The Impudent Ones

TRANSLATOR’S AFTERWORD ^{KELSEY L. HASKETT}

A study of the place of The Impudent Ones (Les impudents) in relation to the totality of Duras’s work, with respect to both narrative style and content, reveals two prominent threads woven throughout the novel: the introduction of a complicated web of family relations that will dominate the entire fabric of Duras’s later work, and the impressive use of descriptive passages—a salient feature that carries over into much of the author’s future writing.

The stylistic differences between this novel, in which Duras deploys her skills as a novelist for the first time, and future novels, have long been acknowledged. Compared to later novels, known for their style dépouillé, in which everything is pared down to the essentials, the use of a more traditional narrative style in The Impudent Ones is evident. Yet even in this debut work, lacking the characteristics of her later inimitable style, Duras’s ability as a writer is irrefutable. Descriptions of specific time and place ring out with great authenticity, while the attention given to the depiction of characters also discloses her keen powers of observation. The extensive development of detail that typifies this beginning novel is perhaps to be expected, given the close relationship between the author and her subject matter, in terms of the setting, the composition of the main family, reflective of her own, and certain people and events that helped inspire her novel, although recast in a new light to form a convincing story that emerges from her imagination. Duras’s fiction generally stems from deeply embedded memories of the past, assimilated and transformed by her psyche, as she crafts them into a novel that becomes a world in itself, a blend of personal experience and creative transformation. By drawing from the start on the resources of her intuitive inner self, as shown in this novel, Duras succeeds in bringing to life a region and a people that strongly impacted her early years, while at the same time insightfully portraying the first of a long line of female characters who are not strictly autobiographical, in the usual sense of the word, but are nevertheless based on her own person.

The principal significance of this first novel, from the standpoint of its content, derives from its relationship to the entirety of Duras’s writings. Not only does The Impudent Ones lay the groundwork for her later “autobiographical fiction,” as it is called, but countless words, phrases, situations, and character types are reproduced throughout Duras’s work, contributing to the obsessive themes that define her as an author. Most important, the family relationships developed here reflect those that she unremittingly shapes and reshapes in succeeding works: the domineering mother who fosters a codependent relationship with her older son to the detriment of her other children, especially her daughter; the cruel, unscrupulous older brother who contributes to his own demise and that of his family; the younger brother, inoffensive, but generally up to no good (especially in the first novel); and the daughter, who suffers from rejection and hostility while seeking love and acceptance in fleeing from her family.

Those who are familiar with Duras’s works will find here the first portrayals of the key family characters, conflicts, and ensuing narratives, in their various iterations, whether in the semi-autobiographical works or inserted less conspicuously in Duras’s fiction. For readers new to her writing, this novel could well be viewed as an invitation to pursue a world-class author whose variations on a central theme focus on questions of family life, rejection, the search for identity, and the quest for an elusive love meant to overcome the dejection of the past and the tragedy of life’s ongoing void, especially for Duras’s female protagonists.

Both textual fragments and narrative details in this initial novel evoke multiple later works. For example, in her second novel, Duras reworks the story developed in The Impudent Ones of a dysfunctional family that “lives in disorder”—the word “disorder” appearing frequently in later novels—while the mother dreams of living a “quiet life,” the title of Duras’s second novel: La vie tranquille. The deep concern shared by the mother and daughter in The Impudent Ones, when the brothers don’t come home at night, is amplified in the third novel, The Sea Wall, where parallel relationships exist between the mother, the favored son, and the daughter. Despite their mutual grievances and their desire to separate in all the works portraying the family, a strong sense of solidarity binds the family members together, right from the very first novel.

The older brother’s brutal ascendancy over the family, first portrayed in The Impudent Ones, becomes a constant factor in later novels, in which the sister’s identification with him is nevertheless as powerful as her hatred of this abusive sibling. Her desire to see him dead in both The Impudent Ones and The Lover is played out in substitutionary form in La vie tranquille, which opens with the younger brother killing the uncle, who has also brought shame and ruin upon his family. The daughter’s perceived rejection by her mother because of an illegitimate pregnancy at the end of The Impudent Ones is hinted at elsewhere, but blows up into a catastrophic relationship in The Vice-Consul, where the pregnant daughter, expelled from her home, is forced into a life of begging and prostitution through her mother’s cruel rejection. Not only has this element of the story persisted in the author’s imagination, but it has intensified—through emotions that have obviously deepened with time. The absence of the father during the family’s entire stay at their domain of Uderan in The Impudent Ones is reinforced by his minimal role in the second novel and complete elimination in other novels, corresponding to the early passing of Duras’s own father, before her childhood stay at Platier, the family domain.

