The Malady of Death

The Malady of Death (French: La Maladie de la mort) is a 1982 novella by the French writer Marguerite Duras. It tells the story of a man who pays a woman to spend several weeks with him by the sea to learn "how to love".

The Malady of Death
First edition
AuthorMarguerite Duras
Original titleLa Maladie de la mort
TranslatorBarbara Bray
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
PublisherLes Éditions de Minuit
Publication date
1982
Published in English
1986
Pages60
ISBN2707306398

Plot

The Malady of Death is about an unconventional sexual relationship between a man and a woman. The man hires the woman to stay with him in a hotel by the sea, hoping that by doing so, he will be able to experience love. The woman accepts the proposal even though she is not a prostitute. After some days, the woman tells him that he is incapable of love as he is afflicted with the "malady of death". The book is written in the second-person narrative; throughout the book, the man is referred to as "you", and the woman as "she".

Genesis

Duras began to write the book in Trouville, where she drank six to seven litres of wine each day. When the first ten pages were finished she moved to Neauphle. She stopped eating but continued drinking; she began each morning by drinking two glasses which she vomited up, and was then able to keep the third. Duras had become incapable to write herself, so she recited lines while her muse Yann Andréa wrote them down for her. The manuscript had the development title "A scent of heliotrope and citron", but when it was 20 pages long Duras changed it to the final title. Eventually Duras agreed to go to a clinic for alcoholics, and on 21 October 1982, she was taken to the American Hospital of Paris.[1] Upon returning from the clinic she immediately began to proofread the work.[2]

Adaptations

Playwright Alice Birch adapted The Malady of Death for the stage under its French title, La Maladie de la Mort. The play premiered at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was directed by Katie Mitchell.[3] The play was narrated in French by Irène Jacob and English subtitles were projected onscreen. Mitchell's production relied heavily on the use of live-feed greyscale images to give the audience a sense of dissociation.[4]

See also

References
Notes
  1. Adler 2006, pp. 336–337
  2. Adler 2006, p. 339
  3. Fisher, Mark (2018-08-01). "A desire for Duras: Katie Mitchell and Alice Birch on the writer's erotic, existential mystery". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  4. Wyver, Kate (2018-08-17). "La Maladie de la Mort review – clinical dissection of male gaze". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
Bibliography
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