This book hits you in the heart from the very start. It is a very introspective read and beautifully written, about a girl in rural France.

This was my first time reading Duras’ writing and I’m not sure it was for me. I enjoyed the first part of the novel but found that the second part was less enjoyable to me.

I think I had higher expectations of this than could be met as I often love stories of this style but unfortunately this time it didn’t match my hopes. I’d still like to read another of her novels but I don’t think I’ll be racing to do so anytime soon.

It took me a long time to finish this dark, often meandering narrative of a young woman grappling with loss and isolation. While not outstanding, it still contained remarkable prose and an intimate coming-of-age portrayal.

This was my first Marguerite Duras and it was a very mixed experience. The first part is engaging, unsettling and atmospheric: a remote farm in the French countryside, a strange and isolated family and a murder of which the 26 year old daughter Francou recounts the lead-up and the fall-out.

After about 100 pages the first part ends quite abruptly with another shocking event, and then the second part of the book is completely different. Francou leaves the farm on a soul-searching trip to the seaside. Being away from her family for the first time in her life and breaking her eternal routine, she experiences what it is like to be alone, what she looks like in the eyes of strangers, who she really is. For some reason I did not find this meditative part convincing – it felt like the author tried too hard to convey these emotions of a person being placed in an entirely different context.

So, not entirely satisfying and maybe not the best place to start with Duras, but I plan on reading L´Amant or some of the Indochina stories still which can hopefully change my mind.

The Easy Life is one of Margurite Duras's early novels which has just been translated into English. I read some of her books when I was much younger and still remember Moderato Cantabile and L'Amant or The Lover in English as incredible writing.

The Easy Life is a coming of age story of 25 year old Francine who is living on a rural farm in France with her family. The action takes place an as internal monologue as she reflects on the events of her life – love and death are constant themes. The book starts with the death of her uncle Jerome who we quickly discover is the reason they are living this rural existence as he had lost all their family money through bad investments

The rest of the novel is very introspective and detached as she reflects on the hopelessness of her situation and you sense she's figuring out a path forward when another incident occurs which causes her to start unravelling.

The way Duras captures the isolation and loneliness of Francine’s life is really tragic especially given her young age and there was very little light relief, it was all quite bleak. It's a wonderful example of Duras's writing but it's certainly not a fun, light read and it’s most definitely not an Easy Life.

Marguerite Duras’s second novel was published in the mid-1940s when she was in her early twenties. Set in an isolated region of rural France, it’s narrated by Françoise whose betrayal of a secret leads to a brutal murder which she and her family are complicit in concealing, the catalyst for a chain of events that will lead to further tragedy. It’s a visceral, intense, feverish piece, yet compressed and sketchily drawn - sometimes threatening to lapse into melodrama. But it’s also lyrical, with some marvellous descriptive passages, a fascinating attempt to faithfully portray a woman in crisis who’s grappling with inner turmoil. During its development Duras was herself dealing with immense trauma: France was occupied; her first child was stillborn; her younger brother had died; and her husband was imprisoned in a concentration camp. These elements of Duras’s existence make it hard not to view aspects of Françoise’s gruelling experience as an expression of Duras’s own despair – the sections I found most convincing and effective were the ones representing Francoise’s frantic attempts not to fall apart. For readers used to Duras’s later work her style here may seem unfamiliar, her early work was far more concrete and conventional than her later offerings. This reads very much like the fiction of an author still striving to find their voice, although hints of Duras’s later more assured, elliptical prose do surface. The novel comes with an interesting foreword by Kate Zambreno; and it’s translated by Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan, both Duras fans, their collaboration stemmed from time together studying translation.

This novel showcases the best and worst of Duras' writing. Amidst pages that include infuriatingly aimless streams of consciousness, there are passages of astonishing, spell-binding prose. The overall story has a gripping strangeness to it. Despite the original publication date (1943) and a setting in rural France, there is not a single mention of the war, which perhaps indicates Duras' intention to create a dreamlike meditation on life within a dysfunctional family rather than a story constrained by realism. Duras' whole canon is required reading for students of 20th century fiction so this new translation, which perfectly captures her oddly modern, often inscrutable voice, is a welcome addition.

