely convinced me that I wanted in. I applied to the University of Sydney to become a brain donor. The donor brains are used to study, and hopefully find a cure for, diseases like Alzheimer’s. It’s not like I’ll need my brain after I’m dead, I get by without using it much at all while I’m alive!

And if you are wondering what happens to your soul after you die Mary Roach has also written a book covering this called Spook which I’ll be reviewing very soon.

PS: You may get all sorts of guys chatting you up when they see you reading a book called Stiff on the train. strange but true ;)

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Welcome to Book Review Babes!

We are currently building the site so it may take on a few different schizophrenic personas over the next months as we toss ideas back and forth in a civilized manner over a cup of coffee and then move on to sipping Gins and Tonic…which will most likely end with us rolling on the floor pulling hair and bitch-slapping each other senseless until one of us gets our way. We’ll just have to see who the tougher babe is.

As my partner in crime is off the interwebs for a short time, I’ll wait for her to come back to see if we add in some photos to introduce ourselves to you all. I’d just go ahead and post some but she’s stronger than me and may punch me for doing so…which of course takes us back to the hair pulling and scratching…just no biting or hitting below the belt (at least not while she can see it coming).

coffee girls Welcome to Book Review Babes!

But without further ado, the Babes are:

CJ - who lets out her bloodlust by running Vampire Daze. She also has a couple of others up her sleeve because she seems to have a nasty case of multiple personality disorder. She’ll let you know when they’re up and running.

And,

Natalina – who chases down the paranormal and all other weird, wonderful and spooky things over on Extraordinary Intelligence. She also has her fingers in many pies (metaphorically speaking or we’d have very sticky keyboards) and we both may expand a little on ourselves with some mini bios…if we can be bothered. And you may choose to read them…if you can be bothered.

We don’t fool ourselves, we know you don’t give a tinker’s damn about us, it’s all about the books!

Well about that. We both read a lot. Not just books either, the occasional cereal box and junk mail gets a look in too sometimes. But we won’t be reviewing them. Unless of course it is an exceptionally well written cereal box or junk mail. What we will be reviewing is many different genres and every now and then – just to shake things up – we will give our separate opinions on the same book.

You can expect to find, drama, history, horror, thrillers, Sci-fi, award winning literature, classics, fiction, non-fiction, biographies and maybe even the odd graphic novel. What you won’t see too much of is chick lit. Neither of us are really into the romance genre. We may visit there every now and but expect it to be infrequently.

If you love books as much as we do we hope you’ll come back and visit, we’ll be posting reviews as often as we can. Damn, if you actually like what we write feel free to subscribe. Go on…please…our egos need boosting.

Happy reading.

CJ & Natalina

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