Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
Rochester, N.Y. : Open Letter Books, 2008
Description
"A haunting tale of strange and random passion."--New York Times Disaffected, bored with his career at the French Colonial Ministry (where he has copied out birth and death certificates for eight years), and disgusted by a mistress whose vapid optimism arouses his most violent misogyny, the narrator ofThe Sailor from Gibraltar finds himself at the point of complete breakdown while vacationing in Florence. After leaving his mistress and the Ministry behind forever, he joins the crew of The Gibraltar, a yacht captained by Anna, a beautiful American in perpetual search of her sometime lover, a young man known only as the "Sailor from Gibraltar." First published in 1952, this early novel of Duras's--which was made into a film in 1967--shows those preoccupations which have so deeply concerned her in her later novels and film scripts: loneliness, boredom, the inevitability and intangibility of love. The lambent poetry of the book, and the limning of a woman's mind, her love and sense of the inevitability of that love are singularly Marguerite Duras. Marguerite Duras wrote dozens of plays, film scripts, and novels, includingThe Ravishing of Lol Stein,The Sea Wall, andHiroshima, Mon Amour. She's most well known forThe Lover which received the Goncourt prize in 1984 and was made into a film in 1992. Barbara Bray translated several works by Marguerite Duras, includingThe Malady of Death,The Lover, andThe War. In addition, she has translated Jean Genet, Ismail Kadare, and Tahar Ben Jelloun, and has received the French-American Foundation Translation Prize.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Marensr
I confess that in spite of having studied French I had never read Marguerite Duras until picking up The Sailor From Gibraltar. It is a stunning gem of a book. I found myself wanting to put it down not because it wasn’t good but because it was too effective. The kind of malaise, boredom, and
The plot is deceptively simple; it starts with the narrator, who is on vacation from a Bartleby-like job in the Foreign Service, where he copies birth and death certificates. He is oppressed by the heat, often drunken and annoyed with his mistress who insists on playing the tourist and has expectations of marriage. Feeling trapped, the narrator abandons her and his job in a little Italian coastal village in favor of Anna, a mysterious widow who searches the ocean in her yacht for the sailor from Gibraltar, a fugitive murderer with whom she had an affair as a young woman.
The real story takes place in the subtle nuances of the narrator’s growing relationship with Anna, the crew of the yacht and the influence of the unseen sailor from Gibraltar. The characters are selfish, indulgent, and often ridiculous and yet it is compelling to watch them in their lazy and never ending quest for the sailor. Even these vapid individuals become existential fodder for Duras.
Indeed, seems to come out of the same world from which Albert Camus wrote The Stranger. In this world, the heat of the sun could make you quit your job, abandon your mistress and travel around the world or murder a man.
It is no surprise that The Sailor from Gibraltar was adapted for film. Duras conjures intense, haunting imagery. I can almost see the camera angles and the shimmer of sunlight reflecting off sand and water.
This is the second imprint from Open Letter Books that I have read and if their choices for works in translation continue to be this good, I will start to seek out more works from their catalog. Kudos to Barbara Bray for a dazzling translation.
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drunken, sun-addled stupor in which the characters are adrift comes off the page and settles on the reader.The plot is deceptively simple; it starts with the narrator, who is on vacation from a Bartleby-like job in the Foreign Service, where he copies birth and death certificates. He is oppressed by the heat, often drunken and annoyed with his mistress who insists on playing the tourist and has expectations of marriage. Feeling trapped, the narrator abandons her and his job in a little Italian coastal village in favor of Anna, a mysterious widow who searches the ocean in her yacht for the sailor from Gibraltar, a fugitive murderer with whom she had an affair as a young woman.
The real story takes place in the subtle nuances of the narrator’s growing relationship with Anna, the crew of the yacht and the influence of the unseen sailor from Gibraltar. The characters are selfish, indulgent, and often ridiculous and yet it is compelling to watch them in their lazy and never ending quest for the sailor. Even these vapid individuals become existential fodder for Duras.
Indeed, seems to come out of the same world from which Albert Camus wrote The Stranger. In this world, the heat of the sun could make you quit your job, abandon your mistress and travel around the world or murder a man.