One of the most striking similarities in terms of character portrayal occurs in the person of Jacques, who reappears as the protagonist in Whole Days in the Trees (a short story, play, and film). The mirror image of Jacques in the first novel, the second Jacques has all the moral failings of the first, and an identical relationship with his mother (the same that appears in the other novels focused on the family). An inveterate gambler who is not above stealing from his mother in Whole Days in the Trees, he also demoralizes his family in The Impudent Ones through his reckless spending and continual need to beg for money from the rest of the family. In both stories he is unwilling to work, spends his time in a bar and dance hall, and insists on being in control of the people and events around him, even though he has no control over his own life. Despite his hardened character, he is the preferred child of his mother, who is ready to sacrifice her life and her other family ties to maintain an exclusive relationship with this son incapable of taking on the responsibilities of adult life. And yet, she occasionally questions her abnormally prolonged maternal role and muses in The Impudent Ones that “one should be careful of children who plunder everything one has”—words that could easily have been spoken by the mother of Jacques in Whole Days in the Trees.

This older brother shows up much later, of course, in The Lover, followed by The North China Lover, where his continued pillaging of the family is accompanied by a lurking threat of violence that kindles an even greater fear in his sister than that which appears in the first novel. It is not so much his gambling as his opium addiction that proves to be the underlying cause of his behavior in these later novels. Although fictionalized in many aspects, these semi-autobiographical novels relate nonetheless impactful emotions consciously or unconsciously registered by the author while encountering familial and other situations in life, which gradually evolve into story form. Duras herself claimed to have lived her life as a novel, and when queried about her life, she replied that her life was in her books—a statement implying both her intimate inner self and her more visible outer life.

Thus, when Maud fears her elder brother’s meanness and authority in The Impudent Ones, when the sister dreads the complicity of her brother with her mother who beats her in The Sea Wall, and when the narrator depicts the violence of the older brother in The Lover, who inflicts his reign of terror on both her and her younger brother, Duras seems to be transmitting a transformed, composite portrait of her life with her siblings, not necessarily as revealed in actual events, but as filtered through her subconscious. Duras’s second brother in The Impudent Ones corresponds to the one looked upon almost as her child in La vie tranquille (where the narrator holds a secret, passionate love for him), and to the adored “younger brother,” with whom the narrator has a similar relationship in the later semi-autobiographical novels.

Even more significant than the figure of the two brothers is the mother figure, who dominates the life of the female protagonist in all the novels in which the mother-daughter relationship is depicted. In The Impudent Ones, where this relationship first plays out, the strained relationship between the mother and daughter results from both the mother’s disproportionate love for the older brother and the daughter’s fear that her mother will learn of her relationship with George, which transgresses the family’s moral code (at least, for the daughter). These concerns carry over into each of the novels set in French Indochina, in which the mother’s treatment of the daughter becomes increasingly violent. In The Sea Wall, Suzanne is physically, verbally, and psychologically abused by the mother, who yells at her, accuses her of immorality, and beats her mercilessly at times, with the complicity of the brother. Using as a pretext that Suzanne has slept with the son of a wealthy Chinese businessman to obtain from him an enormous diamond (which, in fact, the mother has stolen from Suzanne), the mother takes out all her frustrations in life on her daughter, who becomes a scapegoat for her enormous failures. In The Lover, the daughter is also beaten and slapped around by her mother, who again is encouraged to do so by her older brother, and in The North China Lover this kind of treatment is mentioned in the dialogue.

In each of these novels an extreme tension develops between the daughter and the mother, even turning into a love-hate relationship in The Lover, but always caused by a deep sense of rejection on the part of the daughter, including Maud, at the end of The Impudent Ones, when she becomes pregnant with George’s child. The less violent relationship in this first novel returns to some degree in The North China Lover, where in a more fanciful way the author introduces surprising dialogues between the lover and the mother, whereby the mutual acceptance of the two seems to introduce a hidden desire for reconciliation on the part of Duras in relation to these two central figures portrayed in her works. Nevertheless, the plight of the daughter in each of the novels is much less than enviable when it comes to the mother-daughter relationship (as well as the relationship with the brothers) and produces an extreme and often overwhelming sadness in the daughter’s life.