I’ve finished it but I’m no wiser than I was before I started it. Very dark and introspective. Long passages with nothing to brighten the arduous monologue. So it was probably above my head.

This is a beautifully written book.It offers amazing insights into the life of twenty-five-year-old Francine Veyrenattes. She and her family live hand to mouth farming in rural France.The opening chapter deals with the fatal outcome of a fight between her beloved brother and her uncle. An altercation brought about by Francine informing her brother of his wife's infidelity with their uncle.The fallout of that altercation has far reaching effects for the family and in particular Francine. A great and worthy read

For the first time in English, The Easy Life is one of Marguerite Duras’ earlier works.

Set in rural France, The Easy Life is the story of Francine and how she deals with the grief and loss which seem to surround her.

Throughout the novel, Francine faces changes in family roles and relationships as multiple people around her pass away. And, perhaps most importantly, the festering guilt that one of the deaths creates.

‘I overwhelmed myself with tragedy, it broke out everywhere, from all sides. And I’m to blame.’

Beautifully formed, The Easy Life was written with a dreamlike feeling and seems to take place somewhere in between. With Duras’ writing, the seasons and landscapes of Francine’s surroundings become tangible and almost a character of themselves.

The second part of the novel has an introspective focus, and there is a sense of utter isolation and loneliness; in some ways, as if Francine is frozen in time and exists apart from the world. She runs away to the seaside to find herself - and spends her time either sitting on the beach or in her hotel, spectating.

‘You have to dare to look at yourself, you have to dance a dance for yourself alone, leave myself so I can dance myself, dance before me the triumph of my absolute ignorance of myself, my ignorance of everything.’

As a tale of loss and finding oneself, The Easy Life is inimitable - and I will leave you with closing thoughts from the novel.

‘There will be no more new thoughts. We’ll have the easy life.’

Sparse, detached prose with underlying layers of startling emotion. A modern classic, surely? So evocative of its intellectual era, and a fantastic evocation of female experience. A must-read.

You read ‘The Easy Life.’ The novel is Margurite Duras’s second book, written in 1943, a year after Albert Camus’, The Stranger. At one point, the protagonists of these two books seem to converge. She watches a man drown close to the shoreline, but she does not cry out for help. She thinks about his experience of dying in the waves, about his body.
The book in your hands is a peerless English translation by Emma Ramadan and Olivia Baes. And, you wonder why it wasn’t translated before. You reread ‘The Easy Life.’ It captivates you again but don’t know why. The book is about love and death. The narration is detached. A world suggested by brief stark descriptions, like dew forming on a warmer body. Emotional lives are detailed, but the words that describe them are pared back. The book starts with a brother’s murder. Revenge. The back story is provocative.
Duras writes more of things not there than things that are present. A childhood left behind. The holes in stones, beaten by the sea. People remembered in their graves. This easy life is not a life of ease but easy because that’s all there is, just raw feelings. Feelings of loss, hunger, regret, and desire, ‘dammed up between my hips, a kind of wisdom that is wiser than me and knows better than me what I want.’
You read and wonder if this could, in fact, be her greatest work—it must be. Love and death—deceptively simple. Or is it just a great translation of a work overlooked for its characters’ flaws? You will have to decide.

Twenty-five-year-old Francine Veyrenattes, confined to the family farm, already feels that life is passing her by. But after Francine lets slip a terrible secret, culminating in the violent deaths of her brother and uncle, her world is shattered. A unique story. I recommend to anyone who loves good storytelling.

This is mainly an interior monologue of a 25 year old girl in a rural community, she lives on a farm with her parents, brother and uncle, a life that seems to be full of chaos and boredom. The family were brought to this life by the actions of their uncle. Previously they had lived a comfortable middle class life but the uncle's action forced them to leave and therefore the brother was not able to have an education and our narrator, Francine, lost all chance of making a good marriage.