It is no surprise that The Sailor from Gibraltar was adapted for film. Duras conjures intense, haunting imagery. I can almost see the camera angles and the shimmer of sunlight reflecting off sand and water.
This is the second imprint from Open Letter Books that I have read and if their choices for works in translation continue to be this good, I will start to seek out more works from their catalog. Kudos to Barbara Bray for a dazzling translation.
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LibraryThing member kvanuska
I haven't thought about Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises since I read it in college. Before reading Marguerite Duras’ The Sailor from Gibraltar, I had no desire to return to this Hemingway classic, but now … I’m at least mildly interested in re-reading some passages from it. The Sailor from
Both writers have a penchant for alcohol-laden scenes and ping-ponging dialogue that is eerily similar. Here’s Hemingway:
“I say. We have had a day.”
“You don’t remember anything about a date with me at the Crillon?”
“No. Did we have one? I must have been blind.”
“You were quite drunk, my dear,” said the count.
“Wasn’t I, though? And the count’s been a brick, absolutely.”
“You’ve got hell’s own draw with the concierge now.”
“I ought to have. Gave her two hundred francs.”
“Don’t be a damned fool.”
Here’s Duras:
“I’m going back,” I said.
“I’ll have dinner with you,” she said calmly.
I didn’t answer.
“Perhaps Eolo will be shocked. Are you sure you still want to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you often have changes of mood like this?”
“Yes, often,” I said. “But today it isn’t that I’ve had a change of mood.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know exactly. Perhaps too many things have happened to me in two days. Shall we have a drink then?”
“Nothing easier. There’s everything we want in the bar.”
However, Duras packs more punch than Hemingway, because, for one, she has more change-ups when it comes to artful use of the written word – subtlety and humor to name but two. Perhaps this is also a case where a Frenchwoman can write about affairs of the heart much more authentically than this particular American man. While my days with Hemingway are over, after reading The Sailor from Gibraltar, I’m looking forward to a long reading future with Duras.
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Gibraltar, translated by Barbara Bray and issued by Open Letter, follows the emotional breakdown of its narrator, a French civil servant who decides during a vacation to Florence to send his girlfriend, and traveling companion, back to France so he can join an American named Anna as she drifts from port to port on her yacht searching for a lost love, the sailor from Gibraltar. In spite of being written 30 years and a world war apart, The Sun Also Rises reads like a brother to The Sailor from Gibraltar. Or perhaps in a nod to Hemingway we should set the two books up in a ring and let them fight it out: Hemingway vs. Duras on the young, the lonely and the sexually restless. Both writers have a penchant for alcohol-laden scenes and ping-ponging dialogue that is eerily similar. Here’s Hemingway:
“I say. We have had a day.”
“You don’t remember anything about a date with me at the Crillon?”
“No. Did we have one? I must have been blind.”
“You were quite drunk, my dear,” said the count.
“Wasn’t I, though? And the count’s been a brick, absolutely.”
“You’ve got hell’s own draw with the concierge now.”
“I ought to have. Gave her two hundred francs.”
“Don’t be a damned fool.”
Here’s Duras:
“I’m going back,” I said.
“I’ll have dinner with you,” she said calmly.
I didn’t answer.
“Perhaps Eolo will be shocked. Are you sure you still want to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you often have changes of mood like this?”
“Yes, often,” I said. “But today it isn’t that I’ve had a change of mood.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know exactly. Perhaps too many things have happened to me in two days. Shall we have a drink then?”
“Nothing easier. There’s everything we want in the bar.”
However, Duras packs more punch than Hemingway, because, for one, she has more change-ups when it comes to artful use of the written word – subtlety and humor to name but two. Perhaps this is also a case where a Frenchwoman can write about affairs of the heart much more authentically than this particular American man. While my days with Hemingway are over, after reading The Sailor from Gibraltar, I’m looking forward to a long reading future with Duras.
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LibraryThing member seeword
Bored with his job, tired of his fiance, a civil servant walks away from it all. He joins a mysterious, ridiculously wealthy woman sailing the Mediterranean and the African coast in search of her lover (the sailor in the title).
During the course of the voyage, she tells him the story of her life.
But mostly they talk - and drink. She has nothing in life to do except look for the sailor and tell her story. He has nothing to do but go along on the search and listen.