Other parallels with future novels extend beyond family relationships. The figure of an unreported drowning victim appears in the first two works, with Maud, in the first novel, failing to mention the drowned woman she spots in the river, with serious consequences for the plot, and Francine, the main character in La vie tranquille, leaving undisclosed the fate of a man who drowns in the sea before her very eyes. At the end of The Lover, a young man also throws himself from an ocean liner into the sea, as the narrator and her family cross the ocean—seemingly unrelated events, but producing unsettling echoes.

Certain details of the relationship between Maud and George in The Impudent Ones are reflective of the relationship of the couple in The Lover, without the two sets of lovers being necessarily identical. In both cases, the young woman shows a sudden disinterest in her lover upon arriving at his place with the intent of giving herself to him for the first time, her interest being curiously deflected to her surroundings. However, it is only in the first novel that she is briefly seized with a keen sense of modesty and self-defense that she forces herself to overcome. Following that, the frustration of a relationship with no apparent future and seemingly devoid of love characterizes both of the couples.

When Maud’s first encounter with George is discovered by her family and their host family in the region, who are also upset by her scandalous absence during an entire day, her shame is intensified as the others “devour her pitilessly with their gaze” while she tries to eat her evening meal, suggestive of Anne Desbaresdes’s silent ordeal during the lavish reception in Moderato cantabile. When Maud is with George for what he thinks is the last time prior to her leaving, he kisses her, but “almost without desire,” because of her lack of commitment. “Their joined lips were cold, but they preferred this contact to that of their eyes, which fled from each other.” This, too, reflects the lifeless parting moments of Anne and Chauvin in their last encounter in Moderato cantabile. The final reconciliation between Maud and George, however, appears to be unique to this beginning work, where love brings about the kind of resolution that will rarely, if ever, be reproduced in later works.

Turning now to questions of style, the descriptive qualities of The Impudent Ones are principally linked to place. Situated in the southwest of France, near the town from which the author drew her pseudonym, The Impudent Ones reveals the profound attachment of Duras to the land. Images of hills, valleys, rivers, woods, and fields captivate the reader through their beauty and accuracy in relation to the region where Duras spent relatively brief but memorable periods of her childhood and youth.

Nature is not merely portrayed in general terms, but the precise names of birds, trees, and various types of vegetation create a strong sense of local color that draws the reader into the richness of the landscape and the atmosphere of the passing seasons of this region Duras loved: “Because of the recent rains, the grass was thick and luscious, and the air gave off the fragrance of sap. Thrushes flew low over the fields and the velvety whir of their wings made a rustling noise. From the tops of the tall poplar trees of the Riotor, goldfinches were singing, infusing the azure sky with their voluptuous, triumphant notes.” Richly figurative descriptions of evolving moments of the day and night also contribute to a lyrical effect, as do the multiple depictions of weather—unbearable heat, pounding rain, limpid skies—while all the senses are engaged in the production of a very natural and convincing backdrop to the story.

Although Duras does not appear to return to the same kind of elaborate background description in her later works, her sensitivity to nature and to transitions in time that affect human experience continues to undergird her writing. In Moderato cantabile, for example, the glorious arrival of evening, with all its resplendent colors, contrasts with the suffocating atmosphere of the piano lesson in the first chapter. Nature, the embodiment of freedom, stands in opposition to the sense of imprisonment created by inner spaces and the impositions of society. While the young pupil, dominated by his teacher, can only glimpse the wondrous transformation of the evening sky outside, other children, unimpeded, stand motionless on the quay, awed by the breathtaking hues of the sunset. In The Impudent Ones, Maud is just as moved by evening’s approach, even though it fills her with very divided emotions. “Maud wondered what this gentleness that arose with the evening was, so hard on her heart.”

Despite the rift between nature’s perfection and her unhappy inner state, she is nevertheless attracted to the natural environment, to the point of leaving the door of the family estate open to the nocturnal sounds, scents, and breezes that invade her bedroom at night and unite her with the outdoors: “Maud fell asleep as soon as the breeze died down of itself in the forest… but she woke up abruptly as soon as a fresh breath of wind carrying all the surrounding fragrances returned… It had swept the great depths of the valley, carrying with it, as a result, the scent of bitter algae and decayed leaves.”

The ability of nature to penetrate the characters’ lives is also evidenced in The Lover, where the young girl crossing the Mekong, symbol of the change she is about to undergo, is strangely sensitive to the hazy light over the water and the river’s blurry shores, even as she feels the current flowing noiselessly beneath her like the blood in her veins. Whether revealed in the light of dawn or the dark blue of night, the use of description drawn from nature to create a compelling ambiance and enhance the meaning of the text has always enriched Duras’s writing, from her first novel onward.