When tragedy strikes at the farm, Francine is offered a break at the coast. A chance to be alone and sort herself out. the first part of the book deals with the tragedies but the second part is about Francine on her own at the coast. This is her internal monologue as she tries to find herself, to recognise herself amidst all of the turmoil. When she returns to the farm after her 'break', she is still detached but knows what her path must be. Almost a coming of age story.

There is death in this novel and the different emotions that it causes Francine to have. It is also, in my opinion claustrophobic - there is no light or joy. A very introspective read.

“Each day I could die but never do I die. Each day I think I know more than yesterday, just enough to die. I forget that yesterday it was the same story. Never do I die.”

La Vie Tranquille, published 1944 and translated as The Easy Life for the first time in English, Dec 2022. It’s embarrassing to say this is my first Duras - but what an introduction!

Twenty-five year old Francine Veyrenattes finds herself in the midst of multiple tragedies. Broken into three parts, the novel follows Francine through farm and seaside France.

Told in first person narration, the reader is exposed to Francine’s existentialist thoughts and dissolving sense of self.

Duras’ writing is beautiful, dark, atmospheric and oppressive. The Easy Life is unsettling and insightful and an immersive look into the qualms and psyche of a twenty-five year old searching for her own existence within the contraptions of grief.

I first came across Duras's work as an A Level student as L' Amant (The Lover) was a set text. I was conflicted about her then and I remain that way as while I liked the story I am not sure I understood it.
It was a very visual story/translation and I admire this but on the whole I am non-plussed.

On one hand, The Easy Life seems very different to Duras' more famous books set in French Indochina. On the other, it has a similar intensity and sensuousness, applied to wartime France. It's a coming of age story and a story of trying to find your way against the odds. It took me a while to adjust to its rhythms but once I had, I found there was much to enjoy here.

3.5. The Easy Life (La Vie tranquille) was first published in 1944, Duras' second novel, and this is the first English translation, to be published on the 6th December this year, 2022. I've only ever read her famous novel, The Lover and though I liked the prose, didn't find it overly affecting. I preferred this one; even as her second novel, at times, her prose here is stunning ('On the sea, everywhere at once, flowers burst, I think I hear them growing on their stems a thousand metres below.'). It tracks a young woman's early family experiences that later lead her to unravel. It reminded me of numerous writers and novels, Woolf, Hotel du Lac, Lispector. Unlike a lot of contemporary novels that hide and drip-feed trauma through the narrative, the first half of the novel presents the narrator's difficult childhood home and the events that shook it, and the final half of the book presents her older, away from her family home, and wrestling with her memories and self. Above all Duras captures loneliness, disillusionment and sadness painfully well. 'I'd like to be the most alone. I am the most abandoned.' Thanks to Bloomsbury for the advance review copy.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4929826935

This is not like any other books I've read from Marguerite Duras and is one of the most introspective book I've ever read. This is a sweet and at the same time a sad book.
The young woman in the book is trying to find her identity and in this process she becomes more and more distanced from herself.

La Vie Tranquille, or The Easy Life as it is here translated, was Marguerite Duras' second novel. Unlike many of her famous works, this one is not set in French Indochina but in Duras country , the rural south-west of France, a place where her father was from and where she spent some time in as an adolescent at the estate he purchased just before his untimely death.

Written in 1943 and published in 1944, whilst her husband Robert Antelme was still a prisoner at Buchenwald (both he and she had been in the resistance). "The novel was written one year after the death of her beloved younger brother Pierre, just months after her child was stillborn. The incredible pain that made her desire to stop existing, and also made her a writer, as if to write out of this despair, what Duras called douleur," writes Kate Zambreno, in her introduction. Knowing these background facts puts this novels themes and events into context.

This is a deep, very raw novel, with emotion right it's surface and penetrating deep into its core. It is very short, very French, and very moving. One sentence stopped me in my tracks it was that powerful.

I am surprised to learn this is the first English translation because it is a superb novel. I will be seeking out more of her work. The translation is by Emma Ramadan and Olivia Baes and is resoundingly superb and invisible. Top stuff!

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.