The theme is loneliness, boredom, ennui. "Darkness covered the deck and the sea. It spread over me too, and ate at my heart."
Are they looking for the sailor? Or for happiness? Or for the elusive "meaning of life"?
It's quite a trip and I'm glad I went along.
During the course of the voyage, she tells him the story of her life.
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Former crew members contact her with reports of "sightings" of the sailor. These take them on onshore adventures.But mostly they talk - and drink. She has nothing in life to do except look for the sailor and tell her story. He has nothing to do but go along on the search and listen.
The theme is loneliness, boredom, ennui. "Darkness covered the deck and the sea. It spread over me too, and ate at my heart."
Are they looking for the sailor? Or for happiness? Or for the elusive "meaning of life"?
It's quite a trip and I'm glad I went along.
Show Less
LibraryThing member abealy
A languid, tropical meditation on boredom, desire and an obsessive quest.
Cigarettes, whiskey and the ironic conversation of a broad cast of interesting characters carries what is, essentially, a travel novel that journeys across Italy, through the Mediterranean, Tangier and the north coast of
The book is narrated by a man vacationing in Italy shortly after the war, bored and uninterested in anything to do with this holiday. He decides to leave his painfully optimistic girlfriend and the dull job that awaits his return at the French Colonial Ministry (where he has copied out birth and death certificates for eight years). He joins the crew of the Gibraltar, a yacht owned by Anna, a beautiful American searching the Seven Seas for an old lover, a man known only as the “Sailor from Gibraltar” – a desperate murderer that may be anywhere in the world. The narrator accepts that he is perhaps only a temporary lover, one of many, taken on during this never-ending quest.
Ennui, boredom and dissatisfaction are curiously melded with eternal passivity. The book finally collapse into an overextended drunken dialog about kudus, saurians and the Ice Age in the heart of Africa, before returning to the coast, and the continuing journey.
Cigarettes, whiskey and the ironic conversation of a broad cast of interesting characters carries what is, essentially, a travel novel that journeys across Italy, through the Mediterranean, Tangier and the north coast of
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Africa, south to the tropics, leaving the sea and ending in the dense humidity of the Congo.The book is narrated by a man vacationing in Italy shortly after the war, bored and uninterested in anything to do with this holiday. He decides to leave his painfully optimistic girlfriend and the dull job that awaits his return at the French Colonial Ministry (where he has copied out birth and death certificates for eight years). He joins the crew of the Gibraltar, a yacht owned by Anna, a beautiful American searching the Seven Seas for an old lover, a man known only as the “Sailor from Gibraltar” – a desperate murderer that may be anywhere in the world. The narrator accepts that he is perhaps only a temporary lover, one of many, taken on during this never-ending quest.
Ennui, boredom and dissatisfaction are curiously melded with eternal passivity. The book finally collapse into an overextended drunken dialog about kudus, saurians and the Ice Age in the heart of Africa, before returning to the coast, and the continuing journey.
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LibraryThing member cabegley
In this contemporary novel written in 1952, the narrator, after many boring, unhappy years in a minor clerical position at the French Colonial Ministry, and an unfulfilling two-year affair with a coworker, decides to throw away his unsatisfying life and start anew. While on vacation in Italy with
The Sailor from Gibraltar feels very, very French--a lot of conversation over drinks, while all of the real story is happening in the pauses. Duras' lovely prose, in this well-written translation by Barbara Bray, explores perennial themes in a way that manages to seem fresh and new.
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his mistress, he hears about the wealthy Anna, who sails the world in her yacht searching for her former lover, the sailor from Gibraltar. He finds Anna, leaves his mistress and, with only the clothes on his back, joins the crew in the search for the sailor.The Sailor from Gibraltar feels very, very French--a lot of conversation over drinks, while all of the real story is happening in the pauses. Duras' lovely prose, in this well-written translation by Barbara Bray, explores perennial themes in a way that manages to seem fresh and new.
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LibraryThing member Miguelnunonave
I didn't quite get the gist of this book. The characters are too vaguely described, the plot is simplistic and the message (if there is any) irrelevant. It is still interesting enough because of the suggestive travel prosa and the fluid writing style.
Language
Original language
French