Other points of comparison, both major and minor, are easily discernable for readers familiar with Duras. For example, it is George, Maud’s lover, who pays the debt owed by the family at the end of the first novel, and the Chinese lover who pays the family’s debt at the end of The North China Lover. The interplay between various works obviously provides much scope for reflection and analysis. Like a sapling sending out its shoots in multiple directions, the words, characters, and essential components of this initial novel continue to expand and produce an abundance of interrelated themes, as the literary production of the author advances.

In every case, the creative elements related to Duras’s life, and the way in which she interprets and reframes them, contribute to the extraordinary unity of all of her work, including novel, theater, and film. The Vice-Consul, later filmed as India Song, exemplifies how characters from earlier works may later take on new and sometimes bolder characterizations, such as the beggar-woman’s harsh, unfeeling mother and the enigmatic vice-consul, whose violent, anti-social behavior in both the novel and film evoke that of the older brother depicted in Duras’s works from the beginning. Hence, it would be difficult to overestimate the role of The Impudent Ones in paving the way for a fuller elucidation of the entire corpus of Duras’s work.

A further factor shedding light on the subject of Duras’s narrative style is the reception of the novel at the time of its publication. Submitted as La famille Taneran in 1941 to the large French publisher Gallimard, it was read and appreciated by the highly esteemed Raymond Queneau, even though the publisher turned it down, citing mainly a lack of cohesiveness in the writing style and plot. In 1943, despite noting similar weaknesses, the publisher Plon decided to bring out the novel as Les impudents. Not only was the title changed, but it was at this point that Marguerite adopted the pseudonym Duras, taken both from the novel’s setting and from the region most connected in her mind to her father, and becoming her name for all posterity.

Although the novel did not create much of a stir when it was published, it was well-received by critic Ramon Fernandez, who discusses it very positively in the newspaper Panorama, in May 1943, at the time of the novel’s publication. He lauds the author for her skillful handling of the characters, her excellent mastery of their psychology, and the creation of an intense and tragic atmosphere. He finds that the main character’s inner thoughts express a rare candor, while her feelings and actions seem both strange and natural. The novel abounds, he claims, in astute impressions of both the landscape and the human soul, to which the reader may have been oblivious, but can relate at the same time. Fernandez concludes that once the author has honed her writing style, which sometimes wavers, she will have perfected her unquestionable talent.

As Duras gained greater recognition for her following works, she herself became aware of the shortcomings of her first novel and began to omit it when referencing her work, resulting in the novel’s disappearance from the bibliographies of her works for quite some time. As her style evolved, however, and she became more affirmed as an author, eventually gaining acclaim as the award-winning author of The Lover, readers began to take an increased interest in Duras’s first novel, long neglected, and it was republished by Gallimard in 1992.

The problems of lucidity and cohesiveness, first recognized by the two French presses that dealt with the novel, still present a challenge to the reader and the translator today, not only in regard to the plot, which at times lacks clarity, but also in relation to the interplay between characters. Unclear antecedents for pronouns and oblique grammatical constructions are among the stylistic challenges that often make it difficult to determine precisely who is speaking or the intended meaning of a given phrase or sentence. To overcome these ambiguities and facilitate a greater enjoyment of the text, the goal of the present translation has been to render the reading of the novel as intelligible as possible for the reader. This has been accomplished through the addition of occasional words and phrases, not in the original, to provide smoother transitions as the text unfolds, and by the replacement of pronouns by proper nouns in dialogues and interactions that are less than clear. In every case, adherence to the original meaning of the text has been of utmost concern.

In recent years, The Impudent Ones has taken on new meaning for readers and scholars around the world, as it has come to be appreciated not only for its significance to the rest of Duras’s work, but increasingly for its intrinsic value as a novel. Although already translated into a number of other languages, this first translation of the novel into English, some seventy-eight years after its original publication, will now allow the novel to be accessed by a much broader readership. In doing so, it will reveal to a new public the starting point of the exceptional qualities of observation and description that characterize Duras’s celebrated later works, while affording a view of the renowned author as she first gains a foothold in the world of writing. Of no less consequence, The Impudent Ones also provides a record of a time, place, and personal connection that were undeniably of great significance to Marguerite Duras, not only as she began her career, but throughout her